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Chapter 84

“So how was Brian’s Mini Me last night?” AJ asked the following morning, as he took a deep drag from his freshly-lit cigarette. He exhaled, then slid down the cinderblock wall to the sidewalk, stretching his legs out in front of him.

Nick sank down beside him and leaned his head back against the hard wall. They’d only been at the studio for two hours so far, but it seemed like an eternity to him. Even though he’d gotten back from Brian and Leighanne’s by 10:30 the night before, he hadn’t slept well at all. He’d started thinking of Claire again and hadn’t been able to get his mind off of her. What had she done that night? Had she gone out with anyone?

He knew he shouldn’t care, he knew he should try to forget her and move on, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stop thinking of her, let alone forget her, and he would always care, because he loved her.

Love hurt.

“Baylee was fine,” he answered AJ’s question, trying to focus. Baylee had screamed and cried for a full five minutes after Brian and Leighanne left, but after that, he’d been perfectly fine. He and Nick had watched cartoons, played with toy cars, eaten pizza, and had a grand old time. Babysitting really had helped take his mind off of Claire… too bad it couldn’t have lasted. He’d still ended up swinging by the liquor store on his way home from Brian’s to pick up a six-pack of beer. The alcohol hadn’t worked to drown Claire out of his brain, but at least it had given him a nice buzz.

He was sort of regretting that buzz by now though, for he hadn’t been able to sleep it off, and now he had a headache. That hurt too. Ugh. This day sucked.

“Just fine?” AJ repeated with a raspy chuckle and looked over at him. “You really look like hell, dude.”

“I told you, I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“And you’re hungover,” AJ added without missing a beat. When Nick scowled at him, he gave him a knowing smile and went on, “I, of all people, can recognize a hangover when I see one. So how much did you drink?”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Not that much, dude. I was buzzed, not trashed. Howie was home by midnight anyway; he wouldn’t have let me get shitfaced.” On that note, I really need to get my own place out here again, he thought. He’d had a house in LA once, but he’d sold it when it became clear that he was going to need to stay based in Tampa, what with his doctor and his women being there. But things were different now. Leah was out of the picture, he and Claire were through, and he only needed to see Dr. Kingsbury every six months. There was no reason why he couldn’t move back to LA permanently. Maybe it would do him good to get out of Florida.

AJ laughed and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Not unless he was shitfaced himself. Was he?” Now they shared a laugh – nothing was funnier than a drunk Howie.

“Nah, he was fine,” Nick muttered vaguely and eyed the cigarette dangling between AJ’s fingers. He hadn’t smoked in several years, but he remembered how the occasional cigarette had been a good pick-me-up back in the day. “Hey, can I have a drag of that?” he asked, thinking it might help make him feel better.

AJ eyed him skeptically. “This?” he asked, giving the cigarette a flick. “I don’t think so, Nicky.”

Nick scowled at his patronizing tone. “Oh, shut up and give it here.” He reached for the cigarette and, reluctantly, AJ handed it to him. Raising it to his lips, Nick took a cautious puff, then a second, deep inhale. He coughed slightly as the smoke filled his lungs and handed the cigarette back to AJ, closing his eyes as he exhaled. He did feel a little better – warm and relaxed, yet more awake. Too bad his headache was still there.

AJ put out his cigarette and stood up abruptly, wiping his hands on his baggy pants. “Do me a favor – don’t smoke, Nick. Try coffee instead.”

Grunting, Nick struggled to his feet. He was just about to follow AJ back into the recording studio when he felt his cell phone vibrate against his thigh. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the silver phone and glanced at the screen on the front of it. Laureen? he wondered, surprised to see Claire’s friend’s name flashing there. Why would she be calling him?

“I’ll be inside in a minute,” he muttered to AJ, waving him ahead as he flipped open the phone and raised it to his ear. “Hello?”

There was a few seconds’ pause before Laureen’s voice quivered, “Hey… Nick?”

“Yeah, hey... is this Laureen?”

