AJ and Howie returned to their tour, and the Backstreet Boys continued to wow every fan that came to a concert. Nick sent me a video of one of the shows, and I was really impressed. They had come so far. I teased Felicia as we sat on my bed and watched. I didn’t do much except lay around anymore. My strength was almost non-existent, and I felt better laying around. If I didn’t try to do anything, I didn’t find out that I couldn’t do it anymore, and I didn’t get depressed.

“So, when the tour is over, are you and Howie gonna move in together?” I asked her. She actually blushed, so I knew they had discussed it.

“I can’t. You know that. I need to be here for you.”

“Felicia, you don’t have to be here twenty-four seven. You can just be here during the day, and at night, if I need you I’ll call.”

“No way. My place is here with you,” she retorted.

“Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes. I didn’t think I needed her as much as SHE thought I needed her. I was proven wrong about this a few nights later.

I woke up around two in the morning, unable to breathe. I had had these attacks before, but after about ten minutes, my heart calmed down and I was able to breathe clearly. Not this night. This time I began to cough and couldn’t stop. I couldn’t even stop long enough to get out of bed. Before I knew what was happening, the light came on and Felicia was by my side.

“I called an ambulance,” she said in a quiet soothing voice. “I’m sure it’s just the pneumonia coming back, but I really think we should get you in to the hospital, okay?” I nodded, unable to fight even if I wanted to. “And I called your doctor…she’s gonna meet us there.” I smiled at her gratefully between coughs, realizing that if I had been alone I wouldn’t have been able to call anyone.

She managed to get a pair of shorts on me under my nightshirt before the paramedics arrived. She rushed to her own room to dress as they got me ready, and she was holding my hand as they wheeled me to the ambulance. “Alex…don’t…” I managed to croak, and she understood. We had already talked about it. If something like this happened, she was NOT to call AJ or Howie unless it was absolutely serious. As we rode in the ambulance, she discussed my situation with the paramedics, and I was surprised at how much she knew about how I suffered at night. It was nice to just lay there and not fight. I could just relax and let them take care of me.

My doctor was waiting in the emergency room when we arrived. “You know, I kinda was sleeping,” Dr. Greene said with a grin. I blushed. “And I wasn’t alone, either.”

“Sorry,” I whispered.

“No problem. My cats will forgive me. Let’s see what we have here, and get you on some oxygen.” She patted my shoulder. Before I knew it I was hooked up to so many tubes and machines I lost count. Whatever they gave me worked, however, and the horrible coughing ceased. I accepted the oxygen mask with a grateful sigh, and soon I fell asleep.

When I awakened, it was morning. Felicia was asleep on the chair by the bed, and when I stirred, her dark eyes fluttered open. “Hey,” she said, smiling. She looked exhausted but glad that I was awake.

“Hey,” I said through the mask. I slowly reached up and removed it, taking in a breath of normal air. I quickly choked, but it was a small cough. She laughed.

“Damn hospital air will get you every time.”

“What did the doctor say?”

Felicia actually looked uncomfortable. “Well…um…she said she’d stop by once you were awake, she’s in the hospital on rounds. Why don’t I go let the desk know you’re up?” She darted out of the room before I could reply. I stared at the ceiling, thinking about the guys. It was the beginning of March and they were in Las Vegas. Vegas. Somewhere I had always wanted to go. Kevin had promised to buy me one of those little slot machines, and I planned on holding him to it.

Felicia soon returned. “Dr. Greene?” I asked.

“She’s on this floor. She should be down here in about ten minutes,” Felicia replied. She started chatting about this and that in an offhand way that was totally unlike her. Felicia didn’t babble. I went along with her, asking about Howie to make her blush. They were so cute together.

“And how’s my patient?” Dr. Greene breezed into the room. She was an unmarried woman in her early 40s, and I really liked her.

“Okay. Curious,” I replied. Felicia and the doctor exchanged glances. The doctor sat on the edge of the bed.

