[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Chapter Thirteen


Nick

I couldn’t breathe. I was sure I was about to die. The ceiling fan blew air over me, but I was suffocating. I curled up, my fists between my knees, sobbing.

I don’t cry a lot. But when I do, it’s really embarrassing because I don’t just let tears fall, I make a sound like a wounded animal, like this deep-gutted sound that emerges from the bottom of my lungs.

I cry like a child.

Nacho crawled up onto the bed tentatively, inching closer to me, inspecting me, sniffing the sheets, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was going on, but curiosity got the best of him. Outside, the sun was probably thinking about coming up, a new day would be starting. I’d heard the door to the garage slam shut, and even though I hadn’t really heard the car I was sure Jaymie had left, so I cried, unchecked, not caring how much noise I made, not caring if my sobs broke through the entire neighborhood. Let’em hear me, I thought.

It was strange because I was feeling this emotion so much deeper than I normally felt anything. These cries were not cries a man makes when he’s just thrown his fuck-buddy out the door. It’s not even the cries a man makes when he’s lost someone he loved. I know. I didn’t even make these sounds for Leslie. But here I am, and there’s no stopping it. Sob after sob just kept wrecking through my body, like a demolition.

Nacho nudged my arm with his nose. I rolled away.

At first I was crying about Jaymie. Then I lost track of what I was even crying about. But I wasn’t sure what I was doing was even crying anymore. It felt too heavy, too hard. It was pulling and I realized I was unable to stop. This was like everything in my body stopped, stopped for a moment, and pulled tight and collected somewhere deep in my core before releasing me.

Was this another heart attack? I wondered. It felt different, though. And I was shaking. I couldn’t stop shaking.

I had to go see a doctor.

Maybe there was something he could do to make it stop.

I crawled to the edge of the bed and tried to stand up, but my body tightened just as I went to and instead of standing, I only managed to fall to the floor. I lay there, convulsing, shaking, for a moment before I could move properly enough that I was able to struggle to pull myself to my feet from the ground, my knees barely holding my weight.

This was definitely not crying. This was almost like… almost like… seizures.

”Nick… we need to talk.” The doctor had come into the exam room, hugging a clipboard to his chest. He’d closed the door behind him and pulled the little wheely stool away from the counter in the corner. He sat down. “Have you seen a doctor recently at all, back home?” he’d asked, his brow furrowing.

We were on tour. It was Summer. I’d gone to the doctors a few times with bronchitis and what I thought was sinus headache, but several weeks after recovering from the bronchitis and taking medicine for the headaches, they were still happening and they were getting worse. I basically was there for super strength excederin because regular excederin wasn’t cutting it anymore and the stage lights weren’t helping at all.

“I had bronchitis,” I said. “Look, man, I just want the headaches to stop.”

The doctor had nodded. He stood up and pulled his clipboard back. He had a bunch of pictures, X-rays of my head they’d taken, trying to figure out what was causing the headaches. He put them up on a lightboard on the wall. “Have you ever seen a brain scan before?” he asked, looking at me as I stared at the blue-black globs of information before me. I had no idea what I was looking at. I shook my head. “This is a side-shot of a brain,” he said, which was pretty much the only thing I did know about them. “The brain is kind of spongy texture, and very easy to damage, so it’s protected. There’s your skull first, as the primary defense. Then there’s a layers of this stuff that’s like plastic wrap, in a way, like when you bubble wrap something fragile you’re going to ship.” He pointed. “There’s a bunch of fluids after that, which keep your brain kind of floating around. Think like the dice in a magic eight ball.” He moved his hand inward. “Then there’s your actual brain.” He took a deep breath.

“Okay, that’s cool, I guess?” I asked, confused.

He continued. “Okay so here’s a brain again...this one is a top-down view,” he explained. “Here’s the left hemisphere and the right.” He pointed to the scan, then… to a similar one to the right of it. “That first one...that’s a typical 33-year old man’s brain. And this, Mr. Carter, is yours.” He moved so I could see the next slide. “Do you see the difference, Mr. Carter?”

“That giant spot,” I said.

“Mr. Carter, we think that spot is a tumor. We believe it may be an anaplastic astrocytoma.”

“A what?”

“Anaplastic astrocytoma.”

“I can’t have that,” I’d said, dizzy as I stared at it, “I can’t even pronounce that.”

But pronounce it or not, I had it.

Grade III Anaplastic Astrocytoma.

”You’ll need immediate surgery, Nick.”

The words swam in my head as I slammed against the dresser. Nacho was standing at the end of the bed, his tail wagging, a sob had clutched me from what felt like the very bottom of my intestines and squeezed and I’d doubled over, my head resting against one of the drawers as the choking cry came out of me. I clung to the handle of the dresser, trying to balance myself.

”Surgery? Brain surgery?” I’d laughed. “Dude, I can’t do brain surgery right now. I’m in the middle of a god-damn tour.”

I hit the carpet.

I’d signed paperwork, releasing the doctor from the responsibility of my health care because I’d turned down the surgery. I’d do it after the tour, I’d told myself. But I hadn’t made it to the end of the tour yet. I hadn’t gone back yet.

