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Chapter Nineteen


Nick

The pub was dark and smelled like yeast. We sat in a corner, as far away from a crowd of futbol fans as we could get. A waitress came over and asked us, in German, what we wanted and Brian and I fumbled through the steps of ordering a couple beers and some food. When she’d walked away, I picked up the spoon on my place setting and started inspecting it. Brian leaned back and stared across the pub at the TV screens where guys in bright yellow uniforms were running down the field. He turned back to me.

“When did we get like this?” he asked.

I stared at the spoon. “I dunno,” I answered.

Brian took a deep breath, “I’m sorry,” he said, “If it was anything I did.”

I looked up at him. “I dunno if it’s anything either of us did, really, it’s just the way things were and the way they became, kinda.” I shrugged.

He nodded slowly, then mimicked me with his own spoon, inspecting it the way I was inspecting mine. I put mine down. “So a twelve, huh?” he said.

I scrambled in my head for something to tell him, anything, that wasn’t the whole truth but also wasn’t, strictly speaking, a lie, either. I knew how this was going to go down if I told him about the tumor. It’d go down exactly how I suspected Jaymie had hoped. Brian would freak out, tell the fellas, they’d cancel everything and I’d be on the next available table with a handsaw level to my forehead. The thought gave me the heebie-jeebies and I put my hand on my forehead, like I wanted to feel it was still intact, without any rough-edged saw cuts. My eyes met Brian’s and I knew my time to think was up, the longer I took to answer the more suspicious and worried he looked.

“Nick,” he started -- but he was interrupted by the waitress’s return as she put the two bottles of beer we’d ordered on the table. He glanced up at her, “Thanks,” he muttered, and she walked away. He turned back to me.

“I told Jaymie how strained stuff’s been between us,” I blurted out before he could ask anything. “It’s been bothering me a lot and I just - I told her, and I think because I never tell her anything like that, she kinda… she just took it more serious than it really was, I guess.” I took a pull off the beer, avoiding looking him in the eyes. Brian studied me, trying to decide if that answer was suitable or not. He shook his head. He wasn’t buying it. I put the beer back down on the table.

“That’s not it, Nick,” he said. “When Jaymie came by, she said, ‘I know stuffs been weird with you and Nick for awhile now but you need to talk to him’,” he explained, “She said, ‘I can’t tell you what’s wrong, but he isn’t listening to me, and he needs your help’.” Brian took a deep breath. “Is it your heart?”

“No, my heart’s fine. I got cleared by the cardiologist.”

Brian looked lost. “Well c’mon we can play guessing games all day. Is it your family? Is something going on with them? Are you drinking? Doing drugs again?”

I shook my head. “No, dude, nothin’ like that…”

“Then what?” he asked.

“Okay. If I tell you, you gotta promise not to treat me any different,” I said.

Brian’s eyebrows stitched together. “Are you gay?”

“What the fuck, Brian? No,” I shook my head, “Jesus Christ.” I turned away.

“Then just tell me what the hell is going on,” he pleaded, “As you can see, my mind is going a hundred thousand miles an hour in every possible direction!”

“I have cancer,” I said, “In my brain.” I pointed at my head, like he didn’t know where my brain was or something.

He stared at me, dumbfounded for a second. Then, “Wait. What?”

I sighed, “I was gettin’ these headaches. Back when I had all that shit with the bronchitis going on and I told the doctor and he scanned me and it turns out I got this anaplastic astrocycoma tumor thingy up in there and -- yeah. So brain cancer.” Brian didn’t say anything. His jaw kinda hung there all loose and stuff and he just stared at me. I realized I didn’t know what to do with my hands or how to hold my face right, like I forgot what normal looked like and all I wanted was to act normal for Brian. I shifted my weight. “That’s a twelve, yeah?” I asked.

Brian covered his eyes with his hand suddenly, staring down at the table. “Fuck Nick,” he said, and I realized his voice was thick with emotion. “That’s a god-damn twenty.” He looked up and his eyes were big and wet, his nose kind of flared so his nostrils looked even bigger than usual. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me sooner?” he asked.

“I didn’t really tell anybody,” I said.

“You told Jaymie.”

“Yeah,” I answered.

He looked hurt. “So how are they treating it? You look good for someone being treated for cancer, I mean usually ---” he stopped mid-sentence. “Nick, you are being treated?”

I shook my head.

The waitress came by with our food and put the plates down in front of us. Brian picked up his beer and looked up at her, “We’re gonna need another of these,” he said, then he took a long pull off the neck and put it down, never taking his eyes off me.




Jaymie

I sat on the bed, clicking through the TV channels. Everything was in German. I felt sick to my stomach, waiting.

We’ll talk when I get back.