“Um, y-yeah. I was just calling because… um, well, I wasn’t sure if you’d heard… about Claire?”

Nick frowned, his stomach clenching tightly. “What? What about her?” he asked quickly.

“Um… well, she... she got in a car accident last night.”

Laureen’s words seemed to suck all the air out of his lungs, for a moment, he could not breathe. Light-headed, he felt his knee buckle beneath him, and had it not been for the stability of his prosthetic leg, he might have fallen. He reached out for the wall to steady himself and tried to breathe. Shakily, he asked in trepidation, “How bad-… I mean, i-is she okay?”

***

“I’m fine,” Claire said, offering him a reassuring smile. “Broken arm and a bump on the head.” She shrugged, lifting her left arm out of the sling around her neck to show him her cast. It went all the way past her elbow… but hey, it was purple. She was trying to look on the bright side.

Jamie smiled back. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said quietly. “I was worried.” He scooted closer to her, her bed creaking beneath his weight, and gingerly reached up to touch the gauze bandage on the left side of her forehead, hiding the nasty abrasion she’d gotten when her head cracked against her window the second time. His roaming fingers moved to her hair, narrowly missing the goose-egg on the side of her head. That one was probably from the first time her head was thrown against the window, during the initial impact of the other car hitting hers, or so the doctors told her.

“Thanks,” she said, touched by his concern. Her mom had driven her home from the hospital not two hours ago, and he’d already shown up at her apartment. She guessed he had come straight from work; Dianna must have called him.

“So… what exactly happened anyway?” asked Jamie, his brow creasing as he surveyed her. “Di was pretty vague on the phone this morning. She said you got T-boned, but she didn’t know much more. Did somebody run a red light or something?”

Claire grimaced, feeling her face heat up. She didn’t remember the crash itself, only the ambulance ride that had followed it. She’d been knocked unconscious for at least ten minutes – a concussion, the head CT at the hospital had shown later – and woke up to find herself strapped to a gurney and surrounded by concerned-looking EMTs. She was totally disoriented at first, and it wasn’t until the police had questioned her in the Emergency Room much later that she was able to piece back together what had happened.

She remembered leaving Kyle and Amber’s and driving, but from there, it was a mystery. The police had helped her fill in the gaps. According to witnesses, she had plowed right through a two-way stop and been T-boned on the passenger side in the middle of the intersection. Her car had ricocheted across the intersection, right into a guardrail dividing the lanes, and she was very lucky, according to the police officer, not to have hit any other cars. As it was, her car was totaled, the car that had hit her was totaled, and the other driver had whiplash and a concussion as well. The stern-faced officer had said she was also very lucky that he wasn’t any worse off, because no one could deny that the wreck had been her fault. The other guy might have been driving too fast… but she was the one who had ran the stop sign.

How could I have run a stop sign? she remembered wondering in total bewilderment, thinking these so-called “witnesses” must have gotten it mixed up. She was a safe driver! In ten years, she hadn’t been in a single accident. Maybe she did floor it through the occasional “orange” light, but she would never just blow through a stop sign doing forty like they said she had!

Sensing her indignation, the police officer had asked her if it was possible she had fallen asleep at the wheel. But that possibility had seemed almost as far-fetched to her. It hadn’t been that late at night, and besides, she always had the radio cranked, especially if she was tired. That was when she had started remembering. She had been listening to the radio, singing along to Linkin Park, in fact. And as the lyrics to the song came back to her, so did the memory of what the road had looked like. Dark. And the lights? Unusually bright. Almost blinding.

It hadn’t been too hard to put it all together from there. The police officer had suggested she get her vision checked. That was no problem – the ER physician already wanted to admit her for observation because of her concussion (and, she supposed, because they’d seen her medical history and didn’t want to overlook anything – but no one was actually saying that), so they’d sent her to the hospital’s ophthalmology department that morning for an eye exam. And the results? Oh, this one was good..

Cataracts. In both eyes.