“Oh fuuuuck,” I half choked, half screamed the word. And my chest felt tighter, and then every muscle in my body did, too, and I felt like I was being tied into a knot. I curled into myself, struggled to remember where my phone was. Nightstand. Back there, back by the bed, where I’d started. It seemed so far away. Nacho started barking as I struggled for air. My head felt like it was splintering into pieces.

“Please,” I gasped. “Please. I don’t… not alone… please. Oh fuck, Jesus, please.”

Suddenly the door opened and the light snapped on. “What the hell is happening in here?”

I looked up. Jaymie. Jaymie was framed in the light. She hadn’t left after all. “Help… me,” I said, and then everything went black.




Jaymie

I’d heard him.

I’d heard him yell.

I’d been downstairs, in the kitchen, grabbing a couple things I’d need at the hotel - a box of crackers, a couple bottles of water. The money he’d thrown onto the table. I’d been just about to leave after taking my time packing up in my room, crying the entire time, when I heard him scream out. “Oh fuuuck!”

The cry just sounded so anguished, so desperate… I couldn’t ignore it. So… I’d gone upstairs to check on him. And it was a damn good thing I did, too.

I rushed to him, dropping to my knees beside him. “Hey, hey, Nick, hey, it’s okay. It’s okay.” There was spit on his mouth and cheek and his eyes were unfocused and he was shaking and it occurred to me this wasn’t just crying, this was… this was a seizure.

I’d seen a man have a seizure once in a mall food court when I was a kid, right by the bright carousel. He’d suddenly grabbed onto the little green metal fence that surrounded the painted ponies and gone to his knees and he’d ended up laying on the floor, on his side, shaking, all tight and convulsing, just like Nick was doing now. The carousel attendant had rushed to his side to take care of him. I have no idea if he lived through it or not. No idea who he was, even, to find out.

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed 911.

I rolled Nick to his side. I’d seen them do that at the mall. I tried to remember what they’d done to help that man. I grabbed the blanket from the bed, sending Nacho running under the chair in the corner of the room and shoved it under Nick’s head, my hands on his arm to steady him.

Nick vomited just as the call picked up. The smell was terrible.

”911, what is your emergency?”

“He’s having seizures,” I said quickly, gently wiping throw up away from the corner of Nick’s mouth, being careful not to touch the pool of it lurking beside him. “Help him.”

”What is your location ma’m?”

I couldn’t think. What the fuck was the address? Nick’s eyes were rolled back. It scared the living fuck out of me. My palms were sweating. He started shaking again. “Oh no. No please,” I begged. Then, to the operator lady, “4611 Los Bernados Boulevard. I think. It’s the big grey one by itself at the end of Los Bernardos anyways; big glass windows, you can’t miss it.”

”I’ve dispatched an ambulance, they are on their way,” she promised. ”What is the patient’s name?”

“Nick. Nick Carter,” I replied.

There was a pause.

I pictured a woman trying to resist being unprofessional. Certainly being a 911 operator in a city like this would bring it’s share of brushes with fame.

The seizure ended and the tension left Nick’s body for a moment, his muscles relaxing, going limp against the blanket I’d put under him. His eyes moved toward mine and he just stared up at me in this haunting sort of way, his mouth moving the way a fish’s does, no sound coming out. I rubbed his arm softly, tears staining my cheeks, “Help is on it’s way,” I whispered, “It’s going to be okay.”

”Is he responding to touch? Does he seem alert?”

“His eyes are moving,” I replied.

”Move your finger in front of his eyes, see if he can follow your finger.”

“Can you see my finger, Nick?” I asked. As I moved my finger and Nick’s eyes moved a little jerkily, but they followed my finger. “He’s following it,” I replied.

”Does the patient have a history of seizures or any disorder which may cause seizures?”

“Not that I know of,” I replied. “I’ve known him for seventeen years…” I paused. I licked my lips, “He’s -- he’s been acting… funny… lately, not himself.”

I could hear her keyboard clicking.

“J-Jay-Jay-m-mie,” he croaked out.

My heart skipped a beat at the sound of his voice, however broken it sounded. He struggled to move his hand, grabbed hold of mine, and squeezed it.

“D-don-don’t go.”

“I’m here,” I said thickly, and I squeezed his hand right back.

”The ambulance should be there,” the operator said, just as I heard the sirens and saw the lights flashing through the windows from the driveway.

“Yes,” I said, “They’re here.” I turned to Nick, “The ambulance is here,” I told him.

He leaned forward, spitting the last of the throw up and excess spit from his mouth. It was a struggle, though, and I gently reached over and helped, swiping the inside of his mouth with my fingertip as carefully as I could. He looked up at me, all pitiful and shaky. “Sh-shhh-shouldda told you,” he whispered, eyes full of tears.

“Should’ve told me what?” I asked, running my hand over his hair.

But he couldn’t seem to get the words to answer me, and he just squeezed my fingers.

And a moment later, the door was open and there were EMTs swarming around him, and my grip on his hand was released and I was asked to step aside and they engulfed him in a cloud of medical attention, asking him loud questions and poking needles into his arms and sensors across his forehead.

But the whole time, his eyes never left mine, staring at me with an unfathomable something in them through a gap in the bodies around him.