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Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Nine



Nick was surprised when he was taken to his new room to find Jess and Brian sitting in the room waiting for him. Jess didn’t waste a second going up to Nick and giving him a bear hug and a kiss.

“I missed you.” Jess said in his ear.

Nick whispered back to Jess in her ear, “I missed you too.”

Jess pulled back quickly from their embrace. “Oh, Nick, you can talk!” She was so happy she couldn’t hide her excitement.

Nick smiled at her. He was afraid to say anything else, she would know then that all he could do was whisper.

“Hey pal, that’s great.” Brian smacked Nick on the shoulder.

Both Brian and Jess stood there and looked at Nick. They waited for him to initiate the conversation.

Nick sat in the wheelchair and stared at Brian and Jess. He wasn’t going to utter a word unless he had to.

“You know, this staredown can last for quite awhile. Don’t you have anything you would like to share?” Brian commented.

Nick shook his head no. Jess and Brian glanced at each other.

“What’s wrong Nick?” Jess knew immediately that Nick was hiding something from them.

Nick finally decided to speak again. He cleared his throat and spoke softly, “I can’t talk any higher than this.” It was barely audible.

“For how long? This is only temporary isn’t it?” Jess asked. She was hoping he would say yes, it was temporary.

“I don’t know, they won’t say.” Nick whispered back. His eyes started to sting with the tears that were filling up in them.

“Awh, Nick, don’t get yourself all worried yet, you just started talking today, didn’t you?” Jess said as she put her arms around him.

“Yes.” Nick whispered quietly.

“And you just started speech therapy today also, didn’t you?” Brian asked.

“Yes.” Nick again whispered quietly.

Brian looked his friend in the eyes. “It’s gonna take some time, don’t get yourself all upset about this.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Nick whispered, “I don’t know what I will be left with a month from now.”

Nick let the tears slip down his cheeks. He was so sick of not having his body respond the way he wanted it to. He was beginning to feel as if he would never be the same again. He was trying to fight the feelings of being helpless and useless. He did not want to let Brian and Jess know how he was feeling.

“Nick, are you okay?” Brian always picked up on Nick’s moods.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Nick lied.

“Hey, I know there’s something bothering you, don’t lie to me, I want to help you.” Brian rubbed Nick’s shoulder. “Comeon, what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing, don’t worry.” Nick was starting to get annoyed.

Brian wasn’t convinced, but he decided to let it go for the moment. He knew Nick all too well and knew that he was hiding something. He was afraid that Nick was going into a depression again, but hopefully it wouldn’t be as bad as the last time.

Nick decided he wanted to lay down in bed. He moved the wheelchair over to the side of the bed and grabbing the armrests on the chair, he pushed himself up to a standing position. Once he was standing, he soon realized that it was a stupid decision on his behalf to try to do that without anyone standing near him.

Brian rushed up and caught Nick as he was starting to fall forward. “Whoa, I got you.”

“Guess that wasn’t a good idea.” Nick said softly.

Brian stayed by Nick while he turned himself and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Have you stood up yet, Nick?” Brian questioned his friend.

“Yeah, earlier with the therapists. Only once.” Nick said quietly. “I shouldn’t of tried to do this on my own but I thought I could.” Nick hated this. He was so upset, he wanted to be left alone.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, you have been sick for so long that you are anxious to do stuff for yourself.” Jess tried to reason with Nick.

Nick didn’t respond, he just pushed himself back into the bed and laid down. He picked up his game boy and turned it on and proceeded to play a game. He was hoping that they would go away, he didn’t feel like talking to anyone.

“Nick, I am starting to get worried about you again.” Jess was getting annoyed that he was trying to ignore her and Brian.

Nick stopped what he was doing and looked up at Jessica. He raised his voice above the whisper level and was trying to say “Can’t you guys just accept that fact that I can’t do a goddamn thing right now?”, but the only thing that came out was not understandable. Frustrated, Nick threw his gameboy on the nightstand. It hit the table and then it slid off onto the floor and popped open.

“Nickolas Carter, take a breath and count to ten. You need to calm down.” Jessica was mad. She hated when Nick’s temper flared up. He had a tendency to throw stuff around and do a lot of yelling. It was easier about the yelling stuff this time since he couldn’t yell.

“Now that you broke your gameboy, you have to talk to us.” Brian stated.

Nick glanced at Brian and had a dark look on his face. He picked up the remote for his television and turned it on. He surfed through the channels and stopped at MTV.

