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Lauren sat in the front row at the amphitheater, surrounded by two teenage girls who screamed their lungs out. It took a while for her to get used to the millions of people screaming, but soon she found herself getting into the whole thing!
The guys had only sung two songs, but Lauren had this bad feeling about something. While they all had been backstage, Lauren had tried to get Nick to take some sort of medicine, but all he could say was, "I'm fine!" She also got the impression that Nick didn't want any of the other guys to know about him throwing up, so she didn't say a word.
He didn't look fine, though. As they sang their second song, he moved with only a half-hearted attempt. "Get down, get down, and move it all around...." they all sang, dancing up a storm. The more and more she watched Nick, the more and more she became worried.
"Get down, get down, yeah!" AJ finished, as they all collapsed onto the stage for effect. The lights dimmed, and the guys got up again. That is, except for Nick. "Dude, Nicky, get up!" she heard AJ scream through the shrieks and screams from the fans. "Oh shit!" she cursed, looking around her. No one seemed to notice anything was wrong....Lauren knew otherwise.
She dashed through her row, dodging all the people and ran out of the aisle, around to backstage. She saw a curtain come down, but the fans went on cheering, not realizing anything was the matter. She showed her pass to the guards, and walked as quickly as she could to where they ran on from backstage. In no time, she found a huge huddle of people.
"Oh my God," she whispered, as she pushed her way through the crowd, trying to find the guys. "Lauren!" Brian called out, "come here, quick!"
She ran to his side and saw Nick lying on the ground, eyes closed. "What happened?" she asked, already half-knowing the answer. "We-we we're just doing our thing and he fainted!" AJ exclaimed, in a frenzy.
It was bad enough that there was a huge commotion backstage, but Nick was lying helpless on the ground. "Okay," Lauren said, trying to take charge, "someone tell the audience that something's happened...don't say what! We need to get Nick to the hospital...something's really wrong, and I'm not sure what, but I'll tell you on the way!"
One of the members of the management team frantically called 911, and in less than five minutes, an ambulance arrived to take them back to Orlando. "Come on guys," said Kevin, leading the boys, and Lauren and some management, to follow the stretcher with Nick on it.
"So, what's going on?" asked AJ, once her, Kevin and Howie were in his car, (Brian rode with Nick in the ambulance), "what do you know?"
"Well," Lauren began, as she fidgeted with her hands, "today, on the bus, I noticed Nick looked really pale and thin....tell me you guys noticed that, didn't you?"
The guys nodded solemnly. "Yeah, a couple nights ago I drove him home from basketball....I told him he looked sick, but he just said he was tired," offered Kevin.
"Well, anyway, he said he fine....and then when we were watching the basketball game, I noticed he was shaking! His arms were shaking and he was trying desperately to control himself! I called him on it, but he just said he was nervous!" she continued.
"I can't believe we didn't call him on it sooner," mused Howie, not really talking to anyone in particular. "And then, when we were just about to leave the hotel, I walked into his room and found him throwing up in the bathroom! Again, he just told me he was nervous, but I didn't believe him....I had to, though, because we were leaving and there was nothing I could do about it....he didn't have a fever or anything!" she finished.
"Shit," muttered AJ. In less than and hour and a half (as they followed closely to the ambulance) AJ pulled the car into the Emergency Room parking lot outside the hospital in Orlando. They walked quickly through the lobby and went straight to the reception desk, and asked where they had taken Nick. "He's in room 324," the woman behind the desk answered, "but they may not be allowing visitors......"
The group of five didn't hear her, as they walked right by her, into the elevator, and went up to the third floor. They found a large group of people gathered outside the door where Nick's room supposedly was. "What'd we miss?" asked Howie frantically, as they found Brian almost immediately.
"He came out of unconsciousness a couple times in the ambulance," explained Brian, biting his nails, "and he tried to tell me something, but he had breathing machines running in and out of his body and I couldn't make out what he was saying....then he fell back asleep again!"
Lauren bit her lip, as Nick's mother asked the doctor what was wrong. "Well, Nickolas right now is extremely undernourished," the doctor began, "he has almost no nutrients in his body right now, and is very weak. He's half-asleep right now, but we've taken him to do some blood tests, so really we don't have any new news right now....only time will tell."
Lauren's heart stopped beating for a second, as she glanced at the four boys, standing around, looking worried and helpless. "Laur, what's wrong?" asked AJ, noting the look of fear on her face. She shook her head as her lower lip began to tremble. She didn't want to get them all worried for no reason...but she felt she had a duty to tell them what she knew.
"Come here guys," she said, waving them over to a corner where no one was standing. She thought it'd be better if his family didn't hear this. "What's going on?" asked Kevin, furrowing his brows.
"Well," she began shakily, "when I was in the fourth grade, my best friend's father got really sick....now I'm not sure what his symptoms were, and I'm not trying to worry you, but he also had to go for blood tests and cat scans and stuff like that."
"What are you trying to say?" asked Brian.
Lauren took a deep breath and bit her lip to stop the tears that were forming in her eyes. "I'm trying to say that my friend's father was diagnosed with Leukemia."
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