Nick and I both kept busy over the next few weeks. For him, it was important not to waste one minute of the time he had left. For me, it was necessary to take my mind off everything that kept running through it whenever I had time to think.
I continued to work at the clinic, but I was already starting to hate my new job because it kept me away from Nick. I had no choice but to keep working, though; I needed the money, and I needed the health insurance benefits. I was facing major surgery and the possibility of further treatment after that, and the process of retrieving and freezing one’s eggs sure isn’t cheap, either. But I was doing it, anyway, because it was the one thing that put my mind at ease.
While I was at work, Nick spent his days with the guys or other friends in the business, planning the release of his second and final solo album and the Backstreet Boys’ last tour that would follow it. The album, called I’m Taking Off, was set to come out on Tuesday, the twenty-fourth of May, but its release had been overshadowed by the news that Nick’s cancer had returned and was incurable.
The phone had been ringing off the hook ever since his publicist had issued a statement, as offers for interviews and messages of support came pouring in. Nick finally had to turn off his phone and insist that close friends go through me if they needed to get a hold of him. He granted only one interview, an exclusive with Oprah, who had always been good to the Boys. She flew out to LA for an intimate, one-on-one interview with him at home, rather than forcing him to fly to Chicago to sit down in front of her live studio audience. The segment aired during her show on a Wednesday in mid-May.
On my way home from work that afternoon, I stopped by the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions for both Nick and myself. For Nick, stronger painkillers, to take the edge off the headaches and back pain he was experiencing more and more often. For me, a set of hormone injections, which I had to give myself to stimulate my ovaries into producing extra eggs that could be extracted and frozen. As I stood at the counter, waiting for the pharmacist to fill both, it struck me how strange and sad it was that while I was planning for my future, Nick was preparing for his death.
Try as we might to forget, there were reminders everywhere. His face was splashed all over the tabloids at the check-out counter, professional pictures of him looking fit and healthy juxtaposed with paparazzi photos of him snapped when he was bald and gaunt, under headlines in big, bold print that said things like BACKSTREET BOY’S CANCER CRISIS and NICK CARTER: ONLY WEEKS LEFT TO LIVE! The magazines made me sick, so I tried not to look, but while I was still standing there, staring into space, I suddenly heard his voice, singing, “I close the door… like so many times, so many times before…”
“Inconsolable” had started playing over the pharmacy’s speakers.
I swore someone was trying to torture me. That song hadn’t even been played on the radio when it new, yet they were going to play it here, in the pharmacy, now, when Nick was dying and I was struggling just to hold it together?
“Baby, I don’t wanna waste another day… keeping it inside, it’s killing me… ‘cause all I ever wanted comes right down to you, to you...”
I fought back tears as I handed the pharmacist my credit card without a word. My hand shook as I scribbled my signature on the receipt, and I fumbled with the two white sacks he slid across the counter to me. “Thanks,” I choked, then turned and hightailed it out of there. I could still hear Nick’s voice belting, “I’m inconsolable…” as I escaped into the California heat.
I broke down in the car – the sporty black Benz Nick couldn’t drive anymore. I buried my face in my hands to block out the stares of people in the parking lot and sobbed over the steering wheel. Was this how it was always going to be, after he was gone? Would I be going about my day as usual, only to be startled by the sight of his face on a magazine cover or the sound of his voice over a speaker?
I knew the time would come when it meant the world to me to have his memory so well preserved, through all the pictures and videos and recordings he would leave behind. But right now, it was like pouring salt into an open wound. He wasn’t even gone yet, but I was already anticipating the pain of losing him. It would only get worse before it got better.
I drove back to Nick’s condo in a stupor, the silence broken only by the sound of my sniffling, as I tried to regain my composure. I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror before I got out of the car; my tears had dried, but my eyes were still red and puffy. There was no way I was going to be able to hide the fact that I’d been crying from Nick, but I grabbed the pharmacy bags anyway and took them upstairs.
The condo was quiet when I let myself in. I found Kevin sitting out on the balcony by himself, just staring into space. “Hey,” I said quietly through the screen door, but he still jumped, startled. I could tell he’d been deep in thought.
“Hey, Cary, how are ya?” he said, recovering quickly.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
“No, it’s fine; I just didn’t hear you come in.” Kevin stood up and came in through the screen door. “Nick’s taking a nap. He had a headache.” He said it casually enough, but I saw the seriousness in his eyes when they met mine.
