Sometimes he still caught paparazzi or fans lurking on the edge of his property, and he knew all the major magazines and networks were itching to get an exclusive interview with him. They had been calling nonstop for weeks and weeks, and when he did actually pick up the phone – which was rare – he always told them no. Not yet, anyway. Maybe in the future, when he was in remission and looking normal again, he would make appearances and talk about his experience. It was not something he wanted to do; it was something he knew he should do. For the fans.
He knew they were worried about him; he had gotten tons of cards in the mail and presents and flowers sent to his home from the obsessive fans who knew where he lived. And according to Jive, his fan club had gotten millions more cards and get-well gifts, some of which had been forwarded to him. He was appreciative of the support and wanted to give something back, but not now.
The truth was, superficial as it sounded, the thing that bothered him the most was what the fans would think if they got a good look at him. He looked nothing like the blonde, blue-eyed, baby-faced Nick Carter they were used to. If he had looked bad at his TRL appearance, it was nothing compared to how he looked now.
He had weighed himself that morning, just for kicks, and calculated how much weight he had lost since his diagnosis. It had to be around thirty pounds. Add that to the twenty-five he had lost over the course of his tour (which seemed like decades ago, but had really only been about three months), and he had lost close to sixty pounds total. No one could call him fat anymore.
His clothes hung loose and baggy on his lanky frame, and he had been forced to buy new pants to accommodate his thinner waistline. His stomach, which he had always been horribly insecure about, no longer stuck out (which meant AJ could no longer poke him and go “Hoo hoo!” like the Pillsbury Doughboy, a great disappointment for sure). It was flat now, and when he had used to be able to pinch rolls of fat away from it, he could now only come up with folds of loose skin. His arms were like sticks, and his face had thinned considerably, to the point of looking gaunt. His cheeks were hollow, and his skin was a pasty shade of white.
With his newly-bald head, he thought he looked like an old man, not the vibrant twenty-three-year-old he had once been. All he needed now was a cane, and some days, he didn’t think that was such a bad idea. The fracture in his leg had healed now, but the bone was still weak from the tumor that had eaten away at it, and it still gave him pain. Some days, when his leg was throbbing, and his stomach was churning with nausea from the chemo, even getting out of bed seemed an impossible task.
But today, it was different. For the first time in a week, he actually felt pretty good. His appetite hadn’t quite returned yet, and he was still very weak from the seven torturous days he had barfed his way through, but hiding out in the house just didn’t sound too appealing that day. For a moment, he considered calling up some of the guys and going out that night... but then his thoughts drifted back to his grim appearance and the vultures who continually stalked him, and he grew doubtful.
Sighing, he got up and wandered into the kitchen. He opened up the refrigerator and saw a jug of lemonade sitting on the top shelf, practically beckoning to him. He pulled it out, poured himself a glass, and sat down at the table to drink it and think.
Jiggling the glass so that the ice clunked against the sides, he contemplated his options. Go out with the guys and risk getting recognized, harassed, and mobbed? Or stay home by himself and be bored to tears?
Lifting the glass to his lips, he tipped it back and took a large drink of the cold lemonade. But as soon as he swished the tart yellow liquid around in his mouth, he knew it was a mistake. He had forgotten the most recent side effect of the new chemo he had been put on - canker sores. Lots of them - big ones - had formed on his gums and the inside of his cheeks. They had not been so noticeable while he was on chemo and not eating, but the sour lemonade made the them sting horribly.
Wincing in pain, he impulsively spit out the lemonade, letting it spray all over his kitchen table, and hurried over to take a sip of water from the faucet to rinse his mouth. He dumped the rest of his lemonade down the drain and then walked back to his table, which was now wet with sticky lemonade.
“Shit,” he muttered, sighing heavily as he looked down upon the mess he had made. And that’s when he knew he had to get out of the house. He couldn’t take it anymore; he needed to escape, to go somewhere and take his mind off all the crap.
Not bothering to clean up the lemonade, he took off for his “office,” which served no purpose except to house his laptop, which lay untouched on the desk he rarely sat at. But he sat there now and rummaged through the drawers in search of his address book. He found the thin, navy blue leather book, pulled it out, and flipped it open, leafing through the pages until he found Brent’s phone number. Picking up the phone, he punched in the digits and listened to the phone ring.
“Hello?” Brent answered finally.
Nick cleared his throat. “Hey. It’s me, Nick.”
“Nick!” Brent sounded surprised to hear from him, and Nick couldn’t blame him. The two hadn’t talked or seen each other in quite awhile. After Brent found out about Nick’s cancer, their friendship had seemed to taper off. Nick knew it was half his fault for never getting in touch with Brent, but he couldn’t help but wonder if Brent wanted it that way, if he wanted to distance himself from Nick. If that was true, well... again, Nick couldn’t blame him. It hurt, oh yes, but he also understood. It had to be hard to sit there and watch one your closest friends slowly deteriorate from a scary thing like cancer.
