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After: Like You Were Worried About Me Or Something


Ashley

There have been three times since I have known him that I have legitimately feared for Nick's life.

The first was in 2003, when we were still living in Florida. He was down on the Keys in his little drug haven that he'd created for himself. Chris was out there with him but that only meant more trouble could be generated. I lived in Tampa. If you know anything about Floridian geography, then you know that's a pretty good distance apart, despite being in the same state. There was a mother of a hurricane on its way to blast the state overnight and everyone had spent the day binding and securing everything then getting the hell out of town, and I was waiting for Nick to come because he was supposed to be staying with me until it blew over. Instead, at ten o'clock at night, I got a phone call.

"Heyyyyyyyyy lady," he drawled the words out in that twangy voice he only had when he was high or drunk or both. He laughed.

"Where are you?" I asked, looking out my window. It was so pitch black outside I couldn't see a thing. The wind was howling.

"Chris and me decided to stay in Marathon," he announced, giggling like a teenage girl calling her crush for the first time.

"What?" I gasped. The keys had been evacuated. They'd been talking for hours about the traffic on the bridge and the danger imposed by staying out on the islands.

Nick laughed, "Yeah we had this idea. We're gonna film a - a - a Nickumentary about the hurricane. Ooo so spooooky..."

There was a loud crack and Chris let out a shriek like a girl, which was followed by Nick's laughter and a whoop of a mystery third person. "Gotta go lady, I think the roof just broke..." and he hung up.

I thought for sure he was gonna blow away into the Gulf and drown, probably laughing like a hyena the whole time. I didn't hear from him for a couple days, either, because the phone lines were down, and I remember legitimately fearing what I would hear when everything had finally settled down and the power was back up. But three days later, he showed up on my door step, looking hung over and exhausted. I'd hugged him tighter than the jaws of life and he'd gasped out, "Jesus, you'd think you were worried about me or something."

The second time I legitimately feared for his life was around mid-February this past year.

One year ago to the day. Nick's sister, Leslie, died of a drug overdose. Nick was just starting his first solo tour in just about a decade when he got the news. I was standing backstage when his cell phone rang. He'd looked at the caller ID. "What the fuck is my Dad calling me for?" he'd said, confusion in his voice, and he'd turned away from the stage, covering one ear. "Dad?" he'd called into the phone, and his brow had furrowed and he'd looked ready to throw up. He'd dropped to his knees, the phone hitting the floor as he dropped it, and I'd dropped down right beside him. He'd clutched my arm so tightly, like he needed something, anything, to hold onto.

I'd been so scared for him during the months that followed. He'd refused to do anything he didn't have to do. He did the shows and the soundchecks and the appearances on TV and radio that he had to do, but other than that he locked himself in the hotel room or the tour bus and he stayed there and watched TV and spoke meager amounts of words. I wasn't the only one in the entourage that feared Nick would hurt himself.

So this one night, he cancelled the show late in the evening, when we were all already set up at the venue and fans were already collecting outside. He cancelled it via text message to Eddie and all it said was I'm not coming. Eddie had gone into massive crisis aversion mode with the fans and I'd demanded a bodyguard drive me back to the hotel immediately because for Nick to cancel a show was just not heard of. When I got to the hotel and back up to the room we'd been sharing, I freaked out to find the room empty, Nick just missing. I opened the shower stall like twelve times and even was desperate enough to check under the bed before sitting and bursting into tears.

Chris and Nick had stumbled through the door an hour later, drunk as skunks. Nick, who was a bit drunker than Chris was at that point, sloshed to the bed and landed next to me, wrapping his arms around me, "Heyyy lady," he'd said, again with that twangy voice.

"Where the fuck were you?" I'd wailed, wrapping my arms around him.

"Jesus," Nick said, "You'd think you was worried about me or somethin'."

And that brings us to time number three.

I was pacing up and down the waiting area in the hospital. They couldn't tell us a damn thing because, just as Chris had said, we weren't family. I'd texted the crap out of Angel, the only other Carter whose phone number I had stored on my phone, and I'd panicked and waited for a response, for anything. Chris just sat dismally in his waiting room chair, watching me go back and forth.

"I can't handle this, Chris, not tonight of all nights," I said. My arms felt cold, my stomach ached because I was hungry. Outside the sun was coming up, painting the sky a pale salmon color. I could feel tears welling up.

Chris rubbed his neck. He stared up at me. "C'mere, sit down."

"I can't sit down."

"You need to sit down, you've been pacing that floor an hour, you're gonna wear it thin."

I burst into tears.

Chris stood up and came over, wrapped his jacket around my shoulders, and guided me to the seats beside him. "Relax," he said, "You gotta relax."

"We've been best friends since we were eight, Chris. I don't want the last thing I ever said to him to be a lie."

"What'd you say to him?" Chris asked.

I coughed, "He asked if - if..." I bit my lips.

"What?"

I shook my head.

"No c'mon, it'll help."

I looked up at Chris, "He asked if it meant anything to me."

"If what meant anything to you?" Chris asked.

"Nothing," I answered, and I looked away.

"What'd you say?" Chris asked.

"I said it didn't."

"But it did."

I nodded, "Of course it did."

Chris rubbed my shoulder again and pulled me close. I leaned my head against his shoulder. I never thought I'd find myself hugging Chris in the waiting room at a hospital. Ever. I mean I'd made it a point to hate Chris for most of the time I'd known him. Maybe jealousy. I mean Nick paid him more attention than he'd ever paid me, and it hurt like hell.

My reason for being so hard on Chris wasn't really even Chris' fault, I realized. It never had been.

I pulled back and looked Chris in the eyes.

"Thank you for being there for me," I said quietly.

He nodded.

"Thank you for listening to me," I added.

Again, Chris nodded.

I kissed his cheek.




Nick

There's nothing weirder than that first moment, when you wake up and can't quite remember where you are or how you got there. I opened my eyes and found myself staring up at a plain white ceiling and I went to sit up but it hurt like hell to even try so I stopped and I listened and I heard a beeping and a dripping and I looked to my side and saw the IV and the heart monitor and the blood falling through the tubes into my arm. I stared down at my arm. It was bruised really badly from my elbow down. My hand was in a cast.

"Jesus," I muttered. I moved my other hand to my face, and realized I had bandages across my face. "What the --" I started panicking. The beeping on the heart monitor increased and within seconds a nurse had rushed into the room. She was wearing blue scrubs. She grabbed me by the shoulders and laid me back down.

"It's okay," she said, "Calm down, sir... calm down..."

"Where the hell am I?" I gasped.

"You're at the hospital," she said, looking me in the eyes.

"What happened? What happened to my hand? Why's there bandages on my face?" I asked, my heart thumping in my chest.

The nurse's voice was so calm. "You've been in a very serious plane crash, you're one of the lucky ones." She added, "It's going to be okay. We're taking good care of you."

Suddenly it rushed back into my mind. All of it. The plane, the smell of sulfur. Dave. Ashley.

"Where's Ashley?" I asked, "Dave said he'd get Ashley. I need Ashley."

The nurse nodded, "We'll find her." She checked a few things on the monitor and the IV and then she sped out of the room.

I felt tears burning my eyes.

You've been really stupid, Nick... The words were like an echo in my mind. They weren't my words, they weren't in my voice.

And then I remembered Leslie.