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Chapter Three / 2013


Abbey

Seven years ago, to the day, Nick Carter dropped me off on the curb in front of my apartment and I watched him drive away, not knowing that he wouldn't call me, and not knowing that stirring inside of me was the beginning of the first manifestations of Matty. For six years, ever since he'd been born during a thunderstorm in July of 2007, I'd listened to doctors tell me that Matty would not live to see his next birthday. Monica Potter would not be the first pediatrician who had vocalized this so-called truth to me. I knew the symptoms of the moment all too well - a nervously-casual doctor, the visit to the office, the closing of the door, the stack of papers sheathed in a folder with Matty's name written on it. I sat down in the chair opposite Monica's desk and looked around, trying not to panic.

Monica sat and she leaned back in her chair, staring at me for a long moment over the array of wind-up toys and Pez dispensers that littered her desk for kids to play with during visits to the office. I kneaded the hem of my skirt between my finger tips. "How are you doing, Abbey?" she asked.

"I'm --" I had been about to say good or fine or maybe even great, but I could taste the lie without even speaking the word and I stopped. I looked down at my hands. I wasn't any of those things. FInally I said, "Tired."

Monica nodded. "I'd imagine exhausted is more the word for it."

I couldn't even remember the last time I'd slept.

"You know why I asked you to come in here," Monica said. Her voice shook just a little. And I realized when it did that she was the first doctor that Matty had seen in the past six years that I completely trusted - the first one that I knew beyond a doubt in my heart that if she had me in this office, if we were having this chat, that she had truly done everything to keep us from being here. I felt my throat close up. "Abbey, I'm not saying that it's definite, but -- the medication isn't working anymore and his heart is -- It's getting worse. He's getting worse. You know it, you can see it. I can see it in your eyes you see it." Monica paused. "I just want you to be prepared. Just in case."

I gripped the arm of the chair and shifted my weight from one side to the other, covering my mouth with my fingers. I stared at Monica. I felt sick to my stomach. Monica leaned forward and picked up the folder on the desk and held it out to me. "You know what this is."

I nodded. It was information. It was funeral home phone numbers and catalogs for tiny caskets and phone numbers for people who could help arrange things I didn't want to think about like deli platters and orchids. I stared at the folder for a long moment before taking it. It wasn't the first of these folders I'd been given. But my hands shook as I pulled it toward me.

"How long?" I choked the words out.

Monica stared down at the desk for a moment, trying to compose herself, then she looked up at me, blurry eyed and the muscles by her lip quivering. "Realistically... it's not... not very long. Unless we get a donor, it's -- it's not long at all."

"How long?" I repeated.

"I'm trying my damnedest to get you through the holidays," she said thickly.

I felt like ice water had been poured down my spine and I shivered. I closed my eyes, trying to block out the words, but I heard them echoing in my head over and over again. My breath shook. "Oh God," I whispered. "My baby."

Monica stood up and came around the desk and knelt down in front of me, taking my hands. She squeezed my fingers between hers. "I'm so, so sorry, Abbey. You know I am doing everything that I can, everything in my power to make this better. Matty is such a great kid and he deserves the world. I'm trying so hard to save him, but sometimes -- sometimes we need to prepare for the worst and pray for the best." She stared up at me. "You understand, Abbey? You prepare, but don't stop believing in this - in him."

I felt dizzy with emotion.

"I told him about the Christmas of Miracles program and we worked on an essay together during the nights you worked." Monica smiled, "He had so much hope in his eyes for his wish to come true... I'm just so happy that they picked him."

"What did he wish for?" I asked.

Monica smiled, "I can't tell you that."

"Why?"

"Because it's partly a surprise for you, too, and I swore to him I wouldn't tell you what it was." She smiled. "Like I said, Abbey, he's a great kid."

I nodded. "I know he is."

"Just be thankful for every moment you have," Monica said, and she squeezed my hand again. "I'm not going to let him down without giving this one hell of a fight, you know that."

I did.



Nick

We were shuffling through the airport in Amsterdam. I pulled the strings on my sweatshirt's hood so the cloth pulled tight around my face, covering my eyes. I felt like I was asleep standing up. I followed after the guys, relaying more on my ability to sense where they were than I was watching where I was going. Suddenly, I felt Kevin's hands on my shoulders and I opened my eyes to see I'd been about to walk into a column. "You okay, there?" Kevin chuckled.