“Well, what I think you need to know is…”

“No, Doctor.” I looked up at her unwaveringly. “I don’t really care what you THINK I need to know. What I need to know is everything.”

She looked at me for a long moment. “Okay. This is how it is.” She began to slowly tell me my condition, avoiding long-winded medical terminology and getting to the point. None of it was big news; I had expected this for a while, yet nothing had prepared me for the punch in the stomach that I felt when she told me. Basically, it was the beginning of the end. Felicia had been right, this was another wave of pneumonia, except that my body was not prepared to fight it. If and when I finally got over it (the doctor said when but I mentally amended that with if), my body would most certainly break down, which meant I didn’t have a whole lot of time left. She mentioned different breakdowns by medical name (I knew them all already), talked about blood cell count and such, but I almost tuned it all out. I had read enough and researched enough to know what she was saying. By the time Dr. Greene finished, Felicia was standing at the window with her back to us.

“So, can I go home?” I asked.

“I’d rather you stay in for observation until you’ve beaten the pneumonia,” the doctor replied. “Plus there’s a few new medications I’d like to try.”

I heaved a deep sigh, then coughed. “Well, it’s not like I’m not taking a handful already.”

“That’s the kind of spirit that’s gonna get you out of here really soon,” the doctor said with a grin. She smiled and left the room. Felicia remained at the window.

“Just think, you’ll have that whole big house to yourself,” I said cheerfully. Felicia ignored me. “Felicia?”

“You know, my mom always told me NOT to go into this kind of work after he died,” she replied to the window. “She told me that for all my brassy bullshit I had too big of a heart, and she was right.” When Felicia turned around, tears were pouring down her cheeks. “Dammit, I knew this was coming…”

“Felicia, it’s all right,” I said, surprised at my calmness. “If you want to quit…”

“Fuck no, I don’t want to quit,” she snapped. “Who’s gonna take care of you? The great AJ McLean?”

“Speaking of which…you’re not telling him, or Howie, or Nick, about any of this, okay? If they call, just say I’m sleeping, and I’ll call them occasionally, so they know I’m not pushing them away again.”

“But…”

“They’ll be home in like three weeks, Felicia. No reason to have them rushing back here now. I’m sure I’ll be fine by then, and already back home.”

But I wasn’t. The pneumonia lingered and seemed to zap every ounce of strength out of me. For every hour I was off a respirator, I needed to be back on it for two hours. I hated it, but even that hate took too much energy, so I just lay in bed, aimlessly flipping channels on the television. Felicia was by my side all the time, holding my head when I got sick, and giving me drinks of water when I was thirsty. She kept bugging me to let her tell Howie, saying that she was sick of lying to him when he called her, but I begged her to put it off. They’d be home before we knew it, and they could find out then. I was still ever hopeful about getting out of the hospital; the new medications DID help me beat the pneumonia, though they caused all kinds of other side effects.

I heard later from Felicia what exactly happened when Alex came back home and found out that I wasn’t there. She had run home to change clothes when he burst through the front door, carrying a bouquet of red and pink roses. He hurried to my room and yelled when he found it empty, the bed obviously not slept in. “Where is she?” He roared at Felicia.

“Hi, AJ, where’s Howie?” She asked calmly.

“Felicia, where the FUCK is she?”

“She’s in the hospital,” Felicia told him, and she said later that his face turned completely white. “Come on,” she said. “I’m ready to go back in, anyway.”

I was dozing through “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” when I heard the door to my room open. “Sir, it’s after visiting hours and the patient needs her rest!” A nurse was protesting.

“That’s too bad…I just got home from weeks on the road, and I want to see her,” AJ snapped. I slowly reached up and removed the oxygen mask.

“Nurse, please…let him stay…it’s been a long time,” I whispered. She frowned, nodded curtly, then walked out of the room. I reached over for the remote and turned off the TV. “Alex…hi…”

AJ stared at me for a long moment, his brow furrowed. He said nothing, but instead walked over to the window that Felicia had stared out of just a few weeks before. “You’ve been here a while, I take it?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “I don’t suppose it occurred to the Wicked Witch of Florida, also known as Felicia, to call and tell us? Tell HOWIE, for God’s sake?”

