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Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen



Jess had left the hospital to take a break and get a few things for herself and for Nick. As she was standing in the checkout lane at the store, her eyes scanned the magazines. She stopped abruptly when she saw The National Enquirer. Pasted on the front cover, actually it was the front cover, was a picture of Nick as he was lowering himself into the wheelchair. Under the picture was the captioning: Nick Carter, Backstreet Boys, will they be able to handle it without him?

Jess grabbed the magazine and decided to buy the copy. She was angry when she looked at that picture and was trying to figure out when it was taken. As she looked closer at the picture, she saw that Nick was wearing his Miami Dolphins jersey and realized that this was when they did the MTV interview. Someone had taken that picture during a commercial break. The media was allowed in that room but someone took the privledge one step further and intruded on his privacy.

As the cashier was scanning the magazine, she made an idle comment to Jessica, “Isn’t that a shame about that boy?”

Jess simply smiled at the cashier. She didn’t feel the need to respond. She paid her and left the store. When Jess got into her car, she pulled the magazine out of the bag and thumbed through it until she got to the article about Nick. While she read it, she was shocked to find all of the lies that were laced through it:

Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys was critically injured in a car accident early in June. The other driver was killed when he ran a stop light and struck Carter. Nick was rushed to the hospital and was in a coma for more than a week. Once he awoke from his coma, doctors determined that he had irreversible brain damage. His career with the Backstreet Boys has been shattered since the accident has left Nick paralyzed from the chest down.

Jess felt sickened reading the article. It had so many lies in it. There were pictures of Nick in the article of him laying in the hospital bed with the tubes in his mouth, “How did they get that?” Jess wondered. It bothered her to think that people at the hospital would do anything for the glory of money. They had pictures of Nick with the group and more pictures of Nick at the interview and it looked like they enhanced the bruises on his eyes. “I hope Nick doesn’t see this.” Jess thought to herself.

She decided to drive over to Brian’s and see what he was up to. It felt good to be away from the hospital for a while. Nick insisted that she go out and take a break while he went to physical therapy. It looked like such a nice day outside, it didn’t take much to convince her to do so.

Back at the hospital, Nick was finished with his physical therapy for the day. It was an especially difficult session for Nick. The occupational therapist was teaching him how to do normal day to day tasks in a hospital room that was set up like a house. The one task he had to try to do that hit him hard was practice getting himself in and out of a car. They had a “car” on the therapy floor and Nick had to practice moving himself from the chair to a car seat and then back again. It upset him to think that he would have to learn how to do something like that. He was planning on walking out of the hospital.

“Oh, by the way, Nick, you will be getting your chair delivered to your room today, maybe it will be here by the time we get back.” The therapist sounded a little too happy about the chair.

Nick tried to figure out what she was talking about. He didn’t order anything special, he decided to just blow off what she was talking about, he figured that she was just rambling on about nothing.

“Ah, here we are, room 6265.” The female orderly said as they walked past the security guard. “My, you sure do have a lot of nice flowers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many in a room at one time.”

“Yup.” Nick didn’t feel like being sociable.

“Are you okay here or did you want help back into----”

“I’m fine.” Nick cut her off. He was getting irritated about being helped to do this and that.

“Okay, have a nice day.” As she turned her back to Nick, he wagged his hand back and forth as if to help her out the door. He sat in the chair for a moment and looked around the room. His eyes fell on the unfamiliar sight of the new chair the therapist had talked about. It was a modified wheelchair, it didn’t have armrests so it was more accessible to use your arms to move the wheels.

“Well, isn’t that just special.” Nick sputtered. He decided to lay down. He started to let his mind wander.

Well, um that’s been postphoned right now indefinately. We were to start touring the first of July in Amsterdam, but Nick would not be able to tour right now, so we’ll have to wait until he gets better.......The tour would be too much of a strain on Nick?..........Oh, by the way Nick, you’ll be getting your new chair today.......This is the way you need to scooch yourself to get from the chair into the car....

The tears were flowing down his cheeks and stinging his eyes. “I am holding my friends back, what am I thinking? I’m never going to get better. I’m never going to dance or sing again. I’m nothing.”

Nick turned the television on hoping that it would clear his thoughts. The newsprogram American Journal was on and ironically, it was showing The Backstreet Boys on stage. Nick turned the volume up:

The Backstreet Boys have been riding high on the charts and have recently released their new album, Millenium. Tragically, on June 19, Nick Carter was involved in a car accident that claimed the life of another driver. Nick has been hospitalized since the accident, but yesterday was with the group when they were interviewed by MTV.

As the woman was talking, they were showing pictures of the group, the accident scene and the MTV interview with Nick and the guys. The next picture they showed stunned Nick while he listened to the announcer:

No one is sure when or if Carter will ever be able to tour with the group again. The accident has left him paralyzed and unable to use his legs.

The picture that was on the screen was Nick during a break on the MTV interview moving from the wheelchair and into the chairs they had set up for the song.

His voice shaking while he sang with the group, Carter was visibly nervous. We will keep you updated when we find out more about this Backstreet Boy.

Nick shut the television off. He pressed his nurse call button and waited for her to come into the room.

“Can I help you?” It was Tiffany, his afternoon nurse.

“Can I get something for pain?” Nick asked.

“How bad is it?” The nurse asked as she approached his bedside.

“I want a shot, no pills, I waited too long to ask for something and now it hurts bad.” Nick lied to her. He wasn’t hurting that badly, he just wanted the shot.

“Okay, I’ll check your chart and be back in a second.” She left the room.

Nick reached over to his bedstand and grabbed his glass of icewater. Slowly he opened the drawer to the table and pulled out a tissue that was wadded up into a ball. He unwrapped the tissue and exposed a handful of twelve pain pills he had stashed aside. Without hesitation, he put them in his mouth and swallowed them with a mouthful of water. Just as he set the cup down, Tiffany came back into the room with a syringe.

“You haven’t had an injection in a few days, this may make you a little sleepy.” Tiffany said as she inserted the needle into Nick’s thigh.

“That’s what I’m hoping for.” Nick smiled at her. Tiffany, unknowing what he had done smiled back at him.

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Backstreet Boys Stories