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Cary


Later that night, after the guys had gone back to their own rooms to talk to their wives, I looked over at Nick and said, “I’m proud of you for going through with it.”

He gave me a sheepish smile and didn’t reply.

“Don’t you feel so much better now that you’ve told them the truth?” I pressed. I knew I felt a lot better myself, like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders. I was finally free from the burden of keeping such a serious secret, and I felt great. For once, my head was clear, my stomach didn’t hurt, and I didn’t feel almost feverish with guilt. Only then did it occur to me how much Nick’s secret had been stressing me out. I figured he had to feel the same sense of relief I did.

But Nick just shrugged and said, “I guess.”

“You guess?” I frowned. “Why? What’s on your mind?”

He did look distant, like he’d been deep in thought. When he answered, it was with another question. “I’m just wondering, what’s gonna happen now?”

***

What now? It was a question they all had to come up with an answer to, together.

The next morning, with a few hours until we had to leave for Reno, the four guys gathered around our room again to discuss their plans. I was a fly on the wall, not a part of the conversation, but invited to stay and listen in, anyway, since some of it – whatever they decided about the rest of the tour – would affect me, too.

“I wanna finish the tour,” Nick was the first to insist, sounding as stubborn as ever. “This leg, at least. We’re so close… only three more shows. I can make it.”

Brian, Howie, and AJ all gave each other looks, like they wanted to protest, but in the end, only Howie spoke, and all he said was, “If you think you’re up to it, Nicky, we’ll support you. We can finish this leg.”

“Good,” said Nick, with a satisfied nod.

“What about the next leg?” AJ asked.

The second leg of the North American tour was scheduled to start at the beginning of August in Washington, continue on up into Canada, and finish in Ohio at the end of the month. Tickets had been sold, and VIP packages had been purchased; the shows were only a month away, but I knew better than anyone, except maybe Howie, how unpredictable cancer could be. Who knew what kind of shape Nick would be in in another month?

Nick seemed aware of this, too. “Let’s wait till after my appointment next week to discuss that,” he said. His sudden rationality impressed me, but I felt a chill of fear as I considered the possibility of him getting bad news.

“Do you want one of us to go to your appointment with you?” Howie offered. “I could.”

“I could, too,” Brian added. “We can stick around LA longer, if you need us to.”

I noticed AJ didn’t make the same offer; he was looking pretty squeamish just at the thought. It didn’t matter, because Nick blew them off. “Nah, I’m good,” he replied casually. “It’ll be a few days of testing while I’m in the hospital for my chemo before they know anything.”

I felt a sudden jolt as I realized I’d be out of the picture by then. He wouldn’t need me anymore; his next cycle would be administered in the hospital, like it was supposed to have been all along, and I would be a couple thousand miles away in Decatur. This wasn’t news to me; I’d always had a plane ticket home from Las Vegas for the day after our last show there. Still, it felt weird to think that, in less than a week, I’d be back to my old life again, and Nick would be continuing his journey through medical hell without me.

I’d been a part of that journey for so long, I really wanted to see him through the rest of it, but I was afraid to ask. I knew he didn’t feel the same way about me that I felt about him, and maybe he wouldn’t want me around anymore. I wasn’t going to invite myself to live in his condo again, and there was no way I could afford to stay out in LA without a job, so I had resigned myself to going back to Decatur and asking for my old position back at Idyllwood.

Once again, my dreams of a music career would be put on the back burner. Touring with the Backstreet Boys had been another chance of a lifetime, but this time I knew nothing would come of it. Nick had bigger things to worry about than helping me with my music. Even though he played it cool, I could tell he was nervous about his hospitalization and the next round of tests. Who wouldn’t be?

“Well, call us, once you know something,” said Brian, giving Nick a warning look. “We’re gonna have to work on the communication here, buddy.”

Nick smiled sheepishly and nodded. “Got it.”

“When are we gonna tell Jenn?” Howie wanted to know. “And the fans?”

Nick’s answer was the same: “Let’s wait till next week, when there’s more to tell.”