It basically meant that the lenses of her eyes were permanently clouded – which explained why everything had looked so cloudy lately, why she had trouble seeing people’s teeth in the little mirror she used when cleaning teeth at work, why she had to squint to decipher the words on the pages of books, why all the lights had blurry halos around them, and why she hadn’t seen the stop sign – or anything – when the headlights had blinded her.

It was a common occurrence in bone marrow transplant recipients, due to the radiation and steroids she’d had during the transplant process. She’d always known her eyesight could go, so it came as no surprise; in fact, she’d known in the back of her head for months that there was a problem. She cursed herself for not getting it checked out sooner; how stupid of her. Cataracts… they seemed like such a minor problem compared to all the shit she’d already been through, more of an inconvenience than anything else, but now her car was totaled, she was going to be ticketed and fined, and her insurance premiums were going to skyrocket. Her insurance company probably hated her already, for all of her medical bills. They weren’t going to like this.

She sighed and remembered that she hadn’t even answered Jamie’s question. “It was a stop sign,” she said, “and yeah. I ran it.”

Jamie blinked in surprise. “Really? You? Why?”

Reluctantly, she told him the whole story she’d just rehashed in her mind, ending on the fact that her eyes were screwed.

“Cataracts?” Jamie repeated incredulously, gawking at her. “What are you, seventy?”

She forced a big smile, pretending his insensitivity didn’t sting. “Seventy-one next month, sonny,” she quipped in a wavering old woman’s voice. “Now can you go and find Granny’s box of Depends in the bathroom? Granny doesn’t move so well anymore… these old bones…” She rubbed the small of her arched back with her free hand, and Jamie cracked a smile.

Too bad she was hardly kidding. After looking at her medical history and the x-rays of her fractured arm, the attending physician in the ER had also ordered a bone density test, a special x-ray typically reserved for older women who were at risk for osteoporosis. Though she was a month shy of twenty-six, Claire fell into this category too, thanks to the cancer treatments that had destroyed her ovaries. Medically, she was basically like a postmenopausal old woman. And she’d been acting the part lately too – the mood swings, tiredness, trouble sleeping… suddenly, it all made sense. After seeing the results of the bone density test, the ER physician had advised her to make an appointment with her OB/gyn to discuss changing the drugs she was on for hormones. Apparently The Pill wasn’t working so well anymore.

Luckily, she got out of having to tell Jamie that one; he was still hung up on the cataracts. “Don’t joke about it, Claire,” he said, and she rolled her eyes.

Yeah, after you smile at my joke, she thought. “Why not?” she said innocently. “I have to joke about it; otherwise, life would suck a lot more than it already does.” She flashed him a sweet smile. He seemed to pale.

“So… so… what do they do for those? Cataracts? I mean, they’re fixable, right?” The expression on his face gave away his worry, and she softened.

“Yeah, they’re fixable, by surgery. The eye doctor said usually people try glasses first, but they don’t actually fix anything, just make it easier to see. I’m skipping the glasses part and going for the surgery though.”

Jamie’s blue eyes widened, and he paled another shade. “You’re having eye surgery?”

She nodded, trying to appear calm about it. “Yeah,” she said nonchalantly. “I figure I might as well get it over with; I’m gonna need it at some point anyway. They’re already bad enough that they’re affecting my night driving... I can hardly read a book to my nephew without holding it right under my face… and I don’t wanna have to stick my nose in people’s mouths just to get close enough to see when I clean their teeth – I mean, talk about bad breath. Ugh.”

Jamie chuckled weakly. “Good point. So, uh… when’s this surgery then?”

“Doing the first one in two weeks… second one a month later.”

“Can’t you just have them both done at once?” Jamie asked.

Claire smiled; she’d asked the eye doctor the same thing. “No, they like to do them separately… in case they mess up and I go blind. This way, I’ll only be blind in one eye if that happens.” She flashed him a wide grin. He went even paler. She wondered how much blood could drain from his face before he’d faint. That would make an interesting experiment; she’d keep it in mind for the next time he annoyed her.

