Satisfied with this knowledge, Nick decided he should probably get out of bed. He forced himself to sit up and was immediately met by a flood of dizziness. Putting his hands behind him to support himself, he closed his eyes and waited for it to pass. He was growing used to the dizzy spells, for they had been happening on and off for over a week now. Most likely just another pleasant side effect of the chemotherapy. He wasn’t too concerned.
Opening his eyes to find that the room had stopped spinning, Nick gradually scooted to the edge of the bed and swung his leg over the side. He sat there for a moment, working up to the point of actually standing up. He stifled a tired yawn and absently raked his hand through his flattened hair. Something didn’t feel quite right, and when he held up his hand, he saw why. Woven between his fingers were numerous strands of his dark blonde hair. His heart sinking, his hand drifted back to his head, and he halfheartedly pulled on a thin lock of hair. Resisting only a little, it slid out in his hand.
“Shit,” he whispered, staring at the hair in his hand. Curling his lip in repulsion, he gave the hand a shake and watched the thin strands of hair float to the floor. Then he flopped roughly backward so that he was lying flat on his back once more, staring at the ceiling. His eyes began to burn as unexpected tears welled up, and he blinked furiously. Why was he getting so upset? He had known this would probably happen, just as it had before. Nothing new there. Still, it bothered him, and when he finally sat back up and caught sight of his pillow, which was strewn with stray hairs that had come out during his restless sleep, he could not stop the tears from falling.
“You loser,” he muttered in a choked voice, disgusted with himself, vaguely remembering how he had broken down and cried the first time this had happened as well. Déjà vu. He thought of the movie Groundhog Day, where the same day kept happening over and over again. Was this what his life had become, an endless cycle of misery that just kept repeating itself? What, was he going to go to the doctor next week to find that the cancer had somehow spread to his other leg?
Groaning, Nick forced himself to stand up, hastily grabbing his crutches from where they were propped up beside his bed. Tucking them under his arms, he limped into the bathroom, letting the door swing closed behind him. Setting the crutches aside and leaning heavily on the counter, he turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on his face. As the water dripped down his cheeks, he met his own eyes in the mirror and critically studied his reflection. His skin was ghostly pale, and his haggard appearance, only accented by the dark bags that hung under his red-rimmed eyes, made him look like a drug addict. Well, no matter; once his hair fell out, he’d look like what he really was – a cancer patient.
Backing up on his crutches, he turned to catch a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Turning to face the mirror, he stared at himself with increasing aversion, detesting himself and the way he looked. The man in the mirror was anything but the teen idol and heartthrob he had once been, the Nick Carter whose smiling face had graced the covers of all the hottest teen magazines just a few years earlier, at the height of success. No, the man in the mirror was someone entirely different, a mere shadow of the old Nick Carter, the charred ruins of his former self.
His eyes traveled slowly, loathingly, down his mirror image. He looked like hell, but of course it wasn't his wan and disheveled appearance that bothered him. What caught his eye, as it always did, was the pinned-up left leg of his baggy pajama bottoms, which hid his stump, but did not hide the fact that he was missing most of his leg. That he was disfigured, damaged, flawed. No longer Mr. Perfect Backstreet Boy, no angel, not even an ordinary man.
He was a freak.
Feeling his blood pressure rise as he gazed upon his own reflection in hatred, he let out an animalistic cry and heaved one of his crutches at the mirror. Seemingly in slow motion, he watched the metal crutch strike the glass, which shattered on impact, sending a waterfall of shards flying. Instinctively, his right hand flew to cover his face, while he clutched to his remaining crutch with the left, struggling to keep from falling over. In a matter of seconds, though, he inevitably found himself in a twisted heap on the floor, his crutches scattered amid a carpet of broken glass.
Looking first at the glittering floor and then up to the empty frame of the fractured mirror, to which only a few large pieces of glass clung, he surveyed the damage he had done with the air of an innocent onlooker. Then, letting his eyes fall again, he stared at the floor once more, sitting numb and unmoving, with the exception of his heaving chest.
