It felt good to wake up in my bed with a beautiful, naked woman beside me. Worth the wait, I thought, looking over at Cary and remembering all the other mornings I’d woken up next to her, after sharing my bed in a more platonic way.
Not the case last night.
The sex had been good, maybe just because I hadn’t gotten any in so long. There wasn’t anything wild and crazy about it, nothing too kinky, but that was okay with me. I’ve done wild and crazy, I’ve done kinky, but sometimes it’s kinda nice to just take it slow and make it sweet.
That was Cary… sweet, with her peaches and cream skin and cherry red lipstick. She was still asleep on her stomach, clutching one corner of the pillow in her fist. The covers had slipped off her when I’d pushed them back on my side, and in the sunlight streaming through the window blinds, I could see the wispy little hairs standing up on her bare back. My eyes followed the curve of her spine between her shoulder blades, down to the slope of her ass underneath the covers. She had a nice body – curves in all the right places and the perfect amount of cushion. It wasn’t as tanned and toned as Lauren’s bangin’ bod, but she wasn’t all bony and spindly like some of the models I’d slept with, either. Like Paris. Swear to god, fucking Paris Hilton was like having sex with a giant praying mantis. But Cary was all woman, thank god, soft and pretty and not gross or scary at all.
I turned my head and smiled up at the ceiling, resting my hands on my bare chest. For just a few seconds, I felt relaxed and peaceful, so full of pleasure that wasn’t any room for worry in my gut. It had been a good idea to come here, I decided, just the break I’d needed. But of course, it couldn’t last.
As I lay there, just enjoying the lazy morning in bed, my fingers crawled absently over the hard little disc embedded under my skin. I couldn’t help touching the port, just like you can’t help picking at hangnails or scabs, the normal things on your body that feel weird and annoy you. But this thing wasn’t normal. It didn’t hurt or anything; I couldn’t even feel it when I wasn’t thinking about it. But when I did start thinking about it, when I touched it with my fingers and felt it there, it kind of freaked me out. It felt foreign, like a parasite that had burrowed into my body, or some alien probe implanted into my chest, sealed underneath my skin.
I wondered how long it would have to stay there. Would they take it out after the transplant, or just leave it, in case I relapsed and needed more chemo? Would I spend the rest of my life with this thing in my chest, waiting for my cancer to come back? The thought made me feel sick. As much as I tried to hide it, the gut-wrenching worry was never gone for long.
It had actually gotten worse since Dr. Submarine told me I was in remission. Before, my biggest fear was that the chemo wouldn’t work, but I’d been prepared for that. That was partly why I’d insisted on touring through the chemo; I knew if I didn’t do it then, I might never get another chance. But now that the cancer was gone, I had to worry about a relapse, and for some reason, that was even scarier. Fear of the unknown, I guess. I could have accepted dying, if I’d known from the beginning that there was no hope. No hope was better than false hope. It would be worse to start believing I was going to be fine, only to find out later that I wasn’t.
I saw this whole stem cell transplant thing as a type of insurance, a way of buying myself more time, but what if it didn’t pay off? There was no satisfaction guarantee that came with cancer treatment. Once I went through with it, there’d be no going back.
That thought started my heart racing, as I wondered again if I’d made the right decision. I could feel it thudding against my ribcage, and I slid my hand over to that side until I felt its beat, fast and strong underneath my palm.
At the hospital the other day, they’d hooked me up to all kinds of wires to track my heartbeat and injected me with a radioactive dye for a special scan that would show how well my heart was pumping blood. I’d had to lie flat and totally still on this narrow little table with my arm up over my head for what seemed like forever. I’d hoped I would at least get some super powers out of it, like Spiderman did from the radioactive spider bite, but all that happened was that I was sort of stiff when they finally let me get up.
The tests were to make sure my heart could handle the high-dose chemo they were going to give me before the transplant, which was toxic enough to fuck it up even more. I’d find out the results when I got back to LA. I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if I failed the tests. Would they call the whole transplant thing off? That would be an easy out… decision made for me, simple as that. But it would be stupid to wish for it. The last thing I needed was for my heart to crap out on me.
I remembered the night it had started beating fast enough to make me pass out, the shocks in the emergency room to get it under control. But it wasn’t like that now; it was just nerves making it race. I sucked in a deep breath, my chest puffing up underneath my hands, and held it for a long time. I don’t know if it was the lack of oxygen or just the relaxing effect of deep breathing, but after awhile, I felt my heartbeat start to slow. I released the breath slowly, sighing long and deep.
