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Nick


In the emergency room at the hospital, I was poked and prodded. They took my temperature again, drew a bunch of blood through my port, and made me wait while they ran tests on it. Cary sat with me, leaving only to call whoever she needed to call at American Idol to let them know she wasn’t going to make the morning rehearsal.

“You don’t have to stay,” I told her, but deep down, I was kind of glad she did. It broke up the monotony of waiting to have someone to talk to, and even if I wouldn’t admit it to her, I’ll admit now that I was kind of freaked out. Up to that point, I had done so well with chemo that I had convinced myself I would sail through the rest of it with flying colors and none of the complications I’d been warned to expect. I had finally hit my first patch of rough waters, and it sucked, really sucked.

“I want to stay at least until your blood work comes back,” said Cary. “If your counts are high enough, maybe they’ll let you go home with some antibiotics.”

That made me feel better. I hoped she was right, but I should have known my good luck was gonna run out. When the resident who had seen me earlier came back, he clapped his hands together and said, “Alright, so... I have the preliminary results of your blood work, and it looks like you’re going to need to be admitted. I just got off the phone with your oncologist, and she agrees.”

My heart sank. I pressed my lips together, clenching my jaw, to hold back the tirade of cursing I wanted to let loose. It raged on inside my head, instead. I stared at the doctor who had talked to Dr. Submarine behind my back, smiting him with my eyes.

“The CBC shows your counts are low across the board, and your ANC is only 600,” he explained. Two months ago, I wouldn’t have had a fucking clue that any of that meant, but sadly, now I knew exactly. CBC stood for complete blood count, the test I had to have once a week while on chemo, to check the numbers of red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, hemoglobin, and all that junk in my blood. The chemo drugs I was on lowered them all. The ANC - absolute neutrophil count - was too low. Neutrophils, I’d learned, are the kind of white blood cells that fight infection, and normal is anything above 1500. Mine was 600. Not good.

“Your blood cultures won’t be back for another couple of days,” continued the doctor, “but if you don’t have an infection now, you’re susceptible to one, so the plan for now is to admit you, start you on a course of IV antibiotics, and transfuse you to bring your counts up.”

“How long?” I asked. My flight to New York left Sunday morning.

The doctor shrugged. “That’s up to your oncologist, but hopefully, if your fever goes down, we can have you out of here in a day or two.”

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but it could have been worse. “Okay,” I muttered, figuring as long as I was out by Saturday night, I could still go to New York on Sunday as planned. There was no way I was going to miss our show or the promotional gigs we’d been booked for later in the week. Some of them had been rescheduled from October, when Brian had swine flu. Cancer or no cancer, management would kill me if we had to cancel them again. I wouldn’t even have to wait for the lymphoma to do it.

“Sorry, Nick,” said Cary awkwardly, once the doctor had left. I figured she probably felt bad for telling me I might be able to go home.

“It’s alright.” I wasn’t mad at her, just annoyed by the whole situation. “There’s no point in you sticking around, though. You should go to your rehearsal.”

“Are you sure?” She looked uncertain, like she couldn’t tell if I was saying that because I really wanted her to go or because I thought it was the right thing to say. Typical girl. Haven’t they figured out by now that us guys usually say what’s on our minds? Like, literally, say whatever we happen to be thinking, with no filter from brain to mouth? They’re the ones who never say what they mean. They always have some kind of hidden agenda, some cryptic message you’re supposed to be able to decipher for yourself.

I’m not good at those kind of girl games. It’s why I have such a bad track record with relationships; I’m too damn trusting, to the point of being gullible. When a girl tells me she loves me, I believe her. Usually, it turns out that she just loves my money or the attention she gets when she’s with me. Sometimes I hate the fact that I love women so much. But Cary was cool, and when I said, “Yeah, I’ll be fine here; go so you don’t miss too much,” she went.

She was gone the rest of the day, and even though she said the rehearsals were long and tiring, I was envious. I wished I was at rehearsal, instead of in the hospital. I wished I felt good enough to dance. I wished I was healthy, so I could look forward to the rest of the tour without a care in the world, instead of wondering how the hell I was going to get through it, feeling like this.

But by that night, I actually felt better. I’d been moved to a private room upstairs on the oncology floor, where they hooked me up with antibiotics and a blood transfusion and gave me an injection of something that was supposed to stimulate my body to make more white blood cells. My nurse, Wei, said the blood would re-energize me, and damn, it did. I was a fucking vampire.

I was flipping TV channels, annoyed that there were no NBA playoff games on that night, when Cary came back. We had been texting back and forth all day - her out of concern, me out of boredom. I’d given her my room number and told her she was welcome to visit if she wanted to, but I wasn’t sure she would - if it had been me, I’d have gone straight home to shower and just chill after a long day of rehearsal. I was glad to see her, though. The hospital is pretty lame and kind of lonely.

“I don’t know if I’m supposed to be here,” she said in a hushed voice, practically tiptoeing up to my bed. “I think visiting hours are over. No one stopped me when I walked down the hall, though.”

I laughed. “They probably think you’re my girlfriend.”

The lights were off in my room, but I’m sure she blushed. I loved that about her; she said Brian and Kevin were her favorites, but I knew she dug me. I milked it, too. I always do.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, quick to change the subject.

“Tons better,” I said, honestly. Then I repeated the vampire line that had gone through my head earlier, and she laughed.

“You must have been anemic. No wonder you feel better. How’s your fever?” She pressed her hand to my forehead again. Her skin always felt soft and smelled like some kind of girly-scented lotion. “You still feel kind of warm.”

“It’s lower,” I said. The nurse had been coming to check it every hour. She used a thermometer and wore gloves every time she had to touch me, and she stank of latex and Purell, like the whole damn hospital.

