That kiss... he relived it mentally every time he thought of her, which was quite often. And every time he felt her soft lips against his, he was filled with a rapturous rush. But then, just as quickly, his stomach would flip-flop, and he’d feel almost sick, wondering if he’d been right to make a move on her. Sure, she’d been just as involved as he had been, but he couldn’t help but feel that if things didn’t work out, he would be to blame.
His life had been in such a stage of upheaval for the past few months that the last thing he wanted to do was complicate their friendship. The kiss would have consequences, he was sure. Something had to happen, didn’t it? They couldn’t just ignore it, pretend it hadn’t happened, could they? Deep down, he didn’t want to ignore it. He wanted to be with her. But now just didn’t seem like the right time to start a relationship.
On Tuesday, he would begin yet another leg of his journey through hell, chemotherapy. The first time around, he’d been scared. He was not scared anymore, just depressed. Chemotherapy was no longer the great unknown, but something that was familiar too him, all too familiar. He knew what it would be like and how it would make him feel, and he could do nothing but dread it.
His therapy session on Monday went well. Now that he was able to walk without crutches, most of the session had been spent simply walking laps around the therapy room under the supervision of Susan, practicing and getting better and faster at it. Susan was impressed with the progress he had made and assured him that at this rate, he would probably have a permanent prosthesis, a more advanced leg designed especially for him, by the beginning of August.
All in all, Monday was a good day, but Nick’s spirits quickly sank that night and were no better when he woke up Tuesday morning. The day was humid and overcast, and the sky sporadically spit rain as Howie drove Nick to Tampa General, where he’d be receiving his treatments.
“This sucks,” muttered Nick, gazing out his window into the foggy distance.
“I know,” Howie said quietly as he turned the car into the parking area marked “Visitor and Outpatient Parking.” He let Nick off near the entrance of the hospital and told him to wait inside while he parked the car. Nervously tugging his baseball cap down, Nick cast a wary glance around him and walked slowly into the large lobby of the hospital. Luckily, there were not many people about, and those who were seemed too occupied with their own situations to notice him.
When Howie got there, he and Nick set off for the elevators to ride up to the oncology wing. The walk was slow, for Nick had opted to go without crutches and walk solely on his prosthesis instead. Yet Howie had made sure to fold up the wheelchair they had rented and store it in the trunk, just in case. And as much as Nick hated to admit it, he knew there was a good chance he might have to rely on that wheelchair by the time this chemotherapy treatment was done, if he ended up as sick afterward as he had following all the other rounds of chemo.
On the fifth floor, Nick took Howie along the familiar route to the outpatient clinic where he had been for so many appointments in the last year. Brian had been there once, but Howie never had.
“I dunno exactly how long this is gonna take, but I heard it could be a few hours,” Nick remarked as he and Howie sat down in the waiting room. “So you don’t gotta sit here and wait for me the whole time if you don’t want to, dawg.”
“Well, what else would I do?” Howie asked, glancing observantly around the room.
“I dunno. There’s supposedly an ice cream place downstairs,” Nick said with a shrug.
“Yeah? Well, I might have to go check that out,” replied Howie, smiling slightly. He was silent for a moment and then added hesitantly, “Um, I guess they probably won’t let me come back with you then?”
Nick shrugged again. “Dunno. They let Brian come back for my check-up once, but that was different. I dunno what the policy is for getting chemo like this.”
Howie nodded. “Well, let me know if you want me to come with you, and I’d be more than happy to – if they’d let me, that is.”
Nick opened his mouth to protest, but changed his mind before the words came out. “Okay,” he said softly instead, thinking it might be sort of nice to have someone sit with him during the treatment.
After a short wait, a nurse named Kathy came out and called Nick back. “Do you mind if my friend comes with?” he asked her, nodding to Howie.
“Oh sure, that’s fine,” replied Kathy. “Come on back.” She led Nick and Howie to one of the examining rooms in the back of the clinic, where she measured Nick’s height and weight, took his vital signs, and drew some blood. “Dr. Kingsbury will be in to see you in a few minutes before you head down to the chemo room for your treatment,” Kathy said when she had finished.
