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Chapter Twenty-Seven


Nick

Jaymie pulled back and stared at me. “What?” Her eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them before. “You… what?”

My mouth went dry. I stared in her face and my tongue suddenly didn’t wanna work. I stood up, breaking us apart, walking the length of the room. What is wrong with you Carter?! I demanded of myself. Why would you say that? What are you, stupid or something?

“Nick?” Jaymie’s voice shook.

I felt like I might throw up as I came to a stop. “I can’t say it again,” I said.

She stared at me. “But you… you did say it, right? I’m not imagining this?”

I nodded reluctantly, slowly.

Jaymie stood up too. “You don’t have to say it again if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not ‘cos I don’t feel it,” I said. “It’s because of my brain.” I waved my hand at my head. “I don’t wanna hurt you. That’s why I can’t say it again.”

Jaymie stayed at a distance, “I understand.”

“Okay.”

“For the record, it wouldn’t hurt me… if you did say it.”

“It could.”

“It wouldn’t.”

“But it could. In the long run. If I -- you know.”

“That’s gonna hurt whether you say it or not. If you. You know. Not that you are.”

I edged toward the window. I felt like we were in some kind of show down like in the TV shows, like one of us should’ve been brandishing a gun, like one of us was nearly killed in an exchange of fire. If anyone had the death blow bullet in their gun chamber, though, it was me and my tumor. “It’ll hurt worse if we’re… together.”

“It’d hurt like a son of a bitch if I knew there’d been a chance and we didn’t take it,” Jaymie said.

I shook my head, “I can’t do that.”

Jaymie nodded, “I understand. But… just know that if you change your mind, if you decide you can…” she paused.

I nodded.

“Okay.” She smiled awkwardly, then, just as awkwardly, sat back down on the bed, “Yay for understandings, huh?”

“Yeah.” I said. “Yay.”

Jaymie and I were both quiet for a few minutes. I wondered why Fate hadn’t stepped in to stop me. The night before she’d literally thrown me to the ground on my ass before she’d let me utter those words. Tonight, she’d let me get them out. Had this been a test? Had I failed? Was Fate gonna kick me in the nuts at any given moment?

There was a knock at the door and I jumped in surprise.

Jaymie got up and went to the door. She looked through the peephole and groaned. She looked at me. “It’s Brian.”

I nodded and Jaymie opened the door.

Brian came in, sweaty and disheveled looking, like he’d run up the steps to get to the door. “Oh God, you’re okay, thank God.” He walked swiftly across the room and wrapped his arms around me.

“Yeah I’m alright,” I said, just standing there while he squeezed the ever-lovin’ life out of me. When he finally let me go, he held me at arms length and stared at me intensely. “Um…” I said.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “Jaymie was -- Jaymie was right.” I could tell it pained him to say the words. My eyes darted to Jaymie, who looked surprised. “She was right. Nick, you need to get the treatment. Now. Not later, not when you decide you need it, but right now. Yesterday.” Brian took a deep breath, “When it was me and my heart -- it got worse, Nick. If I’d just gone when I first found out I needed help --” he shook his head. “But I put it off. For this. For BSB.” He frowned. “You need to go. Now.”

“Well I just decided that I was ---” I started, but I was interrupted by Kevin, AJ, and Howie all pouring in the still open door. Jaymie turned in surprise as they came up behind her. AJ was staring at me with eyes almost as wide as Jaymie’s had been when I’d said the L-word a few minutes before. Howie was pale.

“You told me you got cleared to come back,” Kevin said thickly.

“I did get cleared,” I said. “By my cardiologist.”

Kevin stared at me for a long moment. “Nick.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay.” I let out the deep breath. “I have an anaplastic astrocycoma.” Kevin and Howie both looked like they knew what that was, but AJ was just looking at me with about a hundred questions in his eyes, so I added, “It’s a tumor, in the brain.”

Brian closed his eyes. Jaymie was hovering by the door, which she’d pushed closed behind the fellas after Brian’s admission that she was right. AJ shook his head, “Fuck you. It ain’t fuckin’ April Fools day.” But when I didn’t crack a smile he added, “We bein’ punk’d or something?” He looked around, then back to me, “This ain’t funny man.”

“I don’t think he’s joking, J,” Howie mumbled.

We all stood there for several long moments, none of us looking at the others, the weight of my words hanging among us. Finally, as usual, the first one of us to gather the strength up was Kevin. “So is this related to the heart attack?”

I nodded.

“And the forgetting the lyrics?”

I nodded again.

Kevin sighed and walked over and dropped into a chair by the window, pushing aside some clothes I’d left there, including the muddy remains of my suit from the night before. It seemed like eons ago, rather than hours. He rubbed his forehead.

“How long have you known?” Howie questioned.

“A few months,” I mumbled.

AJ turned around and, stepping around Jaymie, left the room, slamming the door behind himself.

Kevin looked up and frowned at the door. He sighed, then looked back down at his knees.

“Did they give you a prognosis?” Howie asked.

Kevin looked up again. Brian and Jaymie both looked at me, too.

“Just… just that I needed treatment…” I mumbled.

“And you didn’t do it?” Kevin asked, frustration in his tone.

“I’m standing here, aren’t I?”