Jamie didn’t stay long after that. He made up some excuse about having to go home to feed his cat... to which Claire demanded, “What cat??”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you? I adopted a cat. This past weekend.”

Claire stared at him skeptically. “You adopted a cat.”

“Well, yeah. Figured I could use some company in the new apartment,” replied Jamie with a smile. Then he shrugged and admitted, “It was sort of an impulse thing.”

“I see,” Claire said, nodding slowly. She guessed he was probably telling the truth. He had owned a cat in high school, after all.

“Her name’s Bright. You should come meet her.”

Claire laughed. “Sure, I’ll get right on that… cat lover that I am.” She was being sarcastic. She hated cats, and he knew it.

He gave her a smirk. “I’ll convert you yet, Clairie. She’s a sweet kitty; you’ll love her.”

“I’m sure.”

Jamie laughed. “Well, listen, I really do need to get back and make sure she hasn’t destroyed the place while I was gone. Can I do anything for ya before I take off?”

“Nah, I’m fine,” replied Claire. “My mom got me all set up with groceries and stuff before she took off, so I should be good to go.”

“Okay. Well, call if you need a hand… and I mean that literally,” he added, gently patting what he could reach of her left hand through the plaster of her cast.

She smiled. “Thanks, Jamie.”

She didn’t feel like hauling her ass out of bed – her head hurt, and her useless arm felt heavy and bulky – so he let himself out. Only later, when she stumbled out to the kitchen to take her nightly round of pills, did she discover that he had taken her garbage out on his way.

She smiled at the fresh, empty garbage bag he’d so neatly folded over the edges of her trash can and shook her head. Sometimes she forgot what a sweetheart Jamie could be.

Opening one of her cupboards, she eyed the row of orange prescription bottles lined neatly across the bottom shelf and remembered a time when Jamie had not been so sweet to her. The memory of him coming to see her after she’d gotten out of the hospital, fresh off her first round of cancer treatments, was still vivid in her mind. The visit had been awkward for both of them. She’d been self-conscious of the way she looked – her hair was already starting to thin, her face was puffy from the drugs, and her arms and legs still sported the nasty-looking bruises that had been one of the first warning signs of a serious problem. He had done nothing to make her feel more comfortable. The whole half an hour he’d stayed, he had barely looked at her. And when he’d left, after thirty minutes of awkward small talk and avoidance, he hadn’t been back.

Every weekend from then on, Jamie had found a reason to stay in Tallahassee, where he went to college. He suddenly had lots of homework. He had to study… finals were coming up. Or… he’d already committed himself to doing some volunteer work, to put on his resume. Or… he’d sprained his right ankle playing soccer on the Quad, and he couldn’t drive. Always, there was an excuse. Granted, it was a four-hour drive to Tampa, and she didn’t expect him to make it down every weekend, or even every other weekend. But he never came at all. When school let out for the summer, he got a job and an apartment in Tallahassee and stayed there. His parents had just moved back to Iowa because of his father’s job, so Jamie had no reason to come back to Tampa. Except for Claire, who was having the most miserable summer of her life, struggling through chemotherapy. But apparently she wasn’t a good enough reason… or at least that’s what she’d thought at the time. She’d desperately needed support from her friends, and he hadn’t been there for her.

She knew now that Jamie just hadn’t been able to cope, and she’d forgiven him for it years ago. He’d been immature, selfish, and cowardly… but he had grown up a lot since then. They both had. She’d let go of her bitterness towards him and come to accept the flaws that had upset her so much back then. But at the same time, she’d trained herself not to expect much from him. History had taught her that when the going got tough, Jamie got going. If she anticipated it, maybe she wouldn’t be so hurt the next time it happened.

But it hadn’t happened. Never again. Ever since then, Jamie had stayed supportive of everything she had gone through, no matter how hard it must have been on him. He really had turned over a new leaf. Still, she was afraid to put too much trust in him yet. There was always the chance he would flake out on her again.