He did not even realize he was bleeding until he noticed the floor turning red with the warm, sticky blood that flowed freely from a deep cut on the inside of his right wrist. Holding his arm up, he gazed blankly at the wound for a moment, then let it limply fall. It was bleeding all over his leg now, staining his pants, but he hardly noticed and certainly did not care.
Others cared though, and they came running with the sound of the crash. “Nicky?!” Howie called, flinging the door open and sending another piece of the fragile mirror to splinter against the ceramic floor. “Oh my gosh! Nick! What happened?!”
Nick looked up guiltily at Howie’s wide-eyed face. “I broke the mirror,” he mumbled.
“What? What happened?” AJ’s face appeared over Howie’s shoulder as he tried to see into the bathroom.
“He broke the- Nick, you’re bleeding!” Dashing into the room, the glass crunching beneath his shoes, Howie squatted beside Nick. “Let me see,” he said, gingerly picking up Nick’s wrist and inspecting the cut. He drew in a breath and said shakily, “AJ, get a towel.” AJ nodded and started to step into the room when Howie gasped and cried, “No, not without shoes! Forget it, I’ll get one.” While AJ ran off to get some shoes, Howie jumped up and dug a hand towel out of one of the cabinets. He wrapped it tightly around Nick’s wrist and pressed it down hard. “What happened, Nicky?” he asked again, quietly this time.
“I told you. I broke the mirror,” Nick said lamely. “My bad.”
“No, Nick... what happened? Why did you break the mirror?”
Nick shrugged. “I dunno,” he muttered. The last thing he was about to do was tell Howie that he hated himself and have to endure some motivational speech on self-esteem.
Howie sighed and looked away, shaking his head in exasperation. Luckily AJ came back just in time to break up the awkward silence.
“Damn, Kaos,” he muttered, crunching his way into the bathroom and closing the door to inspect the broken mirror. “What did the mirror ever do to you?”
It wasn’t the mirror; it was what was in the mirror, Nick thought, but decided against voicing that. It was the kind of response that would elicit that whole self-esteem spiel. So he just kept quiet until he heard AJ gasp.
“Shit, you’re bleeding a lot!”
Startled, Nick looked down to see that the blood was seeping through the folded over hand towel, staining the pale green terrycloth dark reddish brown.
“It’s not stopping,” said Howie. Glancing up at AJ for counsel, he added, “It looked like a pretty deep cut. Do you think he needs stitches?”
Staring at the blood-soaked towel, AJ backed away, looking slightly woozy. “Damn, man, how would I know? Shit that’s a lot of blood.”
“You’re such a pussy, J,” Nick muttered with a smirk. Then again, he was feeling a little woozy too, now that he thought about it. His eyes traveled down to his towel-encased wrist. Shit, that was a lot of blood.
Howie carefully peeled the sodden towel away. “Yeah, AJ, it’s definitely not stopping. Grab me another towel, would you?”
“I think maybe stitches would be good,” AJ said shakily, grabbing another towel from the cabinet, which Howie then swapped with the bloody one.
“No stitches,” Nick said quickly.
“It looked deep, Nick. And it’s bleeding pretty bad. I think we should take you to the emergency room,” said Howie, putting even more pressure on his wrist.
“No. It’ll be fine,” countered Nick stubbornly.
Howie shook his head. “This could be serious, Nick. Come on, we’re going to the hospital. AJ, go find the wheelchair, there’s no way he’s getting out of here on crutches.”
“No!” cried Nick. “Get my pros-“
“Forget it, Nicky,” Howie interrupted. “Here, keep pressure on this. I’ll go get you a shirt and some shoes.”
“Shoe,” Nick corrected bitterly, wincing as he pushed against his wrist.
But, disappearing into the bedroom, Howie pretended not to hear him.
***
