Nick slapped at the alarm clock several times before he made contact and silenced the offending noise. Groaning, he turned and squinted as he looked at the bright red numbers.
8:30
Running a hand through his hair, he sighed. He felt the same as he had for the past week, the nausea hadn’t left and the sleep didn’t do anything for the feelings of fatigue. He felt as if he hadn’t slept for a month.
Stumbling sleepily towards the bathroom, Nick decided that maybe a shower would wake him up more and lift his depressed spirits. Although he could smell the fresh coffee that was brewing in the kitchen downstairs, Nick knew that the taste wouldn’t be as he remembered it. Coffee was something he loved - dark, black and strong - he couldn’t get enough of it, especially when they were on tour. Battling this illness created havoc with his taste buds as well as his appetite.
Stripping down in front of the full length mirror, Nick caught a glimpse of his naked body. Normally he would turn away, not wishing to look at his swollen stomach, but today he noticed something different. It appeared to him as if some of the swelling was going down - not much - but enough for Nick to notice. He briefly grinned at his reflection.
“I’m gonna beat this!” he happily exclaimed.
“Well good morning Nick,” Leighanne smiled as Nick appeared in the dining room. “How are you feeling this morning? Did you sleep alright?”
Nick took a seat next to Brian at the table. Without asking, Brian picked up a cup and poured coffee into it and sat it in front of Nick.
“Thanks, slept fine,” Nick lied.
“I hope you’re hungry this morning, I made breakfast quiche. Brian honey, do you know where we put those blue plates?” Lee asked as she opened doors to the oak china cabinet.
“In the kitchen, third cabinet from the fridge to the left,” Brian answered after swallowing a sip of coffee. “Want me to get it?”
“Nope, thanks, I’m fine,” she called out over her shoulder as she left the room.
AJ strode into the room, tossing a newspaper onto the table. “I picked this up when I went to the store for smokes.” Helping himself to the coffee, AJ threw himself into a chair opposite of Nick and Brian. “So, how’s it goin’ Nick?”
Nick clenched his jaw for a moment, trying to not only summon the courge not to make any type of snide remark back at AJ but also to calm his stomach from the getting queasy over the strong tobbaco odor that clung to AJ’s clothes. He was trying his best to be good to his Backstreet brother, trying not to let the snide remarks and comments AJ tossed at him last night to get to him. It was just AJ’s style, AJ didn’t know any better.
“It’s going good AJ,” Nick lied.
Sarah and Kristen entered the room carrying the breakfast service and helped Leighanne serve the quiche. Much to Nick’s dismay, Sarah gave him a large portion. He had decided before he even left his bedroom this morning, despite his nausea, that he would eat everything on his plate to stop AJ from picking on him about how little he was eating.
His heart sank as he looked down at the egg dish that was in front of him.
“Dig in Nick, it looks good,” AJ coached.
Shrugging his shoulders, at first Nick poked and stabbed at the food and once he realized that he had an audience watching him play with his food, he started taking bites, choking the breakfast down. The all-too-familiar feeling of his stomach churning and doing flip flops came back as he finished up the last bite and Nick was soon regretting that he had even started eating breakfast.
Jumping up, he excused himself quickly and dashed up the stairs to the privacy of his own bathroom. One of the side effects that Dr. Andersen discussed was showing up and Nick knew that if he didn’t make it to the bathroom in time, he would have worse problems than he bargained for.
“Talk about eat and run!” Howie snickered.
“Well, based on the lyrics you’ve written, we should be able to cut three new songs for the CD.”
All eyes in the room were on the tall, sandy haired record producer they knew as Mark Lindstrom. All eyes except for Nick who seemed to be preoccupied with the pad of paper in front of him. He kept pushing it back and forth, not offering any comments or suggestions.
“We have the materials from the other writers and I believe that you should be able to have three at least, maybe four hit songs from this release,” Mark continued. He walked around the table and laid out a multi colored booklet in front of each of the men. Kevin tried to catch Nick’s attention as he glared. Feeling someone staring at him, Nick glanced up and caught Kevin’s penetraiting stare.
“Pay attention!” Kevin mouthed.
“In this handout, I’ve taken the liberty of writing down all of the provisions and the expectations of this session for you. In it are the dates we have this studio as well as the studios in London, Stockholm, New York and Orlando reserved for.” Mark paused for a moment, taking a generous gulp from the glass of icewater at his place at the oval conference table.
Nick was feeling so tired and the effects from the fever he was fighting made his thoughts wander. He felt like a kid sitting in the classroom waiting for the bell to chime the 3:00 dismissal. He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling as Mark droned on and on about specifics of the recording sessions.
Without warning, a foot was shoved into Nick’s shin with such force, he jumped up and accidentally hit his tender stomach on the table’s edge.