I nodded and held up the bags in my hand. “I have some new pain meds for him. Hopefully they’ll help.”
“Good. Hopefully he’ll take them.”
I frowned. “He hasn’t been taking his pain pills?”
“You know how he is.” Kevin gave me a long-suffering look. “He wants to work; he wants to plan and rehearse for this tour. The meds make him loopy and knock him out worse than the cancer does. Personally, I think he’s pushing himself too hard, but he swears this is what he wants to do with the time he has left, so I guess we’ve gotta support him in it.”
“Yeah… I guess you’re right.” I gave Kevin a sad smile, which he returned wearily. He looked ragged and somehow older than I’d ever realized. There were lines around his eyes and wrinkles on his forehead that I’d never noticed before, like all this stress and worry had etched them there permanently. I looked at him and remembered when I’d thought he was the most attractive man in the world, he and his cousin. Now I saw them both as nothing more than mutual friends. I only had eyes for Nick.
Kevin let himself out, and I went back to check on Nick. He was sound asleep, stretched out on his back in bed with his arms crossed over his chest. For a minute or so, I watched its steady rise and fall as he breathed. I could have stood there for hours, just staring at him, but I forced myself to walk away.
I changed clothes and flopped down in front of the TV in the living room, where I had set the DVR to record Nick’s Oprah episode. I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to watch it or not, but I decided I might as well get it over with, while Nick was asleep. I knew I would be a wreck by the end of the show.
Sure enough, I cried through the entire interview, as Oprah asked Nick to reflect on his life and share his thoughts on death. They sat facing each other on the same balcony where I’d found Kevin, the ocean view behind them, and Nick kept turning to stare at it as he composed his answers to her questions.
“Are you afraid?” asked Oprah, and Nick looked out at the water, licking his lips. He took a long time to answer, maybe because he was teetering between “yes” and “no” himself, but when he finally did, he sounded amazingly self-assured.
“I’m not afraid of dying. I think that the fear of death is really just fear of the unknown, and I’ve always been a risk-taker, the kind of person who welcomes change and likes to try new things. So I’m not afraid of dying itself. I have no idea what’s waiting out there for me, but I’ll find out.”
Oprah nodded. “I’m sure your courage in the face of cancer will inspire other people who are going through the same thing, Nick, but you’ve also had such an impact on so many people’s lives through your music. Is it a comfort to know that, no matter what, you will live on through the legacy you leave behind in this world?”
Nick was much quicker to answer that one. “Absolutely. I want to be remembered, not for my death, but for my life. When they hear my name, I hope people will hear my voice. I hope they’ll keep that part of me alive by listening to my music for decades to come.”
“Speaking of music, you’re releasing an album next week, a solo project?”
I smiled through my tears, as I saw the way Nick’s whole demeanor changed at the mention of his album. His posture shifted, he sat up straighter, and his whole face seemed to glow with enthusiasm. “Yeah… it comes out on the twenty-fourth; it’s called I’m Taking Off.”
“Is that something you started before you got sick or while you were sick?”
“I’d been working on some stuff for it before I got diagnosed, but the bulk of the writing and recording I did this past winter, after going through treatment. It was something I came back to because I really needed a project to not only take my mind off what I’d been going through, but to help me get back to feeling like my old self again. And it really did help. This album is totally ‘me.’ It’s not about me with cancer, because that’s not how I see myself, even now. It’s about me as a person and all the other experiences I’ve had in my life – relationships, struggles, triumphs, everything. It came together during the hardest time of my life, but I couldn’t be prouder of the result.”
“It sounds like you created this album mostly for yourself, but do you see it also as sort of a parting gift for your fans?”
Nick tipped his head to the side, then nodded. “Yeah, sure. I hope they’ll enjoy it, and like I said, I want it to be something they can remember me by when they listen to it.”
I wasn’t smiling anymore. I thought of my near breakdown in the pharmacy and wondered how I could possibly stand to listen to any of his music after he was gone. I’d heard I’m Taking Off, and it was amazing, but hearing it in the future would only take me back to this time and this terrible pain.
On the TV, Oprah was saying, “Some people may question your decision to go on tour during your cancer treatment and now, when you know you only have a few months left. Would you say you’re doing that more for the fans, or for yourself?”
