I barely slept that night. I was exhausted, but the conversation with Nick had left me wide awake, my mind racing.
After he went to bed, I unpacked my laptop and used his wireless to get online. I googled the type of lymphoma he said he’d been diagnosed with and read all the statistics about it. They weren’t very encouraging.
I finally crawled into bed, expecting to pass out as soon as my head hit the pillow, but even though I’d been awake almost twenty-four hours, I tossed and turned, unable to sleep. The bed in Nick’s guest room was comfortable, but I couldn’t stop thinking long enough to relax. Oh my God, I’m in Nick Carter’s condo had turned into, Oh my God, Nick Carter has cancer.
At some point, I must have finally drifted off because the next thing I knew, it was light in my room. Bleary-eyed, I gazed across the room, not recognizing anything at first. Then, with a jolt, I remembered where I was and sat up, the covers falling off me. I looked around for a clock, wondering what time it was, but I didn’t see one. My body felt heavy, my mind groggy, like I’d woken abruptly from a deep sleep. My head pounded, and I remembered how buzzed I’d been the night before, bouncing around in the back of the cab with Nick, then breaking down into tears and throwing myself at him when he’d told me he was sick.
I hadn’t forgotten that part either, and the memory of it woke me right up. I felt worried and embarrassed, sick with the realization of what I’d agreed to do. I wished I could go back to sleep and forget it all, but now that I was awake, there was no way I was going to be able to fall asleep again. With a sigh, I dragged myself out of bed and pulled on the pair of shorts I’d left on the floor the night before. I always slept in just a t-shirt and my underwear; I couldn’t handle pants. They always got twisted up when I rolled around in bed.
I was grateful for the connecting door into the guest bathroom, eager to get a look at myself in the mirror and do damage control before I let Nick see the morning version of me. I stumbled in, turned on the light, and grimaced when I saw my reflection. My hair looked like a rat’s nest, and my face was washed out without makeup. I found my brush and did my best to tame and untangle my hair, finally pulling it back into a bushy ponytail. I brushed my teeth to get rid of my morning breath before I finally dared to venture out of the bedroom.
The moment I opened the door, I got hit with the enticing smell of brewing coffee and frying bacon. It was such a heavenly combination, I couldn’t help but follow it, still in my pajamas, right to the kitchen. Nick was there, his back to me, in a pair of pajama pants himself. He had a shirt on this time, but it was just a plain white wifebeater, and I found my eyes running up and down his bare, tattooed arms and broad shoulders, watching him tending to something on the stove. Stop it, I scolded myself, when I realized what I was doing.
I cleared my throat, and he turned around. “Hey,” he said, one corner of his mouth jerking up into a half-smile.
I managed a smile back. “Morning. Whatever you’re cooking smells great.”
He stepped out of the way of the stove. There was bacon sizzling in one pan, scrambled eggs cooking in another. “Hope you’re hungry.”
If I hadn’t been before, I was then. I nodded eagerly.
“Coffee?” he asked, pulling the pot out of his coffee maker.
“Please.”
“How do you like it?”
“Um - with cream, if you’ve got it.”
“No problem.”
As he poured me a cup and added some creamer from his refrigerator, I noticed the time on his microwave clock. It was still early, just after nine o’clock. I’d only slept a few hours. No wonder I felt so groggy. I accepted the warm mug of coffee he handed me gratefully and took a sip, hoping the caffeine would make up for the lack of sleep.
“Did you sleep okay?” he asked, as he went back to the stove.
“It took me a while to fall asleep,” I admitted, “but once I did, yeah, I slept fine.”
He was quiet for a minute, turning the bacon, stirring the scrambled eggs. Then he turned around to face me again. “Look, I’m sorry... about last night...” he said awkwardly. “I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that. I just... didn’t know how else to do it... and I figured if I was drunk, maybe it’d be easier...”
I shrugged. “You don’t have to apologize. It would have shocked me no matter how you said it.”
He nodded. “Yeah, well... sorry for any awkwardness.”
I shifted my weight, remembering the shirtless hug. “Me too.”
He turned back to the stove, checked the food once more, and shut off the burners. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to his dining room table. As I went to sit down, I wondered how often he actually ate there. “You want toast?” he called from the kitchen.
“Sure!”
I watched him move around the kitchen, getting out a loaf of bread, adding two slices to his toaster. After another minute, he asked, “You want anything else to drink? Milk? OJ?”
“Orange juice would be great.”
He poured two glasses of juice and brought them into the dining room, setting one down in front of me and the other across from me. Then he returned to the kitchen, and when he came back, he was carrying two plates, loaded with eggs, bacon, and toast. “Crap, I forgot the silverware,” he groaned, as he put the plates down. “Hang on a sec.”
I followed him into the kitchen. “Do you have butter? For the toast?”
“Oh shit, that too. Fridge.”
I opened his refrigerator and found a bucket of spreadable margarine. “Anything else we’re forgetting?”
“I think we’re good.”
