It’s funny the way time works when you’re looking forward to something. It doesn’t count down in steady increments - or, at least, it doesn’t seem that way. It passes slowly at first, and it feels like that big day, that special moment, will never come. And then, all of a sudden, it speeds up, and before you know it, that day, that moment, is here.
Five minutes before my first performance, I stood backstage, listening to the sound of the crowd on the other side of the curtain and thinking, I can’t believe I’m here. I can’t believe I’m about to do this.
The audience was noisy. I could hear the buzz of excited voices chattering and singing along to the dance music blasting through the theater. Even after American Idol, it still felt weird to be back here and not out there, the performer rather than the fan. I’d performed many times before, but this was a Backstreet Boys concert, and I was a Backstreet Boys fan. It blew my mind to think I was about to open their show. Just like when Nick had first called me to make his offer, the whole thing felt surreal.
I was hyperaware of my body, my racing heart, my shaky knees, my sweating palms. I always got super nervous before a show, and it wasn’t until I started singing that I could settle down. Up until that point, I psyched myself out with horrible thoughts like, What if I trip in these heels and totally faceplant onstage? What if my fingers are too slippery for the strings or the keys? What if I forget my lyrics, or my voice breaks?
I was in the middle of doing this when I felt a heavy hand press down on my shoulder, and it startled me so much, I jumped in my heels. “Sorry,” laughed Nick from behind me. I whirled around to see him grinning. “You doin’ okay? You ready?”
He was chewing on something. He’d been grazing on the catered spread backstage all evening, whereas I’d been too nervous to eat a thing. But I remembered the steak dinner he’d taken me out for the night he’d broken the news about his cancer to me, the night before he’d started his last cycle of chemo, and I realized he was doing it again, packing away as much as he could in case he couldn’t keep anything down the next day. I wondered how he could even think about the show tonight with that looming on his agenda tomorrow, but then, I’d managed to forget it for a time, too. I wished I hadn’t thought of it now; it made my good-kind-of-nervous feel like a bad-kind-of-nervous. My stomach joined the rest of my body, and I felt almost sick. But I forced myself to smile tightly back and reply, “I hope so.”
He squeezed my shoulder again. “You’ll be fine. You’ll be awesome.”
“Thanks.”
He flashed me another grin. “Go get ‘em.”
It was time. I heard the music cut off abruptly and a collective scream rise from the crowd, as the theater lights dimmed. It died down quickly once I walked out, but I still got a round of polite applause as I crossed the stage. My mic stand was set up, my ukulele waiting for me on a stool behind it. I picked it up and boosted myself onto my perch on the stool, crossing my legs at the ankles. I gave myself a second to take it all in, staring out at the many rows of red-upholstered seats, many of them still empty. Then I started strumming.
“Broken hearts are on the mend. She’s been hurt one time too many. It’s another day, another end... to the same old story...”
I’d chosen to open with “Sweet Sunrise” because it was upbeat. I followed it with a bluesy ballad called “Medley” on my keyboard, then finished with the song I’d known this group of fans would most want to hear, my version of “Just Want You to Know” from American Idol.
“I’m sure you’ll already know this last song I’m about to do,” I said into the microphone before my closing number. “It’s one of my favorites, too. I performed it on this season of American Idol, but it belongs to the one and only BACKSTREET BOYS!” I paused for the chorus of screams I knew would come. Grinning, I added, “Thanks, guys, you’ve been a great audience. I’m Cary Hilst, and this is ‘Just Want You to Know’!”
The fans cheered as I picked up my ukulele again and sang along with me. “Lookin’ at your picture, from when we first met... you gave me a smile that I could never forget... and nothin’ I could do could protect me from you, that ni-i-ight...”
I could hear their collective voice like an echo of my own, and even though I knew they were singing more out of love for the Boys than love for me, it was still cool. When I finished, they screamed and applauded louder than I’d heard them all night. I didn’t want to leave the stage, but I floated off it with my head held high, swollen with pride.
Nick was waiting in the wings, there to meet me when I came offstage. He slapped me a high five and said, “See, I told ya - you were awesome.”
I grinned and felt myself blush. “Thank you. That was amazing!”
He grinned back and nodded. “Now you get why I’m doin’ this. I gotta go get changed... I’ll catch ya after the show!” Before I could even comprehend what he meant, he wandered off to his dressing room, leaving me to come down from my performance high.
Afterwards, I thought about what he’d said. Now you get why I’m doin’ this... I knew I could never fully understand, but all of a sudden, I did get it, more than I had before. There was nothing like it, that feeling you got when you were onstage, performing for a crowd, knowing that you were entertaining people and hearing them cheer for you in return. Nick made people happy, and doing so made him happy, too. And he deserved to be happy. Now more than ever.
