The countdown was on. T-minus eight days till transplant.
When that thought crossed my mind, I had a sudden flash of Brian, in the middle of a crowded coliseum, dirt-streaked and dressed in a gladiator’s armor, shouting, “The countdown is on!”
In spite of the tension, I smiled.
Nick noticed. “Whatcha grinnin’ ‘bout?” he asked.
I turned to look at him, still smiling. “Remember those commercials you did, for Millennium? ‘The countdown is on?’”
He smiled, too. “Oh yeah… we had a blast shootin’ those. I was, like, swinging on this tire swing in front of green screen.”
“In the jungle,” I remembered, picturing the younger, heavier version of him, with his floppy, blonde hair and boundless energy. He had aged well; the man sitting next to me was way more attractive than I’d found him back then. When he smiled, I didn’t notice the shadows around his eyes; his smile lit up his whole face. Yet it was obvious, just by the way he was curled up in the corner of the couch, that he didn’t have that same energy.
“Yeah, and Brian was a gladiator. AJ was a royal guard. Howie was…” He stopped and scrunched up his nose, trying to remember. I even had to stop and think, but Nick came up with it before I did. “Oh yeah, he was running with the bulls. And Kev… what the hell did Kevin do in his?”
Now that one I knew right away. “He was in Egypt, driving through the desert with a surfboard,” I replied quickly, remembering how hot he’d been, in his sleeveless shirt and sunglasses. Those Kentucky cousins have nice arms. “‘Surf’s up…’”
“‘…and the countdown is on,’” Nick added in unison, nodding. We grinned at each other. “What made you think of that?”
I didn’t tell him what I’d really been thinking. I wanted to take his mind off tomorrow, not make him dwell on it more. “Oh, nothing… just watching the VMAs always takes me back to 1999. You know, back when MTV was still mostly about music?”
Nick laughed. “Yeah… that was a good year.” He was still smiling, but the smile had changed. It was crooked and wistful. He looked away, fixing his eyes back on the TV screen, where Kim Kardashian was introducing the next performer. As I watched his profile, sadness swelled up inside me. I felt my throat tighten, and for a few seconds, I couldn’t breathe.
I heard the high-pitched screams for Justin Bieber, who had taken the stage with his troupe of dancers, and I thought of Nick and the Boys doing “Larger Than Life,” back in ’99, when they had been larger than life and on top of the world. I had watched those VMAs with Jessica, when we were both still teenagers and Backstreet Boys fans, and in my wildest dreams, I never could have imagined I’d be sitting next to Nick Carter to watch the 2010 awards. Just like Nick probably never imagined he’d have to trade touring for cancer treatments.
The second leg of the U.S. tour should have wrapped at the end of August, but instead, it had never started. Fan speculation had been running rampant since the abrupt announcement that the tour had been postponed, without explanation. The official reason wouldn’t be given until the next day, on the season premiere of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. There was a lot of buzz surrounding Nick’s interview; everyone knew it was going to be big news, but no one knew just how bad. They didn’t know Nick would be watching himself from his hospital bed.
He was scheduled to start chemo again the following morning, an intense, high-dose regimen that was meant to wipe out any last cancer cells lurking in his body – and his immune system along with them. It would be a rough week of treatment before the actual transplant, and a long recovery afterward. Already, I could see the process taking its toll on him. The G-CSF shots he’d gotten before the stem cell harvest had made him achy and sore; the bone pain was bad enough to keep him awake at night, and he tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable. It hadn’t helped that, for three days, he’d had the Vas-Cath in his neck to contend with. That had been taken out on Friday, after they’d collected enough stem cells to use for the transplant, and he was left with a healing puncture wound in the side of his neck, like a vampire bite. “Maybe you can get a neck tattoo, like AJ,” I’d suggested, after he complained about having a scar there. That was my role, at this point – to say and do whatever I could to make him feel better.
On his last night of freedom before he was locked up in the hospital, that meant cooking a nice dinner, watching the VMAs, and trying to take Nick’s mind off the torture that awaited him in the morning. I’d grilled shish kebabs with thick pieces of steak, chicken, and fresh fruit and vegetables, taking advantage of the opportunity to load him up with protein and nutrients before he started the chemo. Once his blood counts dropped again, he’d be back on a neutropenic diet – no fresh fruit, no raw vegetables or sushi, nothing that hadn’t been carefully cooked to get rid of bacteria. He would be under constant threat of infection until his body built up its defenses again. It scared me, to think of him surviving cancer, only to succumb to an infection.
I could tell Nick was scared, too. He’d been quiet all night, and the silence persisted as we got ready for bed. “Are you going to set an alarm for tomorrow?” I asked, poking my head out the bathroom doorway.
Nick was already in bed, lying on one side to make room for me. “Yeah… guess I should,” he mumbled, reaching over to fumble with the clock on his bedside table. “What time?”