“I…asked her not…to…” I rasped, then replaced the oxygen mask. I could tell from the line of his body that AJ was absolutely furious. He whirled around, but his eyes opened wide as he saw the mask over my face. I removed it once more. “I…didn’t want you to worry…didn’t want you to come home…”

“Honey, shhh…don’t talk.” AJ sat on the edge of my bed, stroking my hair. I didn’t put the mask back; I had too much to say.

“Alex, some things you need to know…” I reached out and took his hand. “Things are moving…very fast now…and…”

AJ waved a hand in the air. “Felicia told me about that on the way in, baby, and she said you’re on all kinds of new medicine that can…”

“Alex, please…” I begged, placing a finger on his lips. “Let me finish.” He nodded and was quiet. “About the medicine…I want to stop taking it…ALL of it…” AJ’s mouth fell open. “For every thing it fixes, it makes something else worse…and half the time I don’t even know what’s going on. I don’t want to…end…like that. Please, Alex…”

“I don’t…you don’t want to take ANYTHING?” AJ got up and began to pace. THIS was why I was glad he was the one I was living with. Howie would have ranted and raved and pretty much ordered me to take all the meds the doctor wanted to give me. “Well, it’s your decision, sweetheart. What does Felicia say?”

“She understands…she’s not happy about it but she understands,” I told him.

“Okay…” AJ slowly nodded. “You realize Howie will have about seventeen cows when he hears this?”

I smiled. “Yeah, at least seventeen. But there’s more.”

“Oh, God,” AJ said, rolling his eyes to make me smile again. He sat back down on the edge of the bed.

“Yesterday I signed a DNR…Felicia actually suggested it and though it was hard, I realized it was a good idea. She knows how much I don’t want to bother you guys, or stretch this out, and…”

AJ stopped my babbling. “A what?”

“A DNR.” I watched him carefully. “It’s a special order. Do Not Resuscitate. It means that if I would…you know…start to freak or whatever they call it…um…code, that’s it…no one is supposed to, like, work to save me.”

AJ’s brown eyes grew stormy. “If I thought shaking the living FUCK out of you wouldn’t hurt you, I would sure as hell be doing it right now. Are you crazy? You don’t want…okay, that’s it. The bitch is fired!”

“Alex, do NOT call her that,” I snapped as best I could. I struggled to sit up. “Felicia is wonderful and smart and caring and she’ll be Howie’s wife before the year is out, mark my words. So you’d better not be calling her names, or HE’LL kick your ass for both me AND him. You don’t know what it’s like. You know what I’m doing now? I’m waiting around to DIE, for fuck’s sake, and I hate it. WHY should I stretch this thing out? We both know I’m not getting any better…just deal with it, okay?”

AJ stared at me for a long moment, then smiled against his will. “You’re damn cute when you get pissed off, do you know that, Sugar?”

“I am NOT,” I said, annoyed. I began to cough and he helped me put the oxygen mask back on.

“Okay, when you’re hacking up your lungs, you’re not that cute,” he added, and I smiled. He moved me over slightly, and lay down beside me. I laid my head on his shoulder. “Sugar, I hate this so much…I just want you to be without pain and at peace, but I know to get that I need to lose you in the process. I’m sorry I got mad. You and Felicia are right…it DOES sound like the most logical thing to do…though I hate it.”

I reached up and removed the mask. “One more thing…”

“Oh NOW what?” AJ groaned.

I looked up at him, tears in my eyes. “I want to go home. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to be in my room with you right upstairs and the ocean outside my window…can you take me home, Alex?”

“Sure, baby…anything you want.” AJ kissed my forehead and I snuggled back against him until I fell asleep.

Home
Hosted Stories
Memories
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Sixteen