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Nick


The show in Valdosta that night was not one of my best. Dancing wore me out, and singing just plain hurt. I couldn’t even make the fans scream with one of my trademark smiles, let alone belt the high notes or hold the long ones, without the inside of my mouth screaming in pain.

I tried to fight through it, but it didn’t help that in the front row, center, right where she’d said she would be, was the psycho dog-snake girl who had licked me in the park. She kept looking at me like I was a piece of meat, and when she wasn’t drooling over me like she wanted to eat me, I could practically see her undressing me with her eyes. I was used to getting that look from girls, but it made me really uncomfortable.

Just to spite her, during “I’ll Never Break Your Heart,” I tried - tried - to give my rose to the girl standing next to her. I leaned down and held out the long stem of the rose and said, all seductively, “Do you want this?” But just as the girl reached out to take it, this other girl - Cujo, I called her - smacked her arm out of the way, shoved her aside, and snatched it right out of my hand. I just had to laugh at the craziness of it all. So much for our fans growing up. This chick had to be at least thirty, but she acted no better than the teenyboppers who almost overturned our bus in Rio ten years ago. I guess some things never changed.

So after the show, when I got back onto the bus, I was not in the best mood. “How ya doin’?” asked Cary when I came onboard. She had beat me back this time and was chilling on one of the couches, a can of cream soda in her hand.

“Ugh,” I croaked. My throat was raw. I eyed her soda longingly. “Will you grab me one of those?”

She reached into the mini fridge and pulled out a bottled water instead. With an apologetic smile, she handed it to me and said, “Pop’s only gonna make your mouth hurt worse.”

Wordlessly, I took the bottle, twisted off the cap, and downed about half of it in one long swig. That’s what I get for touring with a nurse, I thought, but of course, she was right.

“I’ll mix you up some of the saltwater and baking soda stuff to rinse your mouth with,” she added, moving to the tiny kitchen area. I watched her heat a cup of water in the microwave, then dump a teaspoon of salt and baking soda into it and stir until it dissolved. She handed me the cup; the water was warm and cloudy, like dirty bathwater. I made a face at it. “Don’t swallow it,” she said. “Just swish and spit. Trust me, it’ll help.”

I gave it a shot. She was right; the warm water actually did feel good in my mouth, sort of soothing, and it didn’t taste bad either. But I’d always loved the taste of saltwater; I got yelled at a lot for swallowing ocean water as a kid. I didn’t swallow this stuff, though; I gargled it a little and spit it out.

“Better?” Cary asked, with a hopeful smile.

I nodded. “Yeah... thanks!”

“Sure! You should do that a few times a day, till it goes away.” She slipped past me, heading to the back of the bus. “I’m gonna go change, and then I’ll do your eye drops.”

Watching her walk off, I remembered what I’d been thinking of earlier that day. This so wasn’t what Cary had signed up for when she had agreed to come out to LA and go on tour with us. She never complained, but I couldn’t imagine she was having the time of her life playing nurse to me instead of partying like a rock star. “Hey, Cary!” I called, ignoring my scratchy throat.

“Yeah?” I heard her muffled voice shout back.

“We should jam again sometime, maybe write some stuff together. Whaddya think?”

“That’d be fun!” The tone of her voice told me she didn’t believe me, though. She was just humoring me. That hurt a little; was I that lame? I looked down at myself. I’d thrown on a baggy t-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts after the show; it wasn’t even midnight yet, and I was basically ready for bed. My head hurt, my body hurt, and the inside of my mouth hurt like a bitch. Yeah, I was pretty lame, alright.

“We’ll have a long day on the bus Monday to get to Boston,” I said, as she came back out to the lounge. “Maybe we can get some jam time in then.”

She smiled and nodded. “Okay.” Her smile seemed to last a little bit longer than usual, and when I gave her a second glance, I saw why. She was wearing a Backstreet Boys t-shirt, one of our new tour designs with our faces printed in black and white on red ticket stubs. It was weird seeing my face under her right boob.

I snorted. “Nice shirt.”

Her smile widened, and she blushed. “Well, I had to get some souvenirs of this whole experience.”

“Did you buy that yourself?” I asked, laughing. “I could have gotten you one for free.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. Don’t forget, I’m a fan, too. Just supporting my Boys.”

“Aww...” I gave her a cheeky smile. “You love us.”

She grinned back. “Maybe not as much as that crazy girl in the park, but...”

I groaned. “She got my rose.”

“What??” Cary gasped.

“She was in the front row. I tried to give it to the girl next to her, but she grabbed it right out of my hand.”

Cary looked outraged. “You should have made security get it back!”

I shrugged. “I guess it ain’t that big of a deal. Probably made her night.”

“Yeah, but still... the nerve of some people.” She shook her head, as she climbed back onto the couch and patted a spot next to her. “Bring your eye drops over.”

We had settled into a routine. I stretched out on the couch with my head tipped back into her lap, and she put the drops in for me. “Wish they made something like this for my mouth,” I muttered, closing my eyes as I waited for the sting of the drops to go away. The pain in my mouth was still worse. It seemed to go all the way down my throat, like someone had poured kerosene down there and lit a match.

“There are some prescription topical rinses we can try. I’ll look into them tomorrow and see what I can get.”

I liked how she said “we.” It was my mouth, my treatment, my problem, but Cary made me feel like I wasn’t alone. She was on my side, looking out for me. After so many weeks of keeping my diagnosis to myself, it was nice not to have to deal with this completely on my own anymore. “Thanks, Cary.”