We went back into the dining room and sat down. For a few minutes, we were quiet, buttering our toast, tasting the food. “You’re a good cook,” I said, unable to hide the tone of surprise in my voice.
He smirked. “What, didn’t think I could cook? I’m a bachelor; what else am I supposed to do?”
What happened to his girlfriend? I wondered, but didn’t ask. We’d had enough awkward conversations already. “I dunno, live on pizza and take-out like other bachelors do?”
He laughed. “Been there, done that. I’ve been tryin’ to eat better the last couple years, though, so I learned how to make my own food. Not that this is exactly healthy...” He looked down at his plate of bacon shining with grease, eggs scrambled with cheese, and toast smothered with melting better. “I’ve been tryin’ to eat a lot before I start a new chemo cycle, in case I can’t keep anything down after that.”
I watched him toy with his fork in sympathy. “Have you been getting pretty sick from it?”
“The first cycle, not at all. The second cycle was bad. But they alternate, so maybe this next one will be okay.”
“I hope so.” I raised a forkful of scrambled eggs to my mouth. Swallowing, I asked, “When do you start the next one?”
“Today.”
I nearly dropped my fork. “Today? Does that mean you expect me to start today too?”
He blinked. “Well... I thought we should make sure it works out okay before tour... so, yeah...?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Gee, thanks for the advance notice.”
“Sorry,” he said, with a crooked smile. “I’m kind of a procrastinator, if you couldn’t tell.”
“You, who waited six weeks to tell anyone about your cancer, a procrastinator? Um, yeah... I could tell.”
He offered another sheepish smile. “Are you mad?”
“No,” I sighed. “And I’m not usually this sarcastic either; I’m sorry. I’m just trying to get used to this whole idea.”
He nodded. “I feel ya. It’s been six weeks - seven, really - and I still wake up wishing it was all just a bad dream.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. He was making me feel sorry for him again - not that it was hard. I didn’t want to pity him, but he was as nice a guy as he’d always seemed, and he didn’t deserve to be in this predicament, sick and trying to hide it from everyone he loved. Even if I didn’t agree with him, I still felt sympathy for him.
We finished breakfast and cleared up the dishes together. Then Nick said, “I wanna grab a shower before you start the first infusion. It takes three hours, and I have to have it twice today.”
Wow, he really is serious about starting this today, I thought, feeling a surge of panic. “You have all the equipment to do this?” I asked, skeptical and hoping to stall.
“I think so. Wanna check it out and make sure?”
I nodded faintly, and he took me into his bedroom, which was a mess - tangled sheets hanging off the huge, unmade bed, dirty clothes lying all over the floor, a musty smell lingering in the air. It was what I’d expect a teenage boy’s room to look like, only much bigger and more maturely decorated. At least he didn’t have posters of cars and hot babes in swimsuits on his walls.
“Sorry, it’s a mess in here,” said Nick, after I’d had a chance to look around. He disappeared into his giant, walk-in closet - I peeked in curiously after him - and emerged carrying a big, plastic tub. He took it back to the dining room, set it down on the table, and pried off the lid. “Hopefully everything you need is in here. Schedule... instructions...” He handed me a packet of paper that had been laying on top. I skimmed over it, relieved to find a neatly-printed schedule of his chemo regimen, detailing which drugs he should receive when, how, and how much.
Noticing a doctor’s name on the schedule, I said, “Why don’t you go take your shower and give me a chance to look through all of this?”
“Okay,” he agreed. “Make yourself at home.”
He disappeared back into his bedroom. I waited a few minutes, looking over the other contents of the tub, and when I heard the shower start, I grabbed the chemo schedule and my cell phone and snuck back into the guest bedroom. I closed the door, sat down on the bed, and looked at the letterhead on the piece of paper in my hand. UCLA Santa Monica Hematology and Oncology, it said, and below was an address, phone and fax numbers, and the name of a physician, Chanda Subramanien, M.D.
I hesitated only a few seconds. Then I dialed the number on the paper and asked to speak with Dr. Subramanien.
***
Nick’s doctor was a polite Indian woman who told me in no uncertain terms that she thought his plan was suicide.
“It’s not just that he wants to receive chemo at home,” she explained. “Although it’s not common for it to be administered completely outside a hospital setting, I did find an article about the benefits of home chemotherapy in patients who would otherwise be noncompliant with their treatment. As long as you feel comfortable giving the chemo as instructed and monitoring Mr. Carter’s blood counts, I see no problem with him choosing home care.
“My concern is this tour he’s planning to go on,” she continued briskly. “I warned him of the dangers of being around large crowds of people with a suppressed immune system. Perhaps if you could get him to agree to wear a mask...”
Fat chance, I thought doubtfully, knowing Nick would never be seen wearing a surgical mask when he was trying to hide his illness. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “The tour doesn’t start for another couple weeks. Maybe I can convince him to change his mind.”
“I hope so,” she said solemnly. “Otherwise, I worry this treatment will kill him before it has a chance to save him.”
***
