Denise sort of swayed back and forth with me in her arms for awhile. Don’t take this as a love thing, I felt like I was little again and she was my mom. I loved and missed my real mom dearly while I was away, but I still had no way to contact her. She would be back around Christmas she promised.
“In one day? Did you take that many in one day?” I shook my head yes and she stopped swaying.
“Promise me you’ll never do this again, Nick.” I couldn’t though. I was in so much unbearable pain that it was practically impossible. Instead, I had to lie and shake my head yes. I felt bad about lying because she was so nice to me now, but I had no choice.
“Can doctors help you?” That was a good question. I wasn’t sure anymore and right now I was supposed to be having chemotherapy. They might be able to, but I’d most likely relapse and die, I thought.
When I took to long to answer she asked, “Is the answer maybe?” I shook my head yes at that one. That would be the best answer.
She saw that I was tired and she put me into my bunk. It hardly took any effort for her to do. I wanted to ask her why she changed her mind, but I couldn’t speak. In fact, I could barely breathe.
As if she knew, Denise took my inhaler and gave it to me. While I was taking it, she took off to let me sleep. I did sleep, but only for a little. Again, I was woken up by the sound of voices.
“Just look at his face!” I could hear Denise shout, “Be reasonable, you’ve pushed this much too far. He told me that he’s sick and I don’t know with what. If we don’t get him to a hospital, he might not live!”
There was some mumbling, and I hoped that Denise could convince the guys to drop what they’re doing. Eventually Denise sighed, and I knew she was the one to give in. Dare I say it; she was too kind to win a fight.
She burst into my room and tried to shake me awake. I pretended that I was sleeping when she burst in and when she shook me I faked that I was choking and moaned like I was dying.
She took a step back and ran out of the room. The guys would have to do quite a bit of convincing to get her this time, he, he. Even so I was sick, I still had my sick sense of humor!
The talking in the other part of the room was quiet and so I feel asleep instead of listening to it. I didn’t blame myself for it; I was really tired now. That feeling was really getting on my nerves and the only time I’d needed it, it hadn’t come.
Denise came about a half an hour later by my watch. She was determined this time to rat me out, so she did. It hurt me, those stabbing words that she said. I know still that they hurt me, but I don’t remember what they were. This time, I didn’t shed any tears over her; I just stared my blank stare and looked into her eyes. I didn’t see anger in her eyes; I saw regret. And I used that regret to get rid of her.
Her voice did make my ears throb, so I took pills one by one until she stopped talking. I could swallow these pills without water and I took about five until she stopped. She ran out of the room for more consoling from the guys. I felt like she had been betraying me so I broke her promise. No sense keeping it if she was going to be like that. Dangerous as it may have been, I still was going to take those pills, but only because I was in so much pain. I had so many that I could afford to take twenty at a time.
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Brian didn’t say anything to me about sleeping in his bunk. He might have not noticed, but then again I hadn’t bandaged up my hand when I slept in there. Plus, he changed his sheets after I left it.
While we were travelling, I mostly slept. I took some time out sleeping to bandage up my hand because it was still bleeding and it felt raunchy to sleep in all that blood.
My nose refused to get better. Because of that, when we arrived at the next show, advisors sent by my management tried to get me off the stage. They were afraid what the fans would think, yadda, yadda. But I had this urge to sing in front of those people. At the time I figured that the pills I was taking were making me high.
When the advisors were caught off guard, I hobbled as fast I could onto the stage. I was wearing my big hat, but I had stuck bits of my hair out of the corners so that you guys could recognize me. You did too, and you were roaring about it. It was different from the everyday for me, having someone want to see me around.
I waved to all of the fans in the audience by covering my hand with my sleeve. I didn’t want you to see me injured, although you probably knew that I was by the way I limped on stage.
When I looked into the audience, I saw a really cool sign that read, “I saw Nick live,” and then there’s a picture of me lying on the floor from a day ago, “Please tell us the truth.”
I think that I should mention that I did this before a show. The guys weren’t out yet and I had disturbed the main act. I don’t think they minded because we had invited them onstage. They had to respect us because we could kick them out at any point on the tour. Not that we wanted to though, they were good company. Mandy (my Mandy) disagreed about having another girl with the same name on the tour. I had a hard time explaining to her that it wasn’t my choice.
For a good ten minutes I was onstage, waving to the fans. I wished that I could do more for them, but I didn’t bring a mike. The glory of being on the stage for the first time in a few weeks felt like it had when the Backstreet Boys first started.
Advisors leapt onto the stage suddenly and snatched me from my niche. The fans booed and threw things onto the stage. I felt sorry for the opening act and I planned to apologize to them when I could. The advisors had to literally drag me from the stage because I just didn’t want to leave. I finally felt wanted somewhere.