“Sure,” she replied softly, stroking my brow the way she had the other night. It was weird the way the simplest touch could do so much, but it totally relaxed me and distracted me from the burning in my mouth.

“Did they teach you this in nursing school, too?” I asked, only half kidding. I knew she was used to taking care of people, that she did it for a living, but it still amazed me, the way she seemed to know just what to do to make me feel better.

She laughed lightly. “No. Most nurses don’t have time for this. I used to do this for my mom, when she was sick.”

I opened my eyes and looked up at her. It occurred to me that although she talked about her dad pretty often, she never said much about her mom. My relationship with my own mother being what it was, I didn’t find that strange, but now I wondered. I vaguely remembered Cary mentioning once that her mother had gone through a serious illness when she was a child, but she hadn’t told me anything more than that, and I’d never asked. “What was she sick with?” I asked now, feeling like, since she’d brought it up, I wasn’t being too nosy.

Something about the look on Cary’s face told me the answer before she could. “She had cancer,” she said quietly, and even though I’d guessed it, the word hit me like a ton of bricks dropped into my stomach. “Ovarian cancer.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. It came out a whisper. “Did she...?” I wanted to ask if she had survived, but wasn’t sure how. I already suspected the answer was no.

“She died when I was nine.” I heard Cary’s voice catch as she said it, and again, although I’d figured as much, it was like a kick to the gut. “She’d had it for years, though,” she added quickly. “She was diagnosed when I was three and had surgery to treat it, and she was fine for a few years, but then it came back and spread.”

The way she said it, I could tell she was trying to make me feel better, to make me feel like her mom’s illness was completely different from mine. It didn’t work. I felt sick in a way that had nothing to do with my own cancer. People died from what I had - and what Cary’s mom had had, and Kevin’s dad and Howie’s dad, too, and Denniz Pop and countless other people I either knew of or had known personally. Now that I thought of it, it seemed like I knew way more people who had died of cancer than beaten it. The odds definitely weren’t in my favor.

For the first time since I’d started treatment, I felt scared, really scared. Of course I’d been terrified when I’d gotten the diagnosis, but chemo hadn’t been nearly as bad as I’d been expecting, and it was working - I was actually feeling better than I had at the end of the Asian tour, right before I was diagnosed. I had started to feel like everything was going to turn out okay, but now I thought, Who am I kidding? I have Stage IV cancer. I’m not going to be okay.

It must have shown in my face, because Cary shook her head and said, “That was twenty years ago, though. They’ve made so many advances in cancer treatment since then...”

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “I’m really sorry about your mom,” I said - not just because it seemed like the right thing to say, but because I didn’t want to talk about what was really going through my mind.

“Thanks,” Cary whispered. Her green eyes were shiny with tears, which actually caught me off-guard, after how calmly and matter-of-factly she’d been talking. I felt awkward, not sure what else to say or how to comfort her. I realized it must be hard for her to be so involved in what I was going through after watching her mom die of cancer when she was a kid. She had to be sort of used to it, working in the medical field, but at least she had chosen that; I had just sprung all of my shit on her and expected her to go along with it.

“I’m also sorry for doing this to you, for putting you through this again,” I added, swallowing hard. My throat felt tight and raw.

She gave me a watery smile. “You don’t have to apologize, Nick. I know I give you a hard time sometimes, but I’m glad I can do something to help you through this. I don’t mind it. It’s what I do.”

“But isn’t it hard...?” I left the question hanging, hoping she would get what I meant.

She did. “Sure, it’s hard. That’s why I quit working in pedes oncology once I got certified as a nurse practitioner.”

“You worked in oncology?” I wondered why she hadn’t told me that before. There was probably a lot I didn’t know about her; most of our conversations revolved around me - my life, my career, my body, my treatment, my feelings. I’d never really stopped to consider hers, let alone ask.

“For a couple of years, yeah. I was drawn to it because of what I’d gone through with my mom. I know that probably sounds like self-inflicted torture, but I wanted to help other people who were going through it, and I thought being able to empathize would make me a better nurse. Honestly, the oncology part didn’t bother me half as much as the pediatric part did. I’ve always liked kids, so I thought I would enjoy working with them, but you combine kids with cancer, and...” She rubbed the corners of her eyes. “It was just too hard. I’d get attached to the ones who were on the floor for extended stays, but, of course, those were the kids who were the sickest. Those were the kids who would end up dying. As much as I wanted to help them, I just couldn’t take that kind of grief. It was too sad to lose them.” She sniffed deeply. “That’s why I went the opposite route and started working with old people, instead. They may be at the end of their lives, but at least they’re supposed to be, you know? It’s still sad when a resident dies, but it feels more natural.”

“And now I’ve got you back to the cancer crap,” I said, flashing her a crooked smile. “Sorry.”

She smiled back sadly. “Like I said, don’t apologize. It’s been worth it, just to get to know you and to have this opportunity you’ve given me. And if I can do anything to make this easier for you, then I’m doing the job I’ve always wanted to do... Of course, you’d make my job a lot easier if you weren’t so damn stubborn all the time,” she added, winking.

“Hey,” I retorted, “I gotta be stubborn, or else this thing’s gonna kick my ass. I’m not gonna go down without a fight.”

“I know you’re not,” she replied quickly, but I could still see the sadness in her smile. She was probably thinking the same thing I was: that her mother had fought, too, and still lost.

It was gonna be an uphill battle to beat this thing. But hell, I was gonna try my damnedest. I was only thirty years old... not a kid anymore, even though I sometimes still felt like it, but decades away from being at the end of my life, like her nursing home residents. There was nothing natural about this.

***