I think he was hoping for good news, to soften the blow. And if the news was bad – well, might as well hit them with it all at once. It would be enough of a nightmare for their manager and publicist and whoever else they had working for them, but I couldn’t imagine how the fans were going to react. Actually, I could – they were going to absolutely freak out. There would be a widespread panic across the internet and around the world, as millions of distraught girls reacted to the news. I couldn’t blame Nick for wanting to hold off on dropping that bomb for as long as possible.

The impromptu meeting ended with nothing set in stone, except that the tour would go on for the rest of the week. Before everyone went back to their own rooms to pack up, Brian said, “You guys wanna ride to Reno together?”

“Together?” AJ repeated, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, like, on the same bus. You know, like we used to… back in the good ol’ days?” Brian flashed a wide grin.

Howie jumped right on board with the idea, which made me think maybe he and Brian had discussed it beforehand. I wondered if AJ had told them what I’d said about them being too busy with their families to notice anything was wrong with Nick. “Yeah, that’s a great idea! That’d be fun,” he said eagerly. He was pretty obvious, even to me.

Of course, Nick caught on, too. “Really, guys?” He looked between Brian and Howie in amusement, his tone sarcastic. “I appreciate your concern, but you don’t have to start hanging out with me all the time now. I promise, I ain’t gonna kick the bucket on the ride over.”

No one smiled at his black humor. Suddenly, I could see exactly why he had waited so long to tell them. They didn’t mean to, but they were giving him that look he had talked about the night he’d told me, the look like he was already at death’s door. I knew their hearts were in the right place, wanting to spend time with him, but to Nick, it must have seemed liked they were ready to start keeping a death vigil.

“C’mon, that’s not what I meant,” Brian persisted, giving Nick a different kind of look. “It just seems like we haven’t actually hung out much this tour, between you hiding out and us having our families around. It’d be nice to spend some more time together these last few days we’re on the road.”

Nick shook his head. “It’s not a good day,” he mumbled, his cheeks darkening. “I gotta do chemo today.”

Even if we hadn’t pushed his chemo back a few days, it would have still been a chemo day. With all the drama over him finally telling the guys, I’d almost forgotten. His blood counts would be better since the transfusion, though, so there was no good reason to delay his treatment any longer – and no reason to hide it. Nick may have been trying to blow them off, but when the other three guys looked to me, I said, “The actual treatment won’t take long, but he’ll have to lie down the rest of the day, or he’ll get a bad headache from it. Makes for a pretty boring day… You guys could keep him company.”

I flashed my sweetest smile, ignoring the murderous looks I felt coming from Nick. It was about time he got a taste of his own medicine. That smirk of his could get him pretty much anything he wanted, but I was capable of charming people, too. Sure enough, Howie nodded, smiling back at me, and said, “Sure, we’ll keep you company, Nicky.”

“We can just kick it old-school and watch movies or something, whatever you wanna do,” Brian chimed in.

He and Howie both looked to AJ to agree with them. Their fourth member didn’t seem quite as enthused over the idea, maybe because he was still uncomfortable with the whole situation, or maybe just because he finally had Rochelle to keep him entertained, but finally, he nodded and echoed, “Yeah, whatever you wanna do.”

When the three of them finally left the room, Nick scowled at me. “Why did you do that?”

“What, tell them the truth?” I beamed him that same, sweet smile. He didn’t intimidate me anymore, and I was done dealing with his bullshit. There was no point in trying to keep the guys in the dark, now that the truth had been brought to light. “I think they deserve to know – to see – what you’ve been dealing with the last few months. Why don’t you want them on your bus?”

He shrugged and looked down, his face reddening again. “I dunno. It’s just awkward, I guess.”

My attitude towards him softened. He looked so vulnerable and self-conscious. Even so, his reaction didn’t make much sense to me. “You let me – a perfect stranger, a fan – into your home to give you chemo, yet you’re embarrassed to have the guys around just to witness it?”

“It’s different,” he muttered. “You’re a nurse.”

“Yeah, and they’re your friends. They want to be involved in this now that they know, and you need to let them. You’re going to need some support when you go back home and don’t have me around; you can’t keep going through this all by yourself. You need to get over this denial problem of yours and accept that you have an illness. It doesn’t change who you are, and it doesn’t have to change the way people see you, but some things in your life are going to change. They already have. Deal with it.”