They were so afraid that I would try to run out during the show that they locked me in the bus. I couldn’t play video games like I had originally planned because my set was missing. Frantically, I looked for it, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Someone had taken it to spite me and now I was bored out of my mind.
I found a basketball under Rok’s bunk and threw it against the wall absent-mindedly. Somehow I felt energized so much that I wanted to play basketball, leg and all. At first I thought it may be the pills, but those were supposed to make you feel tired. Then I thought that it was the food, which reminded me that I hadn’t eaten in two days.
I thought about my weight and I decided to eat something. My gums were still sore and they bled so often that I didn’t notice the taste anymore. One thing I ate was bread without the crusts. Usually I didn’t mind the crusts, but I had to take it off this time because I couldn’t bite through it.
When I did bite through the bread, I did it slowly and the blood leaked all over the bread. I ate it blood or no blood. It wasn’t that I actually felt hungry, I just feared for my weight.
After that I felt full, but I forced myself to eat a can of soup. It took me a good long while to get it all down too. My stomach bulged from under my shirt then gurgled happily. It was funny that the nerves in my stomach were telling me that I was full while the stomach thanked me for the extra I gave it. I was sure glad that the contraction of the muscles in my stomach wasn’t painful, because I was actually afraid to take more pills.
The food made me tired and somehow I wished that I hadn’t wasted my energy making the soup. My mind was constant conflict with myself, as a person’s mind always is in making decisions.
Somewhere between sleep and mid-sleep, I wondered if I was going to live to see my 20th birthday. It seemed so long away now that weeks felt like years. I’d been a teenager for so long now it was hard to see it. I thought about growing up, I thought about getting old, I thought about the pain bone and I prayed that I would live to see it.
When I woke up, the show was over and the bus was moving on. I tried to avoid them as much as possible, but it was only a bus and it was still quite small.
Right after I got up, I took off for the bathroom so that they couldn’t harass me. I had to throw up everything I ate, which made me feel so sad. I’d wasted good energy in trying to feed myself and my stomach had rejected it. That was funny because my stomach sounded so happy earlier.
Luckily, I threw up at least eight pills. Maybe they weren’t actually working for me, but I believed in them so much that they were. Those things happen. But nevertheless it felt good to flush them down the toilet.
I must’ve spent an hour in the bathroom, but I couldn’t really move and I didn’t really want to.
Kevin started banging on the door a few minutes later, so I decided to scram. It took me awhile to get to the door, but I wanted to get out quickly so that they wouldn’t have time to tease me. They decided to anyway.
After I literally crawled out of the john, I limped back towards my bed. I never made it to my bed though. Howie was quick to stop me from doing that so that they could start their reign of terror.
AJ began to make fun of my swollen tummy and Brian snatched my hat from off of my head. At first they were shocked at what they saw but then the teasing settled in. I was used to the guys hassling me for fun from before, but this was different. It had certain distaste to it.
“Look at how fat he is!” I heard from AJ. Now I wished I actually weighed more than they thought.
“He’s so ugly! Look’s like you finally learned that you can’t win a fight hey?” Brian said, standing on his tiptoes to see my face. Howie was restraining me from behind. He didn’t say anything and it was just as well that way.
AJ marveled over my swollen tummy. “How do get fast fat Nick? Ya gotta tell me someday.” He began to poke it, at first soft than harder. It was hard so it didn’t sink in when he pressed on it. That pissed him off so he just poked harder. It so painful that I tried to scream, but no sound came out. Instead, I started to cough which was even more excruciatingly painful than AJ poking me. My throat was really raw by now and that’s why I couldn’t speak.
AJ just kept on poking me; he was getting his kicks out of it. Soon after I started coughing up blood he stopped and looked at me strangely. He came a bit closer and I threw up on him on purpose. I was aiming for his chest and that’s what I got. But I wasn’t throwing up food anymore; I threw up blood.
Howie let go of me when I did that and I didn’t expect it. I balanced on my good foot for a while before I collapsed. When I hit the floor, I blacked out momentarily.
“Oh God he’s not faking,” I heard AJ say. I felt my shirt being lifted and all heard all three say, “shit” in unison. I struggled to open my eyes and the process got sick all over myself.
“Nicky? Speak to me!” I heard Brian say. He started to rub my shoulder and as comforting as it was, I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.
“Get your hands off of me,” I said in my nastiest tone. It came out kind of crackily because my throat was raw. His hand left my shoulder instantly and I struggled to get up the only way I knew how. I used my elbows to heave me forward and then I had to try to balance. That was always the tricky part.
After eight tries, I just laid there, looking at the ceiling. The guys had been frightened off, or so I thought. After I decided they were all gone Kevin came out of the bathroom.
Chapter 15
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