It was different than being woken from a deep sleep, for in the abyss of unconsciousness, he did not dream. There were no nightmares, no near-death experiences to dwell upon, nothing but impenetrable darkness. But as his brain emerged from its blackout state, bits of light began to filter through.
He felt like he was floating, but although his body seemed to be weightless, his limbs were heavy and hard to move. At first, he fought waves of bewilderment as he struggled to break through the surface. Only once his head was above water was he able to feel the bed beneath him, hear the blips in the background, and form a coherent thought: hospital. This was followed by another flood of confusion, as he realized his face was wet. But the water was warm, more like bathwater than seawater. That was when the second moment of clarity came: Someone was washing his face.
His eyelids fluttered as he tried and failed to lift them. Then he heard a vaguely familiar voice whisper his name. “Nick?” He knew that voice. He wanted to respond to it. “Wake up, Nick.” When he finally forced his eyes open, her face came into focus.
“Dani?” he croaked. His cheeks and forehead were wet, but his throat was incredibly dry. He winced as he tried to swallow; his tongue felt like sandpaper, and it was hard to work up enough saliva to wash out the inside of his mouth.
“Hey there,” Dani said softly, smiling down at him. “How are you feeling?”
Nick licked his lips, still trying to moisten his tongue. “Tired,” he muttered. Through the fog of fatigue, his mind became acutely and painfully aware of the rest of his body, as the parts below his neck rose to the surface. The semi-pleasant, floaty sensation went away, leaving him feeling like he’d been hit by a truck. He half-expected to find tire tracks on the front of his hospital gown, for it felt like something heavy had rolled right over his chest, crushing it. “Chest hurts.”
“I’ll bet,” she said, her tone sympathetic. “You’ve been through a lot in the last few days. Do you know where you are?”
He repeated the word that had run through his head upon waking. “Hospital.”
“That’s right.” Dani wiped his forehead with a wet washcloth. Nick found himself wishing she had one for his dry mouth. “Do you remember what happened?”
He shook his head, still feeling a little like he’d been out to sea. “Was there a hurricane?” he asked, struggling to recall the conversation he’d had with her about riding in a helicopter.
Dani nodded. “It hasn’t hit us quite yet, but it’s still heading this way. It’s supposed to make landfall tomorrow night.”
“I thought I was going to Atlanta,” he said, as the details came back to him in bits and pieces.
Dani patted his face dry with a towel. “You were, but you had a bit of a setback yesterday,” she told him, setting the towel aside and picking up his hand instead. She held it tightly as she started to explain. “As we were getting ready to transport you, your heart went into another arrhythmia. When we tried to treat it, you arrested again.”
Nick stared up at her in dismay, wondering if he was stuck in a nightmare that would never end. It was like a horror remake of the movie Groundhog Day. How many times would he have to wake up to hear that his heart had stopped? He supposed he should be grateful he was awake at all, that he was still alive somehow, but instead, hearing about his latest brush with death just made him feel afraid. What if he didn’t wake up the next time?
Dani squeezed his hand as she went on, “You were only down for a few minutes before we brought you back, but you’ve been unconscious ever since. It’s good to see you awake and talking. I was starting to worry about those brain cells of yours.” With her free hand, she brushed back his hair, running her fingers through it. It felt so good, Nick closed his eyes for a second, savoring the sensation of goosebumps prickling on his scalp.
“I guess this means I’m not going to Atlanta, huh?” he mumbled.
She shook her head. “No. You weren’t stable enough for us to send you anywhere, and at this point, it’s probably too late. The weather’s already gotten pretty bad, and the airports are all shut down. We’ll just have to ride it out here… like true Floridians, right?” she said, patting the back of his hand.
Nick nodded, managing a smile as he remembered more of their last conversation. “Fine with me,” he replied. “I told you, I hate flying.”
“Well, you sure found a dramatic way to get out of doing it!” Dani joked. She let go of his hand and picked up her washcloth again, wringing it out over a basin of water before she started wiping his neck with it.
“What are you doing?” Nick asked, as Dani tipped his head back to wash under his chin.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she laughed. “Giving you a bath, silly.”
He groaned. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Actually, I do. It’s part of my nursing duties.
“No, I mean… I can do it myself,” said Nick, holding out his hand to take the washcloth from her. He hated feeling helpless.