I didn’t mean to get sharp with him, but I couldn’t understand how he could still be in this mindset of wanting to keep everything to himself and go through it alone. Finally, he had some support, other than me. I wished I could make him see how important that was.

Nick looked up at me, sheepishly, and nodded. “Yeah… you’re right,” he admitted reluctantly. “I guess we should get ready.”

Just like that, the conversation was over. We packed up our things in silence, then headed down to the buses. Sure enough, once Brian, Howie, and AJ had dropped off their luggage and their loved ones on their own buses, they came onto ours, bringing DVDs and video games, plenty of things to keep Nick entertained. Nick may have been annoyed, but I was touched by the way they rallied around him.

The bus was already running when we got onboard, but when I felt it lurch into motion, a startling thought occurred to me. I looked at Nick and said, “I am not sticking a needle in your spine while we’re on a moving bus.” I had the horrifying image in my head of the bus going over a bump right as I was trying to insert the syringe. If he was suddenly jostled, or my hand jerked, and the needle went in the wrong way… I shuddered, just thinking about it.

Nick gave me a pouty look. “C’mon, let’s just get it over with. If you don’t do it now, then I gotta wait till we get to Reno, and that means less time to recover before the show tomorrow night,” he complained. “The sooner, the better.”

I had to admire his discipline, the fact that I never had to act like his mother and remind him to take his medicine, but as usual, he was delusional. There was no way I was going to try a spinal tap while the bus was moving. “You’re gonna have to find an excuse for the bus to stop, then, long enough for me to do it.”

“Lunch,” said Brian, who had been listening in on our conversation. “It’s about noon,” he added, checking his phone. “We can just get the buses to stop for food.”

“Good idea, Rok,” AJ agreed quickly, nodding. “We can run in and pick something up, while you two stay on the bus and do your thing.”

I looked at Nick, who was looking back at me. Shrugging, I said, “I guess that works. It won’t take very long; as long as the bus is stopped for a few minutes, I can get it done.”

So AJ went to the front of the bus and convinced the driver to take us to McDonald’s. “We’ll special-order everything, to buy you some more time,” Howie said with a wink, as the two of them got off and went inside to order everyone food.

Brian stayed behind, wanting to be involved with Nick’s treatment. He perched on the edge of my bunk, across the aisle from the one Nick was lying on, curled up in a ball, facing the wall. I knelt on the floor, my supplies spread out across the mattress in front of me. It made me nervous to have someone – no, not just someone, Brian Littrell – watching over my shoulder, but I reminded myself that I was a professional, used to training young nurses and explaining procedures to anxious family members. This was no different – or, at least, I could pretend it wasn’t.

“This is just betadine,” I said, as I swabbed the exposed skin between Nick’s raised t-shirt and lowered shorts with dark orange antiseptic. “It’s to disinfect the area.”

“Enjoying the show, Bri?” muttered Nick.

I glanced over my shoulder at Brian, who grinned. “It’s not like I haven’t seen your ass crack a million times before, Captain Commando.”

Nick groaned.

I showed Brian the first prepared syringe and said, “This is a shot of local anesthetic, so he won’t feel the other needle.” I injected the anesthetic into Nick’s lower back, and we waited a few minutes for it to kick in.

“How often do you have to do this?” Brian asked quietly. His voice sounded calm enough, but I could tell he was a little freaked out. I saw the way his eyes kept darting between Nick’s bare back and the other, larger syringe still waiting on the bed.

“This? Not that often,” Nick answered. “Twice this cycle, not at all the next. Usually it goes into my port, through an IV.” His voice sounded flat, almost robotic. I could remember him explaining things to me in the same, matter-of-fact tone, those first few days I’d spent with him at his condo. It had made me sad to hear him talk that way, to know that he’d been dealing with this disease long enough on its own to resign himself to the treatment, to accept it as a routine part of his life. Now I was used to it, too. It was time to acclimate Brian and the other guys, as well.

“Can you feel this?” I asked, tracing my finger lightly down Nick’s backbone.

