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Cary


In early June, we flew to Frankfurt, Germany for the first show of what the Boys had decided to dub “The Curtain Call Tour.” The name fit Nick’s whole idea behind the tour – to take the stage for the last time on each continent and be recognized by the fans who had supported the group for so long. It also made sense to start in Germany, one of the first countries to embrace the Backstreet Boys so many years ago.

I had never been to Germany before, nor to any of the other countries on the tour itinerary – Japan, Australia, South Africa, Brazil. I wished I could be more excited about visiting such foreign and exotic places, but instead, I was filled with a sense of dread that overwhelmed all other feelings. It dominated me, the fear that this tour was going to be too much for Nick, the knowledge that even if he made it through the two weeks of traveling, it would still only be a matter of time.

Time was something he didn’t have much left of, and I could hear it ticking away, as fast I could feel my heart racing in my chest whenever I thought about it. I tried not to think about it, but that was impossible. The dread was with me wherever I went, and it had followed me overseas. I couldn’t enjoy myself, knowing what lay ahead.

No one seemed excited about this tour… not even Nick. It had been all his idea, but now he faced it with a sort of grim determination. Maybe it wasn’t something he wanted to do, but something he felt had to do, for the fans and for the guys as much as for himself. But the guys weren’t the same lively bunch I’d met at the beginning of the This is Us tour. They, too, seemed quieter, more sedate. I hoped they’d be able to fire up the charm onstage the following night, or their concert would seem more like a funeral than the celebration it was supposed to be.

The night before the show, Nick and I relaxed in our hotel room, which was small, but clean and comfortable. We had just gotten back from dinner with all the guys and their families, and after eating too much heavy German food and drinking too much strong German beer, I was feeling sort of sick. Lying next to me on the bed, Nick was quiet. I wondered how he was feeling, but I didn’t ask, knowing he was tired of the question. He’d made a big deal out of wanting to go out for a big German meal, but he hadn’t eaten much at dinner and only drank one pint of beer, while I’d downed one and then another and most of a third, eager to drown my anxiety in alcohol. Nick hadn’t had much of an appetite lately, and I worried it was yet another sign of the cancer taking over his body. “What are you thinking about?” I asked him instead, wanting to get out of my own head for awhile.

“Nothin’,” he said at first, then added, “Just thinking about how it used to be when the guys and I would come overseas, back before we blew up in the States. They’d all go out on the town at night, and I’d get left behind at the hotel, ‘cause I was only one who couldn’t drink yet. Except here in Germany… I always liked Germany, ‘cause the drinking age is only sixteen. I could go out in Germany. Everywhere else, though, I’d be stuck lying around my hotel room, trying to watch TV in foreign languages. I wish I could say I’d picked up more from it.” He smirked, inclining his head toward the TV.

It was on, but neither of us were really watching. We’d found a channel that was showing ET, only it was dubbed over in German. At first, we had fun with it, laughing at ET saying “ET zu Haus telefonieren” instead of “ET phone home,” but it didn’t take long for the novelty to wear off. We left it on for background noise, but it was starting to get on my nerves. All the characters sounded like Dr. Schnabeltier, the transplant doctor who had put Nick through all that torture without curing him.

“Did you at least learn some good pick-up lines to try out on the German girls?” I asked, for the sake of making conversation.

He laughed. “If I did, I don’t remember any now. All I know how to say is ‘I love you.’ Ich liebe dich. I’ll use that one tomorrow night.”

I smiled and then turned my head, so he wouldn’t see the tears that had suddenly welled in my eyes. What brought that on? I wondered. I was such an emotional wreck these days, I didn’t even know. It didn’t take much to bring me to the verge of tears. All I knew was that I loved Nick so much it hurt… and that losing him was going to hurt so much worse.

“What are you thinking about?” Nick turned the question back on me.

I swallowed hard, blinking back the tears. I couldn’t tell him what I’d really been thinking: that I was dreading this tour because it felt like a countdown to the end. Six shows to go… then five… then four, three, two, one, and after the last show, Nick would go back home to die. The countdown is on. The last time I’d thought that was the night before his stem cell transplant, when there was still hope for a cure. Now there was no hope left.

Nick was getting worse. He still had good days where he could get up and go out and do the things he wanted to do, but they sapped him of his strength and led to more and more frequent bad days, which he spent lying in bed, too tired and weak to get up, incapacitated by blinding headaches or back pain, which was sometimes accompanied by strange, tingling sensations in his arms and legs. I prayed for the next two weeks to be all good days. That was all there was to hope for now: that Nick would make it through this tour and die on his own terms.

“Cary?” When he said my name, I realized I’d never answered him.

“Just that I love you, too,” I whispered to the wall, then cleared my throat, trying to get back my composure. “How do you say it again?”

Ich liebe dich.”

I rolled over to face him again. Looking into his beautiful, blue eyes, I managed a smile to mirror the little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Ich liebe dich,” I repeated.

***

All six shows of the Curtain Call tour had sold out in a matter of minutes, and I’d heard stories of tickets being scalped on Ebay and StubHub for thousands of dollars. Every fan wanted to be in the audience for one of Nick Carter’s last concerts.

Every seat was filled in the Festhalle Frankfurt, and all around me, I could hear fans talking in different languages – not just German, but English, Spanish, French, and languages I didn’t even recognize. There were fans from all over Europe, maybe even other continents, who had spent hundreds on travel expenses and come thousands of miles just to be there. I marveled over their devotion, but at the same time, I understood.