“I’m sure you can, but seeing as how you were still unconscious when I started, why don’t you just lie back, relax, and let me do it this time?” Dani replied.
Nick wondered how many other times he had been bathed while he was unconscious. He decided he was better off not knowing. “All right, fine… but can you bring me some water first? Like, for drinking? My mouth’s really dry.”
“You bet. I’ll be right back.”
While she was gone, Nick looked around the room. He noticed the privacy curtain next to his bed had been pulled closed again. “Did I get a new roommate?” he asked when Dani came back, carrying a plastic pitcher.
She glanced briefly at the curtain before pouring him a cup of water. “Yes, you did,” she replied, raising the head of his bed so he could sit up. She stuck a straw into the cup and handed it to him. He sucked greedily, gulping the cold water. It felt so good going down his parched throat, he didn’t stop to ask any more questions about the mystery patient behind the curtain, and Dani didn’t offer any other details.
“I’m going to take your gown off now,” she said, reaching behind his neck to undo the tie in the back and easing the front down over his shoulders. “I’ll get you a new one when I’m all done.” She kept his lower half covered with a blanket as she began to bathe his upper body, running the washcloth up and down both arms and across his chest. She worked around the tubes and wires still attached to him, carefully avoiding getting the electrodes wet.
It was weird for Nick to watch someone else wash him, as if he were a baby, but once he got past the awkwardness of it, he had to admit that it actually felt pretty good. He wondered if it was weird for her, too. If it was, Dani didn’t show it. She maintained her professional demeanor, making polite small talk to put his mind at ease as she wiped the soap off his skin and patted it dry. She was probably used to doing this for her patients, but she’d never bathed a Backstreet Boy before - especially not a Backstreet Boy she’d once been with in the shower. Nick couldn’t help but smirk as he imagined the tables turned, the two of them standing together in his shower, she with her top off while he lathered her breasts with soap. He tried to force the mental image out of his mind, for it represented betrayal, but he had to admit, he wished he could remember the real thing.
“When will I be able to take a real shower again?” he asked Dani, as she helped him into a clean hospital gown.
“I’m not sure. You’re still on bed rest because of the abnormal heart rhythms you’ve been having, so it may be awhile,” she replied. “I’m sorry. I know that’s not what you want to hear.”
Nick sighed, but nodded. “It’s okay. Not your fault.”
“Later I’ll show you some simple exercises you can do in bed to prevent blood clots and muscle atrophy, especially in your legs,” said Dani, as she pushed back the blanket to expose them.
I know some exercises that can be done in bed, thought Nick, smirking again, but he kept his mouth shut. Sex jokes would only make things more awkward.
She peeled off his compression socks and washed the skin underneath, massaging his calves and ankles as she worked her way down each leg. Nick squirmed when she touched his feet. “Ticklish,” he muttered.
She smiled. “Sorry.”’
When she was finished with his legs, Dani had him roll onto his side so she could wash his back. Changing positions was painful at first; he felt an uncomfortable pulling sensation across the front of his chest made it scream in protest. But he began to relax as she rubbed his back, using the heels of her hands to massage his muscles. For a moment, he was almost able to forget he was stuck in the hospital and pretend he was at the spa instead. “That feels really good,” he said gratefully.
“I figured it would,” she replied, and though he couldn’t see her face, he could tell she was smiling. “You should lie on your side like this some of the time to take the pressure off your back. You don’t want to get a bedsore from lying in the same position all day.”
So much for pretending he was somewhere else. With another sigh, Nick nodded. How much longer would he have to be in this state of medical limbo, trapped somewhere between life and Hell? he wondered. He knew, eventually, his heart would either recover enough for him to leave the hospital, or it would finally fail him for good. But until one of those things happened, he would just have to lie there and wait. Wait to die. Wait to live. Either way, he was tired of waiting.
“You all right?” Dani asked, as she dried off his back.
Nick inhaled a deep breath through the cannula in his nose. “Yeah,” he said hollowly, not bothering to elaborate. He didn’t want to seem unappreciative. After almost dying twice, he knew he should be thankful for every breath he took because it meant he was still alive - but lying in this windowless room all day, completely cut off from his family and friends and the rest of the world, didn’t feel much like living.