“Well, we can sit with you and watch tv.” Jessica said as she sat down. Brian pulled a chair up next to her and sat with her.

Nick glared at them. “Alright, I can see that you won’t go away.” Nick whispered with an angry tone in his voice.

“Nope, we’re not going away.” Brian answered. “Not when we know your in this type of mood.”

Nick resigned himself that he was going to have company whether he liked it or not. He knew that they were picking up on his frustrations, but it was so hard not to be that way.

They picked up on the MTV 30 second news update. Everyone felt a sickened feeling in their stomachs when they listened:

Backstreet Boy Nick Carter is back in the hospital. Apparently he had to have emergency surgery to remove blood clots in his spine. The doctors determined that the clots were caused when Carter fell and not from the automobile accident in June.

It appears that the surgery was a success and he is not permanently paralyzed, however, the doctors had to preform an emergency tracheomotry because of the temporary paralysis. Carter’s voice, unfortunately has been affected by this surgery. Hospital officals are declining comment at this time.

Jess and Brian were both afraid to look at Nick. They sat there with their mouths open in shock.

Finally, Jess spoke up, “I can’t believe that nothing is ever private. How the hell did they find this stuff out?”

“Not only that, do you know that they will have to have a guard outside your door again?” Brian shook his head. This was the hardest part about being famous.

MTV showed a video that caught everyone’s attention after the 30 second news update. It was the long version of Backstreet’s Back video.

Nick remembered how much fun he had doing that video. It took them over sixteen hours to film it but they had so much fun doing it that it didn’t seem that long.

Jessica was captivated listening to Nick’s voice in the beginning of the video talking. Once the music started and the dancing and singing, Jess couldn’t help but watch Nick out of the corner of her eye to see what he was doing while it was on.

Nick watched the video intently. He never realized how well he could dance, something he had always taken for granted. Now that he was not able to stand up on his own, let alone take any steps, he was looking at the video with envy. It was making him angry as each momement went on. It was almost as if MTV was ridiculing him and mocking him. Nick started to feel as if the world was against him and laughing at him.

Brian could see Nick’s body tense as the video continued. He was beginning to realize that this was a terrible mistake watching television. It was Nick that turned the set on so they did not have any control over what had been selected.

There was a faint knock on the door. The door wasn’t closed and when they looked in the direction of the doorway, a girl was standing there with a food tray.

“Come in.” Brian said to the girl.

She walked into the room quickly and set the tray down on the stand in front of Nick without making eye contact with anyone. She left the room as quickly as she had entered it.

“Oh, doesn’t that look good?” Brian remarked as he looked over the tray.

Nick’s response was shoving the tray away. He didn’t want to eat, he was too upset to eat.

“Nick, you gotta eat, man.” Brian tried to reason with him.

Nick sank back into the bed, his eyes were in a fixed glaze. He looked sullen, dark.

“Dude, you can’t be doing this to yourself, you need to eat to get better.” Brian looked Nick in the eyes and tried to get him to at least look back at him.

Nick seemed to look through him. He didn’t want to eat, he didn’t care to eat, and he felt he didn’t need to eat. He would just assume starve himself than to let this stuff continue. He knew he would never be the same again. He felt that he would always be a burden to someone. He plain just didn’t care anymore.

“Would you eat if we went away and left you alone for awhile?” Jessica suggested.

Nick pondered the idea. He was thinking to himself that if they left him alone he would be able to send the tray back untouched. No questions asked, no witnesses.

“Yeah, why don’t you go for awhile.” Nick whispered quietly.

Reluctantly Jessica gave Nick a kiss and turned to leave.

“We’ll be back later on this afternoon then. Try to eat, please and get some rest, okay?”

Nick didn’t answer Jess he just forced a smile and waved at her and Brian as they were leaving.

After Brian and Jess left, Nick’s nurse, Mary came into the room. She took a look underneath the lids covering the food on the tray.

“Something wrong with the food, you haven’t touched it.”

“Nope, not hungry,” Nick whispered.

“I will be back in an hour and I expect to see your plate clean.” Mary said as she walked out.

Nick watched her leave and envisioned her coming to a quick and painful death. He seized the opportunity and moved himself out of bed and into his wheelchair. Grabbing the tray of food, Nick wheeled himself into the bathroom and took each plate, bowl and cup and dumped it’s contents into the toilet. He flushed the evidence away and returned the tray with empty dishes back onto his bedstand and then got himself back into bed before anyone saw him.

Chapter 30