“And you’re still on the antibiotic drip?” I saw Cary’s eyes follow the IV line that was hooked into my port up to the bag on the IV stand by my bed.

“Yeah.” I was about to tell her to cut the nurse crap for a while and talk music with me instead, but she was still intent on playing Twenty Questions.

“Did your oncologist make it over? Did she say how long you’ll be in here?” were her next two.

“Nope, haven’t seen her. I guess she’s just waiting to see me tomorrow.” Ironically, I had a check-up already scheduled for the next day, before I went on tour. I was supposed to come as an outpatient for a round of tests to see how well the chemo was working. “I guess it’s convenient that I’m already here. Just wish I wasn’t...”

She gave me a sympathetic smile. “I know. I wish you weren’t either.”

“As long as I’m out by Sunday...”

“About that...” Cary cleared her throat. “I really don’t think you should be flying across the country to do a show when your counts are this low.”

I should have known that was coming. I rolled my eyes and squared my jaw. “No, I probably shouldn’t be, but I’m gonna.”

She sighed, giving me a look of pure exasperation. “How did I know that’s what you were going to say?”

I gave her the raised eyebrow look back. “Yeah? I bet I know what you’re gonna say next, too. ‘Nick, you’re so stubborn; you’re so stupid; you’re gonna kill yourself...’ Yeah, well, if I catch a cold and die the day after the show, at least I’ll die happy, instead of miserable in this place.”

“Don’t even joke about that...” Her voice went quiet as she turned her head away from me.

“I’m not joking. I don’t plan on dying the day after the show or anytime soon, but damn, Cary, what if the tests tomorrow show that this shit isn’t even working? What if I am dying?” I saw her stiffen as my voice rose, but I kept talking; I had to get it out. “If this thing’s gonna fuckin’ kill me, I’d rather spend my last days on the road, seeing the world, than lying in this bed staring at a blue wall.”

Cary didn’t say anything, but her silence was interrupted by a sniffle, and with a jolt, I suddenly realized she was crying.

“Aw, c’mon, don’t do that,” I begged. “I was just bein’ dramatic. I’m not going anywhere. Well, I mean, I’m going to New York, but I’ll be fine. I told you, I feel way better already.”

She shook her head, and I couldn’t tell if she wasn’t talking because she was too choked up or because she didn’t want to say what was on her mind. A startling thought occurred to me then: what if, being a nurse, she knew something I didn’t? What if I really was dying? What if I had no chance in hell at beating this thing, and no one had told me? I’d seen the statistics; I knew how serious my cancer was. But I also felt confident that I was going to beat the odds. I really did feel better. I was tired from the chemo, but since I’d started it, my other symptoms, the shit that had sent me to the doctor in the first place, seemed to have gotten better. I wasn’t having chest pains anymore, and I had an easier time breathing, even when I was lying down. That meant the chemo had to be working, didn’t it?

“Cary?”

Finally, she looked back at me. By the light of the TV, her eyes were extra bright and glossy with tears.

“What is it? C’mon, why you cryin’? I didn’t mean to make you cry...”

She sniffled and shook her head again. “I just hate the idea of you gambling with your life like this.”

That annoyed me. “Oh, c’mon; now you’re the one being dramatic. I let you bring me here, didn’t I? Here I am!” She didn’t argue, but I still found her silence more unnerving. I kept babbling on, just to fill it. “What if you were in my place, huh? What if this had happened to you? Think about it... What if you’d found out you were sick, right before you were supposed to go on American Idol? Would you really not do it? Would you really let it keep you from living your dream?”

“I don’t know... I know I couldn’t do what you’re doing,” she replied. “I couldn’t handle doing treatment on the road, away from home. I’d want to do that part at home, so my dad could be there with me. I can’t imagine going through something like this without my family nearby.”

I jumped on that answer. Inadvertently, she had just proven the point I was trying to make. “Exactly,” I said. “That’s the other reason I want to tour. That way, I am with my family.”

I saw the fresh batch of tears that sprang to her eyes when she got my meaning, even though she tried to blink them away. “Tour or not, I’m sure the guys would be there for you in a heartbeat if you just told them the truth. They wouldn’t let you go through this alone.”

“Yeah, exactly - and then I’d be messing up their lives, too. That’s why it’s better this way - we’ll all get to have fun on the road together, just like old times; I’ll be with my brothers, and they’ll treat me the same as they always do, the way I want it to be. It’s the best of both worlds. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Her frown became a watery smile, as her eyes finally overflowed, a couple of tears trickling down her cheeks. “Oh, Nick,” she sighed. “You’re so misguided, it’s almost endearing.”

I smirked back at her, turning on the ol’ Carter charm. “Endearing... I’ve heard that about myself before.”

She giggled, and the sound made me feel better. I didn't like making women cry; it kinda freaked me out. Luckily, she wiped her eyes, and I changed the subject, asking how her rehearsals had gone, about the songs she was performing with the other Idol contestants for the finale, if she knew what celebrities were going to be on the show. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have cared, but it gave us something to talk about that wasn’t related to my illness. Music was the one thing we had in common; we could talk about it all night.

As it was, it was late when Cary finally snuck out of my hospital room to head back to the condo. “I’ll come back tomorrow when we break for lunch,” she promised. “I’ll even bring some food over for you.”

“You’re an angel,” I told her, flashing another grin. I was a lucky guy, to have found just the girl I could get to go along with my moronic plan, even if she thought it was “misguided.” I knew I couldn’t have done it without her. And after she was gone, when I found myself alone again in my dark hospital room, with just the TV for company, I realized I was glad I didn’t have to.

***