Following the procedure to retrieve my eggs for the sake of freezing embryos, I had taken a twelve-week medical leave of absence from my job to travel and take care of Nick, as well as my own health. I would be off the whole summer, long enough to recover from the exploratory surgery I had scheduled for the end of June and to see Nick through the tour and perhaps through to the end. No one could predict when, exactly, the end would come, but Dr. Subramanien had given him six months, and by the end of the tour, three of them would be gone. I knew it was unlikely he’d make it much past the summer.

I knew it, but it was hard to believe it once the concert began. The fans started screaming like usual when a video montage of the Boys through the years came up on the big screen, and the live band started to play. I recognized the beginning of “Everyone,” which they repeated over and over again until it was time for the guys to take the stage.

They rose up from under the stage on moving platforms, and the lights were dimmed so I could just see their five silhouettes. My breath caught in my throat, as I realized how long it had been since I’d seen the familiar shape of the five of them onstage together. My eyes filled with tears, as I realized it was a sight I would never see again, once this tour was over. But I tried not to dwell on it. I tried to stay in the moment and enjoy every precious second of the show. I knew every fan around me must be going through the same internal struggle.

But even though it was in the backs of our minds the whole time, once the Boys started singing, it was almost possible to forget, or at least to pretend it was just another show. “We’ve been through days of thunder…” Brian sang the opening lyrics, and his voice sounded strong, not shaky like it had on their last TV performance. “Some people said we don’t belong. They try to pull us under, but here we stand together and a million strong.”

“Let’s get on with the show,” the guys sang together, as the music picked up, and a cheer rose over the crowd as Nick’s voice rang out powerfully, “Let’s get started!”

“Turn the lights down low,” they went on, and Nick echoed, “Turn the lights down low!”

“You were there from the start,”
they sang, and Nick added, “You were there!”

“We know who you are… and this one goes out to everyone… everyone… everyone. We’re standing strong ‘cause of what you’ve done, and this one goes out to you.”


As the five Boys pointed out into the audience, the fans echoed their sentiments with screams. Goosebumps rose on my skin as they transitioned from “Everyone” into “Larger Than Life.” I knew they had frontloaded the show with these two up-tempos to get the choreography out of the way early, before Nick ran out of steam. Most of the other numbers were ballads and mid-tempos, which didn’t require as much stamina. They had planned the set list carefully, giving Nick plenty of opportunities to rest his body and voice in between the songs on which he had most of the leads.

But here at the beginning, Nick came out strong. He sang and danced like there was nothing wrong, and even though he didn’t perform the old “Larger than Life” choreography with the same energy as the other guys, he still had plenty of charisma.

It took its toll on him, though. After the opening medley, the stage lights went dark while the guys ran backstage for drinks of water, except for Howie, who stayed out to welcome the audience to the show. While the spotlight was focused on him, stage hand scurried in and out of the darkness, setting up five stools behind him. Then the lights came back up and the rest of the guys came back on stage, settling onto their stools. I was close enough to see the sweat streaking Nick’s face, to notice how hard he was breathing already, his chest expanding rapidly. Oh God, I prayed. Please let him get through this. Please don’t let anything go wrong. But there were so many things that could. I shuddered as I imagined Nick collapsing, going into convulsions on the stage.

But he didn’t, and after a few more songs, when things seemed to be running smoothly, I started to relax again, to almost forget. For awhile, I was actually enjoying myself, lulled into a false sense of security by the familiar music I’d loved for so long. But all it took was one song to bring me back to reality. It hit me like a slap in the face when the band played six haunting notes that I associated with lyrics: Don’t wanna lose… you now…

The melody was enough to break my heart, but it was worse when they actually started singing the words. “Don’t wanna lose… you now. Baby… I know we can win this.”

But we can’t,
I thought sadly, looking up at Nick on the stage. His image blurred before my eyes as they filled with tears. We’re both going to lose.

“Don’t wanna lose… you now. No, no… or ever again.”

How can they stand to sing this?
I wondered. But I knew the answer: the fans had voted on it, and even if the lyrics hit too close to home, it was a song they’d once enjoyed, a song they’d always said they wanted to perform again. If only it were under different circumstances…

I’m sure Brian was regretting it when he started the next verse. His voice cracked and wavered as he sang, “I got this feeling you’re not gonna stay. It’s burning within me. The fear of losing, of slipping away…” His voice sounded thick, like he was choking back tears. His eyes glistened in the stage lights. “It just keeps getting closer…” Finally, Brian’s voice broke, and he bowed his head, sucking in an audible breath.

Thankfully, Kevin was there to cover for him. “Whatever reason to leave that I’ve had…” he sang in harmony, until Brian jumped back in with the melody, “My place… is always beside you...”

Whether it was planned that way or not, Brian and Nick happened to be sitting next to each other, and on that line, Brian leaned away from Kevin and towards Nick, reached out, and took his hand. Through my tears, I couldn’t make out Nick’s reaction.

“…and I… wish that I didn’t need you so bad,” the cousins sang, their voices shaky, but in perfect harmony. “Your face… just won’t go away…”

“Don’t wanna lose… you now…”


I don’t know how they made it through the rest of the song, let alone the rest of the show, but somehow, they did. That’s the mark of a true professional, I guess, and here were five of them. They had performed through both physical and emotional pain before – injuries and illnesses, losses of loved ones, personal health crises, national tragedies. They knew when to let their emotions show and when to hide them deep down, so they wouldn’t surface on the stage. There were tears in their eyes when they joined hands and bowed, but they left the stage gracefully, with no dramatics, while the house lights came up on fans who were distraught, sobbing on each other’s shoulders.

For most of them, this was the last time they would see all five Backstreet Boys perform together, live and in person. The last show. Ever.

For me, there were still five more shows to get through.

But the countdown was on, and for Nick, time was running out.

***