“Damn it, Nick,” Howie muttered.

I licked my lips. “I just… wanted to be ready… incase. You know.”

Kevin’s jaw set, steel like, and he said, “Don’t even say that.”

“I’m just thinking realistic,” I answered.

We all fell silent again. And once again, the silence was broken several moments later by Kevin. “You’re going back to LA, you’ll get the treatment immediately. Everything is cancelled until Nick is better. I refuse to sing a note until Nick’s healed.” His demeanor was absolute.

My eyes widened. “But what about --”

“I’m not doing it either ‘til you’re treated,” Howie agreed with Kevin.

“But -- But shouldn’t y’all talk to AJ first?” I asked.

“The decision is majority. It’s made whatever he says. But I’m pretty sure he’ll agree with us anyway,” Kevin said. He studied me for a long moment. “We have your back, man.”

Brian looked serious. “Nick, you’re our little brother.”

My eyes felt hot and I had a feeling I wasn’t gonna be able to keep these tears in.





Jaymie

“This place was like another home to me,” Nick said, staring out the window of the car that was bringing us to the airport. I held his hand. He squeezed my fingers. “I practically grew up here with the Boys... There’s so many memories of this place… I hope I see it again someday.” His lower jaw trembled ever so slightly.

“You will,” I said.

He was bobbing his knee with nerves, his free fist balled around a handful of fabric at his thigh as he shook his leg. He closed his eyes and leaned back into the seat, leaning his head back to aim his face up at the ceiling. I leaned my head against his shoulder and tried to exude comforting feelings.

On the plane, Nick fell asleep almost immediately, his headphones on and in much the same position as he’d been in the car. I watched movie after movie on the little screen in front of us, rubbing his knuckles with my fingers as fictional characters’ dramas played out before my eyes and were resolved in a neat little package of 120 minutes. If only life were like that, I thought, how much easier life would be.

Nick stayed asleep through the entire flight, only waking up when I nudged him and slid his headphones off so I could whisper that we were about to land. “We are?” he murmured, “Shit.” He stretched, cracking his back from the stiffness of sitting in one position for all those hours in the air. “I feel like we just left,” he said.

“You were a sleepy head,” I answered.

“I have a headache,” he said.

“The pressure from the plane maybe,” I said, trying not to think about the significance of Nick and his headaches.

“Yeah,” he answered. He rubbed his forehead and leaned forward, covering his eyes.

On the way to the ground, he used both our barf bags, his hands shaking as he plucked them from the pouches on the back of the seats. I rubbed his back as the plane hit the tarmac, the wheels bouncing once...twice...three times before it settled, and Nick wretched into the bag. “There we go,” I said in a soothing tone, “We’re on the ground again.”

He nodded, his eyes closed.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I added.

He didn’t respond, just kept his eyes closed.

The plane taxiied to the terminal and came to a stop as the flight attendant thanked us for flying the airline and welcomed us to Los Angeles, running through the weather report. Sunshine and moderate temperatures, like always, of course. And I watched as the other passengers got up and collected their things from the overhead and shuffled down the aisles and off the plane. Nick didn’t move, he just kept gripping his head, bent forward almost doubled over, eyes closed.

“Nick, we gotta go,” I said.

“No,” he muttered.

I licked my lips. There were only two other passengers on the plane and they were pulling a guitar down from the overhead bin that would’ve been awkward to get with everyone else moving through the plane. The flight attendant was on their way towards us.

“Nick, we have to, the plane’s landed, everyone’s off it.”

“Excuse me, is everything okay?” the flight attendant asked, looking alarmed.

I looked up at him helplessly because I didn’t know what to say.

Nick lifted his head slowly, “I’m okay,” he said, squinting at the guy. “I’m fine. Thanks.” He waved him away, then stood up, shaky. He grabbed the seat in front of him for balance. The flight attendant reached to help him. “Don’t touch me,” Nick snapped. The guy held his hands up and backed up, looking at me helplessly.

“Nick…” I said, surprised by the attitude. “He’s just trying to help.”

“I don’t need help,” he said, his voice clipped. “I’m fine.”

I gave the flight attendant with an apologetic look as I grabbed our carry on bags myself and Nick moved slowly down the aisle of the plane, holding onto seats to stay balanced. We walked into the terminal with one of his hands constantly against the wall, fingers splayed, and in the lobby area, a couple of airline employees looked over from the little desk by the door as Nick stumbled to a chair and set himself down by the window, taking deep breaths.

I knelt down in front of him. “Nick, we need to bring you to the hospital.”

He closed his eyes.

“Nick?”

“No. No hospitals.”

“But you said --”

“Not yet. I wanna go home. I just want one more night in my home then we can --” he paused, wincing. When he’d caught his breath, he said, “Then we can -- deal with -- whatever…”

“But Nick,” I said, “If you’re in this much pain then you need to --”

He interrupted me as he gripped his head with both hands. “Fuck!” he shouted, his voice ringing through the airport. People walking by looked over. “I can’t -- I can’t think… it hurts…” He tangled his fingers in his hair, pressing his fists against his skull. His face crumpled, his eyes screwed tightly shut.

I pulled out my cell phone. “I’m sorry, Nick, but you’re going to the hospital,” I said firmly, as I dialed 911.