“What are you thinking about?”
Her voice startled me. I looked over, and Cary was awake, looking back at me with her sleepy green eyes and sweet smile. I managed a weak smile back. “Nothing much. Just… stuff.” Just the stem cell transplant that could kill me, or cure me, or fail me and leave me for the cancer to kill. You know, nothing major.
She reached back and hitched the covers up over herself before she rolled over, modestly clutching them to her chest. I missed the days when I could wake up in bed with a woman and have nothing more on my mind than what was for breakfast and whether we had enough time for a quickie before I had to get up. Not even my mornings were carefree anymore.
Cary looked pretty damn happy, though, snuggled up in my bed. Her cheeks were rosy, and she was still smiling, like she couldn’t stop herself from doing it. It’s ‘cause she just had Nick Carter’s dick inside her, I thought, smirking, despite myself. Yeah, that’s right… Cancer or no cancer, I still got it.
That cheered me up a little, and I rolled over to face her, smiling back wickedly as I pushed my covers down just enough to show one hip bone, but not far enough to unleash Nick Jr. “So…” I said, waggling my eyebrows at her. “How ‘bout a quickie before breakfast?”
***
That was pretty much how the rest of our stay in Tennessee went. The whole time, I tried not to think about cancer or the transplant, but whenever I remembered what I was facing when I got home, Cary was there to make out with me and make me forget. Nashville was the perfect escape, and she was the perfect distraction.
We spent the first few days just fooling around. I took her sightseeing, and we had a lot of sex. I didn’t want the vacation to end, but eventually, it had to. My meeting with my lawyer on the day before we left brought me back to reality.
It was overcast that day, and I could see the dark gray clouds reflected in the glass walls of One Nashville Place, threatening rain. On a clear day, the skyscraper was beautiful, with the sunlight bouncing off the windows that mirrored the blue sky. But that day, it just looked intimidating. I reached for Cary’s hand as we walked inside, and I held it the whole way up to the eighteenth floor, where the law offices of Lassiter, Tidwell, Davis, Keller, & Hogan were located.
Before long, we were sitting across a desk from my long-time lawyer, Jordan Keller. I had talked to him on the phone a few times in the last couple of weeks, but it was our first time meeting face to face since my diagnosis. “You’re looking good, Nick,” he said, pushing his glasses up higher on the bridge of his nose. He sounded surprised; I guess he figured I’d be bald and wasting away by now. Maybe he was just jealous that I still had a fuller head of hair than him. “How are you feeling?”
I shrugged. “Fine, for now,” I said. True story; I’d felt better on this trip than I had all year. With no chemo in my system and my cancer in remission, I finally felt normal again, for the first time in a long time. It just sucked that it wouldn’t last. Once I started chemo before the transplant, I’d probably go back to feeling like total shit. It was tempting to say “fuck it” to the whole thing and stay in Tennessee, having sex with Cary and hoping for the best.
But instead, I found myself listening when Jordan got down to business and started talking about advance directives. I’d heard the term before, but only applied to old people or vegetables in comas. It had never seemed relevant to me. Before, when I’d sat in this office, it was always to discuss something related to my career, everything from copyrights for my music to lawsuits filed by the group. Both good and bad stuff, but never anything this scary… never anything life and death. It felt surreal to sit there and hear him explain, “There are two types of advance directives to consider: the living will and the durable power of attorney. A living will states your wishes about treatment, should you be unable to express them later. A durable power of attorney appoints someone to make medical decisions for you, if and when you can no longer make them yourself.”
I’m only thirty, I thought. I’m not supposed to have to think about this stuff for at least another thirty years.
But before I knew it, Jordan was passing a packet of paper across the desk to me, saying, “This is the Advance Health Care Directive form for California. I figured you should fill out that one, since you’ll be spending the most time there for your treatment. Each state has their own version of this form, but they’re more or less the same and will hold up no matter where you are. Once you’ve completed the paperwork, I’ll give you a card to keep in your wallet, stating that you have an advance directive. That way, if there’s ever an emergency, hospital staff will know.”