”Ouch! What the fuck did you do that for?!” Nick cried out as he placed a protective hand over the side of his stomach. Blinking the tears away from his eyes, he prayed that he could keep control and not start crying in front of the guys.
“Judas Nick, pay attention and for the record, I only tapped you dumbass!” AJ defended.
Panting from the pain, Nick shook his head, he didn’t dare answer knowing full well he would start bawling like a baby.
“Guys, settle down,” Kevin demanded in a calm voice, embarrassed that this display of petty fighting was shown to the record producer.
Nick was still shaking his head and holding his stomach. He had to get out of the room and he had to go NOW. Without saying a word, he slipped out of the conference room.
Brian shoved his chair back. “I’ll go see if he’s alright.”
“We can just break for the day, we’ll start recording tomorrow morning, nine o’clock sharp,” Mark stated as he stacked his papers in front of him.
Brian dashed out of the conference room in search of his best friend. Hearing a door close part way down the hall, Brian stepped up his pace and pushed against the men’s bathroom door.
“Nick...Nick, are you in here?”
Nick groaned inwardly.
“Yeah, I’ll be out in a sec,” he replied trying his best to keep his stomach calm.
Hearing the all-too-familiar sounds, Brian assumed that Nick was throwing up again.
“Are you getting sick?”
Nick wanted to die from embarassment at this particular moment. “Um... well kinda.” He silently prayed that this bought of diarrhea was the only time he would experience this nasty side effect from the radiation.
“Something didn’t agree with you, I take it,” Brian replied. He was concerned that Nick was getting a case of the stomach flu.
“Yeah, Leighanne’s cooking,” Nick joked. He instantly regretted the remark when he heard Brian’s terse reply.
“Well, I’ll be waiting out in the parking lot for you with the rest of the guys.”
“God, just shoot me now,” Nick moaned, feeling badly for hurting his friend’s feelings with his stupid remark about Leighanne’s cooking.
The drive back to Brian’s house was uneventful. Nick was quiet and deep into his own thoughts and didn’t participate with the mindless banter and jokes that were being tossed back and forth as Brian guided his vehicle down the two lane road.
“Hey, I was thinking,” Brian announced as he pulled through the gates leading up to his house, “that we should enjoy the beautiful sunshine and go swimming! I can fire up the grill and we can have a cookout.”
“Sounds like fun, I’m sure the girls are probably already lounging by the pool anyway,” Kevin decided.
“Yeah sounds good to me,” Howie agreed along with AJ.
“Nick? What about you?” Kevin asked when he noticed no reply was coming from his younger brother.
“Huh?”
“Earth to space cadet, we’re talking about swimming in the pool,” AJ spat as he snapped his fingers in front of Nick’s face.
Nick quickly shoved AJ’s hand away from his face. “Knock it off, dammit! No, I don’t want to go swimming.”
AJ’s mouth dropped open. “Hey, you’re the water, sun, sand, beach, boating kid here, what gives?”
“I didn’t bring any swim trunks along, okay?” Nick snapped as he hopped out of the car and slammed the door.
“I have some extras you can borrow,” Brian offered.
“No, thanks, it’s okay, don’t worry about it,” came the reply back from the blonde.
“Yeah, think about it Brian, Nick probably wouldn’t be able to fit into your tiny assed trunks. He probably don’t want to go swimming cause he doesn’t want anyone to see his flabby body,” AJ joked as he swatted Nick playfully on the shoulder.
“Fuck off AJ,” Nick shouted as he walked towards the front door and into the house, leaving the door wide open.
“Nice, AJ, really smooth,” Howie glared.
“God, the kid is too damn sensitive, you guys have to stop coddling his ass,” AJ defended.
“And you, my friend had better start taking lessons in tact,” Kevin reprimanded as he walked past AJ, leaving him standing alone in the driveway.
Brian immediately took the flight of steps towards Nick’s bedroom. The door wasn’t shut tight so Brian took the opportunity of pushing slightly on the door and was just about to announce his presence when he saw Nick in the room without his shirt on.
Brian gasped when he saw the red splotches on the side of Nick’s stomach and the purple X marks. He remembered the markers on the skin from when he was in the hospital for his heart, but he was trying to grasp why Nick would have those marks on him to begin with.
Random thoughts were screaming into his brain.
Bullemia.....laxative abuse......liposcution.
Liposcution?
Brian suddenly looked at Nick in a different light now. Nick was abusing his body and taking stupid risks and chances at losing weight. He suddenly became angry and disappointed in how Nick was acting. He was forever getting drunk or getting in trouble with the media and now the pieces were slowly starting to fit together. Nick was trying to kill himself. He was pushing everyone away in the process.
Feeling dejected, Brian turned around and never said a word to Nick. He doubted that he could right now.