"Yeah, just tired," I replied.

"Tell me about it," Kevin answered, and he cracked his back, "Gonna be needing some Aleve after sitting all that time on that damn plane. It's a killer gettin' old, ain't it?"

I forced a weak smile, though I really felt like smacking him. Ever since coming back to the band, Kevin had been on this weird old man kick, insisting we were all old an that we had all seen better days, that the dance moves were killing us and that we were all creaky boned now. I'd bit my tongue more than once over the past year from telling him off for including me in this old man business. I was far from old, I could jig circles around his geriatric ass. It was getting on my nerves because, let's face it, even Kevin isn't all that old and him thinking he was old was making him old and it was stupid.

Honestly, a lot of quirks about the fellas had been getting on my nerves since the start of the tour. Stupid things that probably shouldn't have been bothering me were driving me crazy.

Kevin walked by, smiling, and hurried to catch up to Howie toward the front of the pack of us. I sighed and hung back and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and turned it on. I had three text messages from Lauren. One was a heart and a song lyric from thing song we both said we liked the week before that's been all over the radio, another was just the words miss you already, and the third one read, call me when you land! I sighed and shoved the phone back in my pocket. I didn't feel like talking to her.

I was gonna be the worst damn husband in the entire world, I just knew it. I was already turning out to be a terrible fiance.

I nudged AJ and held out my phone to show him the three text messages. "Is Rochelle this clingy?" I asked.

AJ looked at the texts, then up at me and laughed, "You call that clingy?"

"She did just see me at the airport," I pointed out. "I mean, she dropped me off and stuff."

"Dude, relax." AJ held out his phone. He had thirteen messages from Rochelle.

"Shit," I muttered, suddenly feeling slightly less smothered.

AJ grinned. "My Pookie-Bear."

I rolled my eyes.

It was a short ride from the airport to the hotel. When we arrived, we headed upstairs and it was in the elevator ride to our floor that Kevin said, "Oh man, I can't wait for a nap." He stretched his arms out, "Oh God that feels good," he muttered.

I pictured him curling up under the covers with a cup of warm milk.

When the elevator doors split open, we all headed for our respective rooms and closed the doors behind us in almost synchronization. I walked into my room and dropped my bags on the floor and threw myself onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. It felt nice to be still for a few moments, and I closed my eyes. It wasn't technically a nap. It was just taking a break. Which is totally not an old guy thing to do, I told myself.

But I couldn't sleep.

The moment my eyes closed, a haunting mental image of Lauren in a wedding dress grinning up at me, waiting for my I do shimmered in my mind. My palms were sweaty and I woke up with a shout, breaking out of the pressure of the dream. I lay there in the dark of the hotel room, my heart racing, and realized that I was never gonna get any sleep as long as I kept having these damn nightmares about the wedding.

I sat up and crawled over to my bags, pulling out my book. Maybe I'd read myself to sleep, I thought, and I bent back the cover. My eyes caught sight of the ten digit number scrawled across the inside front cover. I stared at the numbers, my fingers moving over them slowly, thinking about all that they represented.

For years, I'd read and re-read this book - The Power of Positive Thinking - and I'd thought of two things to get me through the rough times of getting over my addictions: one, I had to get well enough to face Kevin, and two, I wanted to call this number scrawled across the inside of this book. It'd been so long since I wrote it, and I'd been so high when I had, that I only just barely remembered the woman to whom it belonged.

But I remembered this: she was amazing. Too amazing for the me that I was then.

By the time I'd been well enough to call Kevin, I'd been with Lauren too long to give that up on a whim to call some number that belonged to some chick who had been kinda hot in my deluded, strung-out state. So I'd never called.

But I'd always wondered.

I sat up and pulled my phone out of my pocket and tapped the numbers into the keypad and stared at them for a long moment. My thumb hovered over send and I'd been just about to push it when the phone lit up with another text from Lauren.

I set the DVR to tape the Buccs for you while you're gone. xoxo

I called Lauren instead of the number -- the girl, whoever she was or however amazing she had or had not been -- probably didn't even have the same cell phone number after all these years, I told myself. And I was happy. Really. Truly. Why woul I want to risk the love that I had for something that probably didn't even really exist?