Nick remembered feeling sort of the same way after Brian’s heart surgery five years earlier... after the surgery, he would have avoided that hospital like the plague if Kevin and the others had let him, but of course, they didn’t, forcing him to come along on their daily visits. Nick remembered vividly the awkwardness he felt, perched in a stiff-backed chair as far away from Brian’s bed as he could get, barely even making small talk with the man that was his best friend. It wasn’t Brian that was the problem; it was what had happened to Brian. It had scared Nick to death, seeing Brian so pale and weak and imagining someone actually cutting into his chest, into his heart. He felt horribly guilty, but he couldn’t deny the fact that just being around Brian freaked him out. This had lasted for about a week, and once it began to sink in that Brian really was all right, he had begun to relax, and their relationship had gone back to normal.
Nick was hoping the same thing would happen with him and Brent (and his other friends as well). That was another reason he was calling – he hoped that hanging out with Brent would help prove to his friend that he was all right, that he was still the same old Nick, despite the fact that he looked like a freak.
“Hey,” Nick said again with a little chuckle. “Wassup?”
“Oh, uh, not too much, man. How about you? How’s it going?” Brent asked casually, making standard small talk. Nick smiled a little on his end of line, knowing instinctively that “How’s it going?” meant so much more than that. It meant, “how are you feeling”... “no, how are you really feeling?”... “how’s your cancer?”... “are you getting better?”... “are you dying?”... “how are you dealing?” and so on.
“Okay,” Nick replied, knowing that saying, “Oh, it’s going good” would both be and sound like a total lie.
“That’s good.”
“Yeah... so anyway, you doin’ anything tonight?” Nick asked, deciding just to get to the point and not bother with the strained small talk any longer.
“Oh... um...” There was a long pause, and finally Brent said, “yeah... me and some of the guys are gonna hit a few clubs and stuff.”
“Sounds like a good time,” commented Nick, expecting to be invited along. He knew that if he was working or on tour and called Brent up on a free night in Tampa, he would be asked to go with them in a heartbeat. But that was not the case this time.
“Yeah, well, you know...” Brent trailed off unenthusiastically. “It’ll be the same old, same old. Lots of drinking and dancing with the chicks and stuff...” He was trying to make it sound uninteresting, probably so that Nick wouldn’t want to come. Nick knew how that kind of thing worked.
“Yeah,” he played along. “I’m sure you’ll have a good time though.”
“We’ll see,” replied Brent, then added hurriedly, “too bad you can’t come. I know you’re not supposed to drink, and I’m sure you don’t feel up to going out dancing and stuff.”
“Yeah,” Nick said hollowly and did not elaborate. He considered insisting that he did feel up to going out and inviting himself along, but it was apparent that Brent didn’t want him to go. And when he thought about it, Brent was probably right. He now knew firsthand why he wasn’t supposed to drink while on chemo, and he sure as hell didn’t want to repeat that experience. And spending the night in an array of equally stuffy, crowded clubs didn’t sound all that appealing either. He wanted to go out, but that wasn’t quite what he had had in mind.
Suddenly, he didn’t feel like talking much anymore. “Well, I gotta go now,” he said quickly to Brent. “Just wanted to call and say hey.”
“That’s okay,” replied Brent. “I gotta go anyway. Talk to ya later, dude.”
He hung up with a click, and so did Nick, a range of emotions brewing within him. Angry, hurt, and left out, he shoved the address book back into his drawer and slammed it shut. There was no use trying Lane, James, or Frank; they were surely some of “the guys” Brent had mentioned.
So much for going out that night.
He supposed he’d just stay at home with his dogs and his Gamecube after all.
Maybe he’d order a pizza. Or maybe he’d just heat up a frozen one to avoid scaring away the pizza delivery boy.
All alone with a box of pizza, a stack of video games, and his pugs for company. How sad.
That thought just depressed him, so he yanked open his desk drawer once more, determined to find someone to hang out with that night. But as he paged through the address book, he realized that Brent, Lane, James, and Frank were pretty much the only close friends he had nearby anymore.
It was hard to keep friends when you were a celebrity; he had found that out the hard way. Not that he had ever had a lot of friends anyway; in fact, he had been something of a social reject growing up, always picked on and excluded from his classmates at school. His best friends had been, for the most part, his siblings. Sad, but true. But that made it even better when he had become a Backstreet Boy – he had gained not only a career and fame, but four best friends and “brothers” and the privilege of being able to gloat at the people who had tormented him as a child. Too bad he wasn’t so lucky anymore...
With a sigh, Nick slowly slid the address book back into its drawer and started to close it, resigning himself to the “pizza, Nintendo, dogs” idea. But then he was hit with an idea. Tossing the address book aside, he hoisted out the fat, heavy, Tampa phonebook instead and flipped it open. He found what he was looking for, picked up the phone again, and started dialing.
***