Nick licked his lips again, then wiped the corners of his mouth. “Really, it’s for both. I mean, I wanna go out on a high note and give the fans one last great show to celebrate the life and career I’ve had, but I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t something I really wanted to do. The stage and the road have always felt like home to me; I feel best when I’m performing. Music’s like an escape for me – you know, it gets me out of my own head and takes my mind off everything else that’s going on. So focusing on the album and the tour has been good for me.”
I remembered what Kevin had said before he left. “I think he’s pushing himself too hard, but he swears this is what he wants to do with the time he has left, so I guess we’ve gotta support him in it.” He was right, but so was Nick. Even if it hastened his death, this was good for him. I could see that now. Music was what made him happy, made his life worth living, and if he wanted to keep making music until the end, at least, as Nick put it, he would go out on a high note.
When the interview ended, I hurried into the bathroom to wash my face and dry my tears. My eyes still looked bloodshot and seemed to be in a permanent state of puffiness. I tried not to cry in front of Nick, but I did a lot of it behind closed doors these days. I think Nick probably knew. I was sitting on the closed toilet seat, taking deep breaths and trying to get myself together, when I heard him knock.
“Hey, Care, you okay in there?”
The sound of his voice made my stomach clench. “Yeah!” I called back, trying to keep my voice steady. “I’ll be out in a sec. Just… giving myself my shot…”
I don’t know why I bothered to lie. I guess I hoped I could pass my tears off as tears from physical pain, instead of the emotional kind. But Nick called me on it right away. He opened the bathroom door, which I hadn’t bothered to lock, and stood there in the doorway, holding up one of the white sacks from the pharmacy. “These shots?”
Sheepishly, I returned the smirk he was giving me and snatched the bag out of his hand. “I knew I was forgetting something,” I said lamely, and even though I knew he was onto me, I took the injection kit out of the sack and busied myself with preparing the syringe. It was actually a relief to have something else to focus on, something else to do. Nick just stood there and watched, so I put him to work. “Hold this,” I said, handing him the filled syringe, while I swabbed my belly with an alcohol wipe.
He wrinkled his nose at it. “You gotta stick this thing in your stomach?”
“Uh-huh. It won’t be bad; it’s a tiny needle.” I sounded way more casual about it than I felt; I wasn’t looking forward to the injection at all, but I didn’t dare complain about it in front of him, not after all the painful treatments he’d suffered through. “Here.” I held out my hand for the syringe, pinched an inch of flesh around my bellybutton, and plunged the needle into it. To my relief, it barely hurt. “See? Not so bad,” I said, as I pushed down the plunger.
Nick still shuddered. “It looks bad. Glad it’s not me this time.”
I flashed him a quick smile and started cleaning up.
“So what’s wrong?”
I stopped and looked at him, knowing my red eyes had given me away. “Do you really have to ask? I watched Oprah.”
He grimaced. “That bad?”
“No, you were incredible! I could never have given an interview like that.” I had stayed out of the way while Oprah was there, not wanting to be on camera. Just meeting her had made me starstruck, but the thought of sitting down for an interview with her terrified me. Nick was far braver than I’d ever be.
“Thanks. I didn’t watch it. I don’t think I want to.”
I shrugged. “I probably shouldn’t have. I mean, look at me.” I forced a laugh, wiping my eyes.
He gave me a crooked smile and held out his arms. As soon as I was in them, the tears started flowing again. “You don’t have to hide it from me, you know,” he said as he hugged me, running his hand up and down my back. “Trust me, I know how hard it is to pretend everything’s fine when it isn’t. I don’t want you to pretend around me.”
I nodded, my throat too clogged up to speak.
“I’m sorry,” he added in a low voice. “I’m sorry for putting you through this.”
This time, I shook my head. “Don’t,” I choked out. “Don’t apologize. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I took advantage of you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered back, my head resting against his shoulder. “I fell in love with you. And regardless of how you really feel about me, I’m here because I want to be here for you.”
“Look at me, Cary.” I lifted my head to look up at Nick, who met my eyes and stared into them intently. “I love you. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s in the way you want or deserve, but I do love you. I just wish we had more time to let that love grow and see where it takes us.”
You know that old song “Smile” that goes, “Smile, though your heart is aching. Smile, even though it’s breaking”? I’ve always thought those lyrics were so sad, but that was just what I did – smiled, even though my heart was breaking.
“Me too.”
And Nick smiled sadly back, then dipped his head and kissed the tears off my cheeks.
I clung to him tightly, wishing I’d never have to let go.
***