***
After my set, I snuck out into the theater so I could watch the Boys. Leighanne had seats near the front, far off to one side, and she’d saved me a spot next to her and Baylee. Leigh was hanging out backstage with James; she would watch from the wings.
In all my years of going to Backstreet Boys concerts, I had never been so close to the stage. When the theater went dark, the screen came on, and the countdown began, I was no longer a performer, but a fan. I screamed right along with everyone else when the four guys jumped right out of the movie screen and stood on the platform at the back of the stage, posing epically for the hundreds of cameras flashing like strobe lights. When they launched into “Everybody,” I sang along, and so did Leighanne. She must have seen this show countless times already in the other countries they had toured, but she was dancing and cheering for her husband with the enthusiasm of a genuine fan. It was cute to watch.
I had always been a Brian girl, too, but this time, I found myself unable to take my eyes off of Nick. He was like a magnet, attracting my attention, drawing me in. It wasn’t just concern for him that did it, either. It was the way he carried himself, the way he performed. He was so confident, so charismatic; his charm just radiated from him, and he didn’t even have to open his mouth. When he did, though, it was almost magical, the way the whole crowd reacted to him. His vocals sounded strong and clear, and his dance moves were as smooth and sexy as they had been in rehearsal the day before. He was on his game tonight, and once again, he showed no sign of weakness, at least not right away.
It helped that their set list was front-loaded with three of their up-tempo, dance numbers first: “Everybody,” “We’ve Got It Goin’ On,” and “PDA.” After that came a couple of their classic mid-tempos, “Quit Playing Games” and “As Long As You Love Me,” and then it slowed down with a ballad section which included, “This Is Us,” “Show Me the Meaning,” “All I Have to Give,” “She’s a Dream,” and “I’ll Never Break Your Heart.” At least that gave Nick’s body a break, if not his voice.
He absolutely killed it on “This Is Us,” his voice switching effortlessly between his gorgeous falsetto and rich baritone, holding his notes long and strong over the others singing the chorus. I didn’t know if it was pure adrenaline or simply his experience and professionalism that made him perform like that, but now I understood how he thought he could get away with this whole scheme and fool everyone. As much as I admired his courage, it scared me.
By the end of the show, he was sweating buckets. His voice was breathier, his dance moves not nearly as sharp as they’d been in the beginning, but he made it through the encore, “Straight Through My Heart.” As the guys took their final bows and stepped back through the big screen, I clapped and cheered along with the crowd around me, but I was more relieved than sad that the show was over. It had been an amazing concert, but I worried about Nick performing the hour-and-a-half-long show night after night. Even if most of the heavy dancing came at the beginning, there was choreography throughout the entire concert, and Nick had solos in nearly every song. It was going to push him to his limit and maybe even beyond.
I followed Leighanne and Baylee backstage, where the guys were celebrating. They all looked sweaty and exhausted, so Nick didn’t stand out, but I could tell he was tired. He still managed to grin when he saw me and asked, “So how’d you like the show?”
I smiled back. “It was awesome! I’m impressed,” I replied, giving him a meaningful look. “You were great.”
He smirked in a way that said, “I told you so,” but all he said was, “Thanks. I’ma go shower and get changed for the after party.”
I stared after him as he retreated to his dressing room, thinking, After party? Are you kidding?
***
He wasn’t kidding. It was after two in the morning when we finally made it back to the hotel.
I was dead tired myself, so I couldn’t even imagine how Nick must be feeling. I hadn’t slept well the night before, kept awake by my nerves, but I was sure I’d sleep like a rock that night. I peeled off my clothes and pulled on a pair of pajamas the minute I stepped into my hotel room, and I was just climbing into bed when my cell phone went off.
Groaning, I rolled back off the bed and dug it out of my purse. The screen was lit up with a text from Nick. All it said was, Come over.
Right now? I sent back. Why?
The reply was so short, it scared me: Please.
Thinking something must be wrong, I dropped the phone on my bed, grabbed my room key, and padded barefoot out of my room and down the hall to his. I knocked lightly, and Nick opened the door right away. I looked him up and down as he stepped back to let me in. He had changed out of his club attire, too; he was wearing a pair of baggy sleep shorts, low on his hips, and a white t-shirt. He looked perfectly fine.
“What’s going on?” I asked, as the door closed behind me. “Are you okay?”
He grunted in reply and motioned vaguely over his shoulder, turning away from me. I followed him further into the suite and saw that he had spread his chemotherapy supplies out across his bed. I blinked in surprise.