Reaching into her cupboard, she pulled down her lime green pill case, which held a week’s worth of her medications, sorted into morning and nightly doses. She shook the Wednesday evening dose out onto the counter and filled a glass with water, moving slowly because she only had one hand to work with. As she let the tap water run, her ears picked up the sound of her cell phone ringing from her bedroom.

“Ahh, hold on a minute,” she mumbled, as she set her glass on the counter and moved to shut off the faucet. She hurried back to her room without jogging, for the bouncing made her head and arm throb, and picked up her phone. She smiled when she saw the name on the caller ID. The one person she could count on not to flake.

She sank down onto her bed as she raised the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

***

Nick immediately felt relieved when he heard her voice. Laureen had told him that Claire was okay, other than a broken arm, which was supposedly going to keep her out of work for at least a month. Still, he was concerned and had been trying to call her on all of his breaks at the studio, if only to let her know that he was thinking about her.

“Hey!” he said. “Claire! Um… I heard what happened. Are you… are you okay? I mean, Laureen told me you were… lucky… but… Claire, are you okay?”

Smooth, Carter, he thought, annoyed at how that had come out. This whole I-know-we’re-not-getting-married-but-let’s-be-friends thing was hard work; he didn’t want to sound clingy or overly concerned, but… damn it, he was concerned. And he wanted to be there for her.

“I’m… so-so,” Claire answered. “Laureen’s right; I am lucky. I mean, a broken arm and a concussion… to look at my car, it seems like it should have been worse.”

“Ah… so the ol’ beater’s finally beat, huh?”

“Looks like it,” she sighed. “At least I’ll have a month or so to get some money together for a new one, since I can’t drive right now.”

“Eh, you could drive one-handed if you wanted to. I drive one-legged,” he replied, smirking to himself. “Why don’t you borrow the Jag?”

The phone crackled with static in his ear as she expelled a whoosh of air on the other line. “Nick… I can’t take your car.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Aw, Claire, give it a rest. You said you wanted to be friends, so here’s me, being a friend. I want you to take the Jag… or whichever car you want. How about the Durango? I know it pales in comparison to the Jag, but it is bigger. You’d be safer, ‘s long as you don’t go flippin’ it. Maybe-“

“Nick, stop,” Claire interrupted. “I appreciate the offer, really, but I can’t. I can’t drive right now.”

“Cause of the arm?”

“The arm… and cause I found out I have cataracts.”

“What??” Nick asked incredulously. Cataracts? he thought, frowning. Weren’t those, like, some kind of eye problem? That old people got?

“Yep. Cataracts. Lovely, huh? It’s from the steroids I was on during my BMT. It’s actually pretty common.”

She sounded nonchalant as usual, but he knew better. He’d seen her break down over her issues with her health before and knew this was bigger than she was making it out to be. Why was she back to pulling out this card? Had the last three months really hurt them that much, that she felt she couldn’t open up to him like she used to?

“Well jeez, Claire, that sounds kinda serious. What do they do for cataracts?” he probed, realizing this was something he knew nothing about. He thought maybe his grandma had had them, or something, but...? He was at a loss.

“I’m having surgery, on my left eye in two weeks… right eye a month after that.”

Unseen by her, Nick shuddered, trying to shake the unsettling image of someone cutting into her beautiful blue eyes out of his head. “Oh man… that sounds terrible. That’s the only way to fix them??”

“Yeah. There are things that can help them, but this is the only way to get rid of them. And I want them gone.”

Nick had to smile at that; she could be so stubborn. And so brave. “I understand,” he said. “Are you scared? Shit, you know I would be.”

“A little, yeah…” Claire trailed off and then added, “Okay, I’m terrified. Would you believe that even with all the medical shit I’ve been through, I’ve never been under the knife? It is scary.”

“Tell me about it,” Nick replied dryly. “It’s no picnic, that’s for sure. But look at it this way – you’re gonna come out of it better off. Not mutilated and missing pieces.”

She let out what sounded like a giggle, and he smiled. Only the two of them could joke about the hell they’d been through. “Yeah, unless I go blind,” she shot back.