The words rung in my memory, more venomous every time I replayed them. It was going to be a huge fight when he finally got back, I just knew it. I could almost hear the words in my head - he’d ask how I’d dared to go to Brian with his secret, and I’d point out that I’d been very careful not to actually tell Brian his secret, and he’d say I might as well have… We’d shout for a really long time, until he finally got sick of the fight and kicked me out. He’d throw more money at me, like he’d done the night of the seizures, he’d tell me to get the fuck on the next plane, to get out of his life, to be gone by the time he got back to the United States.

But he’d be forced to get the treatment. Brian would make him, wouldn’t he? I could trust Brian to at least make sure that Nick did what was best, couldn’t I? I wouldn’t end up with him, but at least Nick would live through this, at least he’d get better and maybe he’d see that what I’d done was the right thing. Maybe, eventually, he’d reach out to me again.

It seemed like forever before I heard the sound of the key in the door and the handle turning. I turned off the TV and sat up, steeling myself for the first words of the argument. Nick came in and tossed the key and his wallet onto the table and walked across the room to the minibar, which he opened and took a bottle of water from. He unscrewed the cap and drank almost the whole bottle without pause, then put the cap back on before laying down on the second bed. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and laid there like he was about to go to sleep.

I waited for several long moments, but there wasn’t any indication that he was gonna say anything to me at all. Finally, I said, “Is, um, everything okay?”

He didn’t open his eyes at all. “Mhm,” he said.

I hesitated. Surely he was gonna sit up at any moment and start yelling. Where were the cuss words I knew he’d want to yell about what I’d done? I stared at him, at his eyelids, at the way he just laid there, like he was about to take a nap or something. “Nick?” I said.

“What?” he asked. He opened his eyes and rolled them to look at me, not even moving his head.

“Did -- did everything go okay?” I asked, “With Brian?”

He closed his eyes again.

“Nick?”

He rolled to face the window, giving me his back.

“Nick,” I said, and I crawled across my bed and onto his, kneeling so I was sitting on my feet. I reached out my arm and put my hand down on his shoulder. He shrugged my hand away. “So this is it, huh? You aren’t gonna yell at me? Instead you’re just gonna turn your back to me?”

He didn’t answer.

“Nick,” I pleaded, “Don’t do this.”

“Don’t do what?” he asked.

“Don’t stop talking to me,” I begged. “Please.”

“Why? So you can tell everyone even more stuff?” he snapped, and he sat up and faced me, “So you can go knock on Howie’s door or Kevin’s door and tell them all the personal shit I told you?” Nick’s eyes were red. He’d been crying. And I realized his face was wet. He’d been crying just now, when he’d turned his back. “I fucking thought -- I thought --” he stood up. “I thought things were gonna be okay, that maybe trusting you was safe, that making this - us personal would work, but it’s not. I’m an asshole for even thinking it could’ve.”

“No you aren’t,” I said, and I felt my throat tighten with emotion, “Nick, I couldn’t just sit by and watch you get sicker. Someone else had to know. You weren’t listening to me about getting treatment, you needed someone who you do listen to to tell you why it’s important.”

He stared at me. “I didn’t want him to know yet!” he yelled.

I got up on my knees so we were level, “He deserved to know, he’s your best friend!”

“He is not my best friend,” Nick shouted, “He isn’t. He used to be, but he hasn’t been in a long ass time.”

“Well I’m sorry, then maybe I should’ve told AJ or Howie or Kevin or Chris or who-the-fuck-ever your new B-F-F is, Nick,” I shouted.

“It’s you, you dumb bitch, it’s you,” he shouted back. He turned away, leaned against the window sill and stared out. “Jesus Christ,” he groaned and pressed his face onto the glass, putting pressure on his forehead. He closed his eyes.

“Is your head okay?” I asked gently.

“I’m fucking fine,” he snapped. I looked down at the bedspread beneath me. Nick sighed. “I’m fine,” he said, his voice softer. “I’m just not ready for this yet,” he said.

“You never will be ready for it,” I pointed out.

“Readier, maybe,” he suggested.

I shrugged, “I don’t think there’s any way to get readier,” I answered. I crawled across the bed to the other side and got up and went over and wrapped my arms around him, pressing my cheek to his back. “Nick, I think you just plunge in and hope for the best and kick as hard as you can to stay afloat. I think that’s all there is to do.”

He took a shaky breath.

“I’m here for you,” I whispered.

He nodded.

“And now Brian is, too, right?” I asked.

He nodded again.

“So see?” I said, “That’s a good thing, right?”

He nodded.

I closed my eyes, just feeling the closeness of his skin through his shirt. Then his shoulders shook and I knew he was crying. I hugged him tighter.

There wasn’t anything else to do.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. But I didn’t really mean about Brian or for what I’d done. I meant more like because of the fact that he had to go through any of this at all. I dunno if he knew that’s what I meant or not, but he nodded.