In the middle of September, at the height of all this publicity, he got a call from Aaron. It was a nice surprise, for he had not even spoken with his younger brother since March, when Aaron and their father had come to stay for a weekend. After Jane had come and gone at the very end of March, Nick had been completely isolated from his true family. He’d done all right without them – AJ, Howie, Brian, Kevin, and Claire had more then compensated – but as soon as he heard Aaron’s familiar voice, it hit him how much he had missed the kid.
It was hard for one to call him and Aaron close, for besides being almost eight years apart in age, the two brothers had always spent a great deal of time apart, ever since the Backstreet Boys had started to gain popularity overseas, and Nick’s life had turned into a seemingly endless spiral of touring and work. When Aaron’s own music career had gotten off the ground, and he, too, had hit the road, it had become even more difficult to arrange visits. And yet, despite this, Nick and Aaron had always had a special bond. Maybe it was due to the fact that they were the only boys in the family, or maybe it was because of everything they had in common, namely a passion and talent for music.
Whatever the case was, the two of them had always seemed to understand each other. And even though so many things had changed over the past few months, that was one thing that hadn’t. Nick knew it as soon as he hung up after a half-hour-long conversation with his brother. Aaron had not been himself on the phone. The normally outgoing and talkative teenager was unnaturally quiet and withdrawn, and when he had spoken, even though he hadn’t really come out and said it, he had sounded thoroughly apologetic. Guilt-ridden, actually.
And Nick understood.
Aaron had not been in touch with him since March, had not called or even emailed him once in the past six months. Some would call him selfish, uncaring. But Nick knew that was not the case. Putting himself in his brother’s shoes, he tried to understand what Aaron must have been going through these past few months. The kid had always idolized Nick, sort of like how Nick had always looked up to Kevin, who, when he joined the Backstreet Boys at the age of twenty-one, had seemed so suave and knowledgeable and all-around grown-up to the then thirteen-year-old Nick.
Nick tried to imagine what it would be like to have to watch Kevin go through what he had gone through. Although he hated what had happened to him, he would never wish it upon anyone else, especially Kevin. Watching his oldest brother break under the burden of cancer would be worse than suffering through it himself. If it had been Kevin, or any of the guys, instead of him, what would he have done? What would he have said?
He thought back to the old days, before his diagnosis. Sickness, disease, deformity... it had always scared him, in a way, made him uncomfortable. All the times he and the Boys had visited children in hospitals or met terminally ill kids through the Make-a-Wish Foundation, a part of him had been terrified. It had always made him happy to see smiles brighten the faces of the children, but at the same time, his heart had ached for them, and deep inside, he’d been afraid. Not afraid of them, but afraid of what they had to go through and of what could happen to them.
His thoughts turned to another memory, one that had occurred shortly before he had received his own diagnosis. Two days before, in fact. He’d been in the hospital, undergoing tests which would lead to the finding of Ewing’s sarcoma, and he had run into a girl in the elevator...
An orderly was waiting in the hall to take Nick back to his room. He pushed Nick in his wheelchair down to an elevator bank at the end of the hallway. When the doors to one of the elevators slid open, Nick was relieved to see that the elevator was virtually empty; the only occupant was a young woman dressed in a light yellow robe and leopard-print slippers. She had an IV pole standing beside her and a hot pink scarf wrapped around her head, contrasting sharply with her pale skin. Nick knew automatically what was wrong with her.
She had cancer.
Nick had visited sick children in hospitals many times with the Backstreet Boys and alone (it had been part of his community service following his arrest the year before), and he was well aware of how to recognize a cancer patient. And though he had met many of them, the sight of those ghostly, gaunt faces and bald heads still made him uncomfortable. He loved meeting such people and making them happy; he hated the disease they had. It scared him, to be honest.
He gave the woman a slight smile, which she returned unselfconsciously. He realized then that he probably didn’t look much better off than she did, dressed in his hospital gown and sitting in a wheelchair. It was almost as if he were one of her... one of them...
Well, sorry, but that ain’t true, Nick thought dismissively. I’m gonna be out of here in another day or two, and everything’s gonna be just fine...
Of course, it hadn’t been fine, and in just a matter of days, he had found himself face to face with that very same young woman once again, this time in the chemotherapy room, as he received his first treatment for his newly-diagnosed cancer. How quickly his attitude had changed.
But even now, he remembered the way he’d once seen things, when he had just been a normal, healthy guy (or so he thought). And he understood his younger brother’s absence in his life these past six months. It had to have been hard for Aaron to imagine the brother he’d hero-worshipped for his whole childhood laid up in bed with only one leg. To think of the Backstreet Boy whose footsteps he had followed in reduced to the life of a cripple, an amputee. And assuming he had picked up the phone or opened a blank email, what would Aaron have said? What was a person supposed to say in that kind of situation?
Going back to his previous comparison, if it had been Kevin (or Howie or Brian or AJ), Nick didn’t know what he would have said or done. For a brief moment, it almost seemed as if he’d had the easy way out. He’d had to deal with physical pain and hardship far beyond anything the others had gone through, and his emotional pain had been intense as well. But he realized now that on the inside, the people who loved him had to have been suffering too.
The guys had hidden it well, refusing to let it get in the way of being there for Nick. But Aaron was not like them. At sixteen, he was still practically a child, wise beyond his years in some ways, but still young and innocent in others. He had not experienced the hardships and tragedies that the others had gone through, and Nick knew that he just didn’t know how to react. He could only imagine the internal battles the teen had been fighting over the last few months and understood the guilt he was feeling now.
But in a way, Nick felt guilty too. He’d thought mostly of himself these past six months. For a long time, he had wallowed in self-pity. This was the first time he’d really sat down and thought about what it had been like for the people who cared about him. The realization came to him that maybe he should have made the first move. He should have been the one to call Aaron months ago and talk to his brother, offer him some reassurance.
He recalled the first time Aaron had seen him after finding out about his initial diagnosis. It had been in the hospital the previous summer, when he’d nearly died of pneumonia. He remembered how timid and hesitant his brother had seemed. That side of Aaron had to have been greatly magnified by the thought of amputation. After all, serious as it was, cancer was something that could go away, vanish and leave no traces. Amputation was not. He could be cured from cancer for fifty years, and he would still never get his leg back. Unlike the disease that had caused it, the amputation was permanent. He would never be the same because of it, and that must have scared Aaron.
The revelation of all this, the understanding of Aaron’s feelings, made Nick determined to get things back to normal between him and his brother. Aaron had made the first move by finally calling him. Now it was Nick’s turn, and he started by inviting Aaron to Florida for a visit at the beginning of October. He felt certain that it would do the teen good to encounter him face to face, to see with his own eyes that Nick, although changed, was still the same guy he’d known and looked up to his entire life.
He had expected some hesitation on Aaron’s behalf, but his brother surprised him by agreeing immediately. Plans were made quickly, plane tickets were purchased, and not long after getting off the phone with Aaron, Nick was opening up his planner to the Saturday that Aaron was due to fly in to Tampa. He was dismayed to find that he already had something written down under that day – Dr. appt. 10:00, he’d scribbled in red ink three months earlier. He frowned; Aaron’s flight was due to arrive at 10:30. He’d never make it.
Shrugging, he took a black pen and scribbled out the appointment. Pick up AC – 10:30, he wrote in large letters and slammed the planner shut with a smile. The doctor’s appointment could wait, he decided. His brother was more important.
***