“Then you have my word… I will be your personal guide-Nick.”

Claire giggled, louder this time. “My guide-Nick?”

“Yeah, definitely. We’ll get me a special harness and everything.”

“Well, good, that makes me feel better. At least I know I’ll be taken care of.” Her tone was teasing.

“You have nothing to worry about,” said Nick, totally serious now. “I’ll be there, if you need me.”

Sensing his sincerity, she sobered as well. “You’re sweet, Nick… thanks. I’m sure it’ll be fine though… you know I’m just kidding around.”

“I know. Okay, so let’s be serious again – sounds like you’re gonna be out of commission for awhile, with the arm and the eyes, so is there anything I can do for you?” he offered, determined to uphold his end of the friendship deal. That was the only way he was going to get her to come back to him.

“Nick, you’re in LA.”

Yes, he was, damn it. “I… I know,” he said helplessly, “But you know I can fly back anytime if you need m-… anything.” He was about to say ‘me’, but had changed his mind. She didn’t need him. She’d made that pretty clear.

“Oh Nick… thank you, but… I’m okay. Really. I’ve got plenty of people around to take care of me. Diana’s driving me to my appointment on Saturday, and my brother’s close by, and I’ve got Laureen and… and… well… Jamie…”

Nick tried not to groan, remembering that Jamie had gotten a job in Tampa and moved back. Ass. But he held his tongue. Jamie Turner had come between them as a couple; he wasn’t going to shatter their already fragile friendship too. “Good point,” he said, trying to sound supportive. “Well, if you ever do need anything and don’t have anyone there, you know who to call.”

“Nick Car-ter!” she sang softly, doing it like the “Ghostbusters” song.

He chuckled. “Remember that; it’s my new guide-Nick theme song. ‘Who you gonna call?’”

“Nick Car-ter!”

He laughed again; he could get used to that. Then, sobering, he asked, “So what’s your appointment for? Arm follow-up?”

“I wish,” Claire answered flatly. “Nah, it’s with my OB/gyn… cause on top of everything else, I think my hormones are all screwed up, which is causing other problems, like making my bones brittle enough to break when I get thrown up against the door of my car.” She sighed. “I’m kind of a mess, Nick.”

Nick frowned in sympathy towards her. She sounded dejected… and Claire was usually pretty upbeat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s a lot of shit to have to deal with all at once. I’m sure your doctor will get the hormone thing all sorted out, and that will help things, right?”

“God, I hope so,” she replied tiredly. “I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten, but now that I think about it, I’ve been having symptoms for months now that I’ve kind of brushed aside. I know that was stupid of me, but compared to the kind of problems I could be having, mood swings and hot flashes seem like nothing. And I’ve just been so busy lately…”

Nick listened as she talked about work and her new apartment and spending time with Kyle and Amber’s new baby, Kamden. He, in turn, told her what was going on in the other guys’ lives, what they’d been up to in the studio, and how the new album was coming along so far. As it turned out, they had a lot to catch up on, and it was sort of nice, just talking to her about everyday things, like friends would.

After awhile, Claire finally said, hesitantly, “Well… I should probably get going. I’m supposed to be putting ice on my arm every twenty minutes, and I think we’ve been on the phone a lot longer than that.”

“Yeah, I think we have,” Nick admitted. “I’ll let you go then. I’m glad you weren’t hurt any worse than you were… I was really worried.”

“Thanks, Nick. I’m sorry for making you worry.”

“Nah, it’s okay, it’s fine now. Take care of yourself, okay? And if you need anything, anything at all, that I can help you with… gimme a call. ‘Kay?”

Claire took her time in replying. “Okay,” she said finally, reluctance in her voice. “Thanks…”

“Anytime,” replied Nick.

By the time he hung up the phone, he felt pretty good about things, better than he had all day. He could make this whole “friends” thing work, at least for the time being. It wasn’t ideal… but it was acceptable. And maybe, just maybe, once she got her life sorted out again, she would realize what a mistake she had made by leaving him… and come back.

***