“I know this sucks,” Dani said, squeezing his shoulder. “Hang in there.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” muttered Nick. “Hanging in there.”
She walked around to the other side of his bed, where she dipped her washcloth into the basin of warm, soapy water and wrung it out. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “I thought you’d want to wash your private parts yourself.”
Nick felt his face redden. “Nothing you haven’t seen before,” he joked, trying to play off his humiliation.
Dani smirked and blushed, looking slightly embarrassed herself. “I’ll be back,” she excused herself, stepping behind the curtain around his bed so he could clean himself without her watching. When she came back, she brought Nick everything he needed to brush his teeth and shave the fine layer of stubble that had sprouted on his face. He felt better afterwards, like he was finally a fully functioning human being again.
But of course, this wasn’t the case. His heart was still failing him, leaving him feeling fatigued and short of breath even as he lay in bed. His lips had taken on a faint bluish tinge from a lack of oxygen, something Nick noticed in the hand mirror Dani held up in front of his face while he was shaving. It was the first time he’d seen his own reflection in days, and he found the sight more concerning than comforting.
“It’s caused by a condition called hypoxia,” Dani explained when he commented on it. “Your heart’s having trouble pumping enough oxygenated blood to your tissues. We’re giving you a higher concentration of supplemental oxygen to try to compensate for it, but your oxygen levels are still lower than they should be. See, look, your nail beds are blue too,” she pointed out, picking up his hand to show him the same discoloration underneath his fingernails. “Once you get your new heart, they’ll go back to being bright pink.”
Staring down at his stubby, dead-looking nails made Nick feel slightly nauseous. “And when will that happen, now that I’m not going to Atlanta?” he asked. It was hard to hide the apprehensiveness in his voice, though he tried to sound casual.
“As soon as this hurricane is past us and you’re stable enough, Dr. Elizabeth will still have you transferred to a hospital with a heart transplant program. It’s probably just going to take a few days to get everything figured out. But don’t worry about it - you’re in safe hands here,” said Dani, squeezing his hand between hers.
Nick nodded. “I know,” he replied, shooting her a half-smile as he squeezed her hand back.
He expected a reassuring smile in return, but Dani suddenly looked very serious. “So, um, speaking of Atlanta and the hurricane…” She sat down on the side of his bed, keeping both hands wrapped tightly around his. “Now that you’re awake, there’s something I need to tell you, Nick.”
“What?” he asked nervously, bracing himself to hear more bad news about his health.
“After you coded yesterday, I went ahead and called Brian. You were in no shape to be flown to Atlanta, but I thought you would want the guys to know what was going on with you anyway.”
Nick nodded, wondering where this was going. Was she worried he would be upset that she’d called one of his bandmates while he was unconscious?
Dani took a deep breath before continuing. “Brian was so worried about you, he hopped on the first flight down here and arrived right before they closed the airport. The weather was already getting bad; it was raining pretty hard by the time his plane landed. We sent a driver to pick him up from the airport and bring him to the hospital, but on their way here, they were involved in a bad accident.”
Nick’s heart skipped a beat, then started hammering hard. “Oh god,” he gagged, his stomach churning with another wave of nausea. “Is Brian-?” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the question. He clapped his hand over mouth, feeling like he was about to throw up.
“He’s alive… but he sustained some very serious injuries,” Dani said, holding out the basin Nick had spat in earlier while brushing his teeth. He shook his head to signal that he didn’t need it. Now that he knew Brian was alive, at least, he felt better.
“How serious?” he forced himself to ask, though he was afraid to hear the answer. He could already tell by the look on her face that it was going to be bad.
Dani stood up abruptly, letting go of his hand. “See for yourself,” she said, as she pulled back the privacy curtain.
On the opposite side of the room, in the other bed, lay Brian. He was barely recognizable with his bruised, swollen face half hidden behind the big, blue hose attached to the breathing tube protruding from his mouth. His eyes were closed, and except for the steady rise and fall of his chest as the ventilator inflated his lungs, his body looked lifeless.
Nick’s own breath caught in his throat as he stared across the room at his brother, and his heart sank like a stone. Not even an hour earlier, he had been floating in a sea of nothingness. Now he found himself falling, dropping back into the black depths of an ocean of despair.
***