I shuddered at the thought of collapsing in some random city, being taken to some random hospital, with no one I knew around, and could appreciate why I had to go through with this, morbid as it seemed. I looked down at the form in front of me. The first part asked for the names and contact information for the person I designated as my power of attorney, along with two alternates.
I wrote down Kevin’s name on the first line. He seemed like the obvious choice; he was level-headed and responsible, and he’d always been there for me. He lived in LA, so he’d be around while I went through the transplant stuff. Besides, he had some experience when it came to this stuff, going through what he had with his dad. I didn’t want to think that my situation was at all the same, but I knew it very well could be – otherwise, I wouldn’t be filling out this form.
Without hesitation, I added Brian’s name next. Along with Kevin, he was the one I trusted the most with my life. He’d been my best friend for over half my life, and even though he lived far away from LA, he could cover my ass if anything ever happened while we were on tour. It made sense to have both cousins on there for that reason.
On the third blank, I paused to consider my options. I would have put Howie next, but it seemed kind of pointless to add another Backstreet Boy. What were the odds of Howie being around to speak for me when neither Brian or Kevin were? I decided maybe I should change it up, but I didn’t know who else to name. Someone in my family? Ha! I’m sure that’s what most people do, but most people’s last name isn’t Carter. My dad doesn’t give a shit, my siblings are completely unreliable, God love ‘em, and if it was up to my mom, she’d happily turn me into the next Terri Schiavo before pulling the plug. There was no way in hell I was writing any of their names down.
That left… who? A friend? I had plenty of friends, but none who cared about me as much as the guys did, none that I trusted with my life. Honestly, most of my buddies are idiots; I wouldn’t want them making medical decisions for me. I needed someone I could trust, someone who cared about me, who would have my best interests at heart and know the right things to do. As it turned out, that someone was sitting right next to me.
I looked over at Cary, who I’d invited along mostly for moral support, because I couldn’t face this meeting alone. I did trust her, and I knew she cared about me. She was smart; she knew a lot about medicine. And even though I’d only known her a few months, she was with me almost all the time now. She was the perfect person to put on the form.
“Will you be the second alternate?” I asked her. I felt like I was naming her second runner-up in a beauty pageant, or asking her to be my best man. At least those would have good things, sort of. This was just depressing.
“Are you sure?” Cary asked, her eyes widening a little.
“Completely,” I replied with a nod, feeling confident that she was the right one.
“Well, okay… yeah, of course I will.”
“Thanks,” I said. I started to write her full name, then realized I had no idea how she spelled it. “Um… Carolyn is spelled…?”
She laughed and spelled it out for me, then gave me her home address and phone number. I felt stupid writing it all down, realizing how little I knew about her. It didn’t matter, though. I had put my trust in her already, and she’d never let me down. She’d kept my secret. She’d taken care of me. So what if I didn’t know how to spell her name? I knew I could count on her, and that was what mattered.
The second part of the form was harder. It started with a box labeled “End of Life Decisions,” where I had to initial one of two blanks: “Choice Not To Prolong Life” or “Choice To Prolong Life.” I stared down at that box for a long time. I could feel Jordan’s and Cary’s eyes on me, but neither one of them spoke, and I didn’t look up. Finally, I scribbled my initials on the first line, next to the paragraph that said, “I do not want my life to be prolonged if (1) I have an incurable and irreversible condition that will result in my death within a relatively short time, (2) I become unconscious and, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, I will not regain consciousness, or (3) the likely risks and burdens of treatment would outweigh the expected benefits.”
Even as I did, I questioned my decision. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live a long, full life. But that was just it… emphasis on full, not just long. If something went wrong, I hated the idea of being a vegetable, kept alive by machines. If it came to that, I’d be better off dead. Still, I looked down at the sloppy NC of my initials, and my stomach clenched at the thought that those two letters might one day decide my fate.
The rest was easier. Yes, I wanted relief from pain. Yes, I wanted to donate my organs, if possible. I wrote down Dr. Submarine as my primary physician (Cary helped me again with the spelling), and then I signed my own name to the bottom. And that was it. Paperwork complete; done deal on the advance directive. I probably should have felt relieved, but instead, I still just felt sort of queasy.
Cary and I went out to lunch after we left the law office, but I didn’t eat much. That night, after we’d finished making love, I lay awake for hours after she’d fallen asleep, still wondering if I’d made the right choices and worrying about what was in store for me.
***