“No.”

“How about this?” I used my fingernail this time, digging it into his skin.

“No. Just a little pressure.”

I nodded. “Okay. We’re all set then. Hold tight.” I picked up the second syringe, with its long, thin needle, and twisted around to show Brian. “This is filled with the chemo. Cytarabine, this drug is called. It gets injected right into the spinal fluid, to kill any cancer cells that might have spread there.”

I turned back to Nick, holding the syringe in one hand while I poked along his lumbar vertebrae with the other, searching for the right two to inject between, the L3 and L4. “Lie absolutely still,” I warned Nick in a whisper, pressing two fingers against his back to mark my place. With my other hand, I guided the needle in between my fingers and slid it slowly, carefully, through the space between his vertebrae. I felt Nick go rigid, stiffening with the pressure he must have felt as the needle went in, but he managed to hold himself still as I injected the contents of the syringe into his spinal canal. When the plunger was all the way down, I released the breath I’d been holding and said, “Almost done.” Then I sucked in another deep breath and held it as I slid the needle back out. “There,” I sighed. “You can relax now.”

I felt his body go limp, as I covered the injection site with a sterile dressing and pulled his shirt back down over it. Nick rolled over onto his back, raising his hips off the bed just enough to hitch his pants back up all the way, then lay flat.

“You okay, Frack?” Brian asked lightly. Despite his best effort to hide it, I could hear the shakiness in his voice.

“Yeah… I’m good,” mumbled Nick, who had closed his eyes.

I looked at Brian. “You wanna grab him a bottle of water? And a straw? There are some in the kitchen.”

Brian nodded. “Sure.” He got up from my bunk and went up to the front of the bus. While he was gone, I checked Nick’s pulse and blood pressure and was cleaning up when he returned. He’d already taken the cap off the bottled water and stuck a straw, the bendable kind, into it. Without needing to be asked, he sank down next to me and guided the straw to Nick’s lips, saying, “Here, Frack.”

Nick sucked some of the water and swallowed, whispering, “Thanks, Frick.”

A lump rose in my throat as I watched the two of them together, heard them use their old nicknames for each other, and I had to turn away before they could see the tears that sprang suddenly to my eyes. I busied myself with cleaning up, keeping my head down as I disposed of the syringes and packed the supplies back into my medical bag, and by the time AJ and Howie came back, carrying crinkly bags of McDonald’s food, I had gotten my composure again.

***

It wasn’t much easier watching their concert the next night. Of course, Brian, Howie, and AJ were seasoned performers – professionals, like Nick. They could fake it about as well as him, put on a good show even when their hearts weren’t into it. I doubted the fans could tell anything was wrong. But I could.

The guys just weren’t as playful onstage as usual. Even though they didn’t miss a beat, a dance step, a lyric, I knew they were just going through the motions, the same as Nick had managed to do each show he’d been under the weather. I caught them looking over at Nick often, but never with a smile or an imitation or a mouthed joke that would make him laugh. Instead, they looked at him with worry, as if they expected him to keel over at any second.

And oddly enough, through it all, it was Nick who performed with the most passion. Even if their hearts weren’t into it, his was, and it showed. I didn’t know where it came from, but somehow, he seemed to radiate a newfound strength and energy. He had never sounded better. Maybe it was the blood transfusion, or maybe it was just the freeing feeling of having finally cleared his conscience, but he sang and danced and smirked and thrust as if he hadn’t been flat on his back in bed the whole day prior, as if he wasn’t sick at all. And if it hadn’t been for the other three stealing furtive glances at him all night, it almost would have been possible for me to pretend he wasn’t, either.

But not quite. As they finished their encore and took their final bows, it occurred to me that there were only two shows left. Two shows, and then I’d be heading home, and Nick would be going back into the hospital, to continue with the course of treatment laid out for him, without me.

At least he’ll have the guys, I thought, noticing how tightly they clasped each other’s hands as they bowed one last time and turned to leave the stage. I remembered Brian bringing him water, Howie bringing him food, AJ keeping him entertained the entire bus ride, and I smiled. At least he’ll have his brothers.

***