“Now? You want to do this now?”
He shrugged. “I wanna get it over with. This first shit takes twenty-four hours, so the sooner we start it, the sooner it’s out of my system.”
I looked over the chemo schedule his doctor had typed up. The first day of this cycle was intense: two thousand milligrams of methotrexate, given intravenously over twenty-four hours, along with two fifty-milligram doses of a steroid called methylprednisolone. The huge dose of methotrexate was so potent that I’d have to spend the next three days pumping him full of other drugs that would counteract its side effects and prevent it from damaging his organs along with the cancer cells it was killing.
I sighed. “I get that, but it’s two a.m., Nick. I’m tired, and so are you. We both had a few drinks at the club - which, by the way, probably wasn’t such a good idea. Chemo and alcohol - not a good combination. Let’s just wait till morning.”
“No,” he persisted, stubborn as ever. “If we wait, I’ll feel like shit all day and all night and wake up still feeling shitty on the day of the show. If we start it now, I’ll still feel like shit the rest of the day, but I can sleep it off and hopefully feel okay by Monday.”
My exasperation with him turned to sympathy. He seemed to have resigned himself to feeling like crap over the next day or so, which was a change from his usual denial. “Was it bad the last time?” I asked, and he nodded. I couldn’t help but wonder aloud, “What would you do if we had a show tomorrow?”
Nick shrugged. “I dunno. Doesn’t matter; we don’t.”
He was just lucky it had worked out that way. We had most Sundays off, so even though the tour had just started, the next show wasn’t until Monday night in Clearwater. We could sleep in at the hotel before boarding the tour buses for the five-hour drive north later in the day.
“Alright,” I finally agreed, sighing to show him I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it. I looked around the room. “Where do you wanna do this?”
“Right here’s fine,” said Nick. He stripped off his t-shirt and stretched out flat on the other side of the bed. He folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes. He looked totally relaxed at first, but when I came around to his side, I could see the lines of tension in his face.
“You know, if I was still working in a hospital, I’d be suspended for working on a patient with any trace of alcohol in my system,” I remarked, as I got set up. “You sure you want me to do this?”
“It’s not like you’re doin’ surgery on me,” he replied, without opening his eyes. “Just don’t pierce my heart with that needle or nothin’.”
“Just don’t sue me if I do,” I shot back, hardly missing a beat. Finally, his eyes flew open. I smirked at the flicker of fear I saw in them. “Kidding.”
“Not funny,” he said, smirking back. “Just get that sucker in, or I’ll do it myself.”
“Now that’s a scary thought,” I laughed. I would never have attempted any procedure more involved than this after a couple of drinks, but really, hooking up the IV was simple, and I felt completely fine, not even buzzed. If anything, the liquor made me more relaxed than usual. My hand was steady as it inserted the needle into his port. I checked and double-checked all the labels on his medications before I administered them - a sodium bicarbonate tablet to help flush the chemo through his kidneys, an injection of Zofran to help with nausea, and finally, the chemo drip itself.
When the portable pump was up and running, I fit it into the little pouch I had made him, the one that looked like a Nintendo controller, and set it on the bedside table. “There,” I said. “You’re all set.”
“Good,” Nick mumbled. His eyes were closed again. “Hopefully I can fall asleep before it hits.”
“Want me to tuck you in?” I asked jokingly.
“Sure,” he replied, sounding completely serious. He didn’t get up, but rolled over onto his side so that I could turn down the covers on that side of the bed. So, I did. He rolled back over, and I wrangled the sheet and bedspread out from under his long legs and pulled them up over the top, taking care to make sure they didn’t get tangled with the thin IV line as I smoothed them over his chest.
“There, big guy,” I said, feeling like a true nurse again. “Are you comfortable?”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I hesitated. “If you don’t mind, I better stick around for a few minutes and make sure everything’s okay.” I was afraid to go off and leave him alone. What if the line clogged, or he had a bad reaction?
“Sure, whatever,” he said. He folded his arms over the top of his covers, as if he were hugging himself. He never opened his eyes. Looking down at him, I was filled with tenderness and sympathy. Gone was the charismatic performer who sexed up the stage with his moves and his vocals and his sultry little smirks. Tucked into bed like this, with his eyes closed and his arms crossed, he looked like a little boy, worn out after a long day of playing.
I settled quietly back into a chair, watching him. I’d hoped he would sleep through the night, like he had wished, while the chemo slowly poisoned his body. But within half an hour, he was already up and out of bed, barricaded in the bathroom. I stood outside the closed door, feeling helpless as I listened to the sounds of him getting sick on the other side.
***