Dr. Kingsbury was quick to arrive that day, making it to the room just a few minutes after Kathy had left. She smiled broadly when she saw Nick, and he watched her eyes travel down to his left leg, which looked perfectly normal hidden beneath his baggy track pants. Surveying it, she nodded, her eyes rising to meet Nick’s. “Looking good,” she said, flashing him a quick thumbs up. “And word is you’re already walking on it without crutches or a cane or anything?”
Nick felt a rush of pride and couldn’t help but smile a little. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s hard, but... you know... I’m getting there.”
“I knew you would,” said Dr. Kingsbury, squeezing his shoulder. “And it’s only been, what, about a month and a half?”
“Little over a month and a half, yeah,” he nodded.
“That’s what I thought. Impressive, Nick, very impressive. I knew we wouldn’t be able to keep you down for long.”
“Oh, you still can,” he countered pessimistically. “I’m sure the chemo’s going to knock me right back down on my ass – sorry, butt – again.”
“You’ll get through it,” Dr. Kingsbury assured him. “Think of this as the last leg of a race. The end is in sight, you’re almost to the finish line, and all you have to do is get past this last stretch. Ever run track in high school?” she added with a smile.
“Nope. Didn’t go to high school,” replied Nick.
“Oh...”
“I was tutored.”
“Ohh. Well, of course,” said the doctor with a little laugh.
Nick sighed. “Yeah, Howie here and Kevin are the only ones who made it through high school in a regular school.”
“Howie, that’s right,” Dr. Kingsbury said, turning her attention to Howie and shaking his hand. “I think we’ve met before.”
“Yes,” said Howie, pumping her arm. “Um, I don’t know what your policy is here, but would it be possible for me to stay with Nick while he gets the chemo?”
Dr. Kingsbury nodded. “Sure. We don’t like to have a lot of extra people in the chemo room, but one visitor would be fine. It’s always good to have family and friends involved in the treatment process.”
Howie smiled. “Well, Nicky’s definitely got his friends. And as for family... well... the guys and I are close enough to be family.”
“Closer than my own family,” added Nick, pasting a fake smile on his face. “You’ve met my mom.”
“Uh... yes, we’ve met,” Dr. Kingsbury said hesitantly.
“Yeah. ‘Nuff said.”
The doctor smiled rather uncomfortably and proceeded to change the subject. “Okay, so, Nick,” she began, pulling up a stool on wheels and sitting down, folding her hands in her lap, “I’m just going to examine you briefly, and then I’ll explain what’s going to happen with the chemotherapy. After that, a nurse will take you down to the chemo room and get you set up there. Sound okay?”
“I guess,” replied Nick. Really, what else was he supposed to say?
***
“You know,” Nick said contemplatively, “this is where Claire and I first met.”
Howie’s eyes traveled in a sweeping circle around the pale yellow chemotherapy room. “Really,” he said. “That’s romantic.”
Nick snorted. “Yeah, for su- Hey! What do you mean ‘romantic’? Why would it matter if it was romantic or not?” he asked defensively, feeling his cheeks grow warm.
Howie grinned at him. “Oh, come on, Nicky... something happened with you two on Friday night. AJ and I both know it – you blushed like a little schoolgirl any time one of us mentioned her name all weekend.”
“Nuh-uh!”
“You did too! Not to mention, you were all ‘who was it??’ whenever the phone rang. Since when do you care about getting phone calls? You’ve been avoiding that thing like the plague for weeks!”
Not knowing quite what to say back to that, Nick pressed his lips together tightly, shook his head, and looked away, pretending to be deeply interested in watching the toxic chemicals leak from the bag hanging on the IV pole beside his chair to the thin tubing that snaked into a vein on the inside of his left arm.
“How are you doing, Nick?”
Tearing his gaze away from the IV, Nick looked up to find that the nurse in charge of monitoring his treatment, Laureen, had come up.
“Okay,” he answered honestly. The drugs had burned a little when they had first started dripping into his vein, but everything felt fine now, and he wasn’t even nauseated yet. Of course, it had only been about ten minutes, and he knew the side effects would start setting in sooner or later.
“Good,” said Laureen. “Call if you need anything.”