“They said we should be at the hospital by eight, so… six-thirty? That way we can both shower and eat breakfast before we have to leave.”
“Okay,” was all he said.
I ducked back into the bathroom to finish brushing my teeth. By the time I came out, he had already shut off the lights in the bedroom. Only the flickering glow of the TV mounted on the wall lit my path to his bed. He didn’t reach for me when I slid under the covers next to him. I didn’t expect us to make love that night, but I thought he’d at least want to cuddle awhile. He stayed on his side, though, and I stayed on mine, lying still on my side while he flopped around, shaking the mattress in his struggle to find a comfortable position. Finally, I said, “Would it help if I went back to the guest room, so you can spread out?”
“What?” His voice drifted through the darkness. “No, no, you don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t mind.” I sat up, squinting over at him. “I want you to be able to sleep.”
“That won’t help.”
“Did you take a painkiller?” His doctor had recommended Tylenol or Advil for what he described as “mild” bone pain. I thought he should have prescribed Vicodin or something equally strong.
“That doesn’t help either.”
Nick was as stubborn as ever, shooting down all my suggestions, trying to tough it out himself. I tried to be patient, wondering what else might work. “Would it help if I gave you a massage?” I offered. I remembered how I used to stand behind my mom and rub her back and shoulders when she was hurting; she always made a big deal out of how good it felt. I’m sure she was just trying to make me feel better, as much as I was trying to do the same for her, but it did seem to help her relax. Who doesn’t like having their back rubbed?
“I dunno,” Nick said doubtfully. “You can try, if you want. You don’t have to.”
“I want to.” I reached over and turned on the light by my side of the bed. “Flip over,” I told Nick, patting the mattress. He pushed back the covers and rolled over onto his stomach. He had complained about the pain in his hips and lower back the most, so I started there. “Tell me if it’s too tender,” I warned him, as I gently touched the small of his back. “I don’t want to make it worse.”
“You won’t.”
“Okay.” Leaning over him, I started to massage. At first, my hands were light and careful; I rubbed his back in slow, soft circles with my fingers, grazing the length of his spine with my fingernails, tracing each of his tattoos. When this didn’t seem to bother him, I dug deeper. I could feel the tightness of the muscles in his back, muscles he’d been clenching in pain, and I used the heels of my hands to work out the tension in them. “Is this helping?” I asked hopefully.
He groaned into his pillow in response, and I immediately pulled back, mistaking it for a moan of pain, instead of pleasure. But he begged, “Don’t stop. Keep going; it feels awesome. Your hands are warm.”
Heating pad, I thought, wondering if he had one, for when I was done. I went back to massaging, smiling with relief. It felt good to be able to do something for him, and I certainly didn’t mind running my hands all over his body. I finished with his back and moved lower, my fingers slipping under the waistband of his boxers as I worked his hips. I could feel the tension easing from his body, as it grew less rigid and relaxed into the mattress. His legs felt heavy, like dead weight in my hands, as I massaged the backs of his thighs and calves. I heard his breathing slow down and even out, and for a minute, I thought he’d fallen asleep. I slipped out of bed and tiptoed around to his bedside table to get the remote and shut off the TV, but when I crawled back into bed next to him, I saw that his eyes were still open. “Try to sleep,” I whispered, shutting off the light again.
“I can’t,” he muttered back. “I can’t shut off my brain.”
It wasn’t just the pain making him restless, but his own worrisome thoughts. I understood completely. “I know,” I admitted. “I’m the same way when something’s bothering me.” I wasn’t ready to confess that I was worried for him, too, but for once, it seemed like Nick was.
“I’m dreading tomorrow. It’s gonna suck, isn’t it?”
As much as I wanted to make him feel better, I couldn’t give him false hope. “Probably.” I heard him sigh. “But it’ll be worth it, if it cures your cancer, won’t it?”
“If.” He practically spat out the word.
“You’ll get through it,” I tried to encourage him. “It won’t be a piece of cake, but it can’t be much worse than doing concerts while you’re on chemo, and you did that. You made it through the tour, and you’ll make it through this.”
“I’d rather still be touring,” he said stonily.
“I know you’re scared,” I added, and he didn’t argue with that. “It’s okay… It’ll be okay…” I slid closer to him, until I could feel his warm breath on my face, and wrapped my arm around him. I was lying on my other arm, with my hand up by my face, and after a few seconds, I felt his hand snake up to grasp it, his fingers entwining with mine. The closeness seemed to bring us both comfort, because that was how I fell asleep – my body curled up against his, our hands clasped together – and when I woke hours later, Nick, too, was sleeping soundly.
I closed my eyes again, blocking out the first hint of daylight outside his bedroom windows. I didn’t want morning to come.
***