She passed by him and went to check the only other patient in the room, a frail-looking elderly man, and Howie leaned forward. “So, tell me, Nicky... what did happen on Friday night?” He had the air of a seventh grade girl just itching to hear the latest batch of junior high gossip, and Nick couldn’t help but laugh.
“Nothing!” he insisted.
“Right. Nothing,” said Howie, winking.
“Shut up,” Nick muttered, growing slightly irritated. He really didn’t feel like confessing to Howie that he and Claire had kissed because although Howie probably wouldn’t give him too much crap about it, he would almost certainly tell AJ, and if AJ knew, the jokes would never end. Nick wasn’t about to talk to anyone about what had happened until he talked to Claire about it, which had not happened yet. “Hey, can you grab that newspaper over there?” he asked Howie, changing the subject.
“Sure.” Getting up from his seat, Howie retrieved a rather crinkled newspaper from a table piled with magazines and brought it over to Nick. “It’s two days old,” he pointed out, looking at the date.
“That’s okay,” said Nick, thumbing through the paper and pretending to be interested.
“Since when do you care about current events?”
“I care! Gotta keep myself informed, you know.”
Howie stifled a laugh. “Yeah. Right.”
Ignoring him, Nick glossed over the obituaries, remembering how as a child he had liked to read them, his morbid curiosity only heightened by living in a retirement home. Death was no longer an innocent fascination to him now though; instead, it was a fear that hit too close to home. Death did not just happen to old people; it could snatch away anyone, even young people with decades of life left to live. So he quickly turned the page to a much less depressing section, the birth announcements.
He smiled at the black and white pictures of newborns that graced the page and was about to flip on when a name caught his eye. His heart skipping a beat, he leaned forward to look more closely and felt an empty, sinking feeling as he read one of the announcements.
David Hammond and Leah Gaylers of Tampa are announcing the birth of their first child, a daughter, Elaina Jesimae Hammond, on April 13, 2004 at Tampa General Hospital. She weighed 7 pounds, 3 ounces and measured 19 inches at her 6:06 pm birth. Grandparents are Arthur and Joan Hammond of Tampa, and Ed and Lori Gaylers of Ruskin.
“Elaina,” Nick whispered under his breath, staring at the small, blurry photograph of an infant baby girl pictured beside the brief announcement. Leah’s baby. His baby, he’d once thought.
“But just wait till our baby comes. Elaina...” Whispering the potential name, Leah rested her hand on her stomach beneath the covers.
“Terra,” Nick countered playfully.
“Cassandra.”
“Lara.”
She reached out and slapped him lightly in the darkness. “I told you, we’re not naming her after Lara Cr-“ But her sentence was cut off by a sudden gasp.
“Leah? What is it?” Nick asked, rolling to face her. “Are you-“
“Nicky!” she whispered. “Feel!” He felt her hand grab his underneath the covers and guide it to her stomach. He laid it there and felt her hand come to rest on top of his.
“What am I feeling for?” he whispered back.
“She kicked! Just wait a minute, maybe she’ll do it again.”
He waited, holding his breath, his fingertips tingling in anticipation. And then, it happened. He felt movement from inside Leah’s belly, two jerky palpitations. “Oh my God,” he breathed. “She is kicking!”
“Nick? What is it?” Howie’s voice made the memory fade away, and Nick shook his head.
“That’s her,” he said softly, holding out the paper to Howie and pointing at the picture. “Leah’s baby. Elaina...”
“Oh.” Howie pursed his lips, studying the picture. “Did you know she’d had the baby?”
“Nope. She had it in this hospital though... while I was here...” he murmured, almost wistfully, reminiscing on happier times.
“Are you okay?” Howie asked, gently touching Nick’s shoulder. “I know it’s gotta be hard, man...”
Nick shrugged away. “I’m fine,” he replied curtly.
But it would not be long until he was not fine, not at all. When he left the clinic later that day, it was slumped in a wheelchair, barely able to control his nausea, let alone walk.
“Hold on, Nicky,” Howie kept saying on the ride home. “We’re almost there.”
But as he leaned his head against the cool glass of the car window and shut his eyes, all Nick could think was, here we go again...
***
