I turned to face him. “What?”
“Oh, you didn’t know he did that?”
I shook my head.
“Yeah.” Myles lifted both his eyebrows. “Creepy, right? I had to issue him two different warning slips.”
I looked around for Ian. He was helping a very elderly lady out of her chair onto the raised mat.
“Anyway,” Myles said, pulling my attention back. “If he bothers you anymore, just let me know.” He pointed a finger gun at me, gave me a nod, and pulled the trigger.
* * *
MAN-BUN-ROB AND I worked like dogs all week, both during scheduled PT and tutoring sessions, but made no progress. Ian had left a tutoring spreadsheet—even though he detested spreadsheets—detailing exactly what we were supposed to do, in order, in sections, counted to the minute. Rob and I followed it diligently—but nothing changed.
I did everything I could think of—took my vitamins, got plenty of sleep, drank extra water—and I tried to wiggle my toes about a thousand times a day. The hullaballoo over that toe had set up a strong expectation that a breakthrough was inevitable. But the longer that breakthrough refused to happen, the more I accepted the cognitive dissonance: I might get better any minute, or I might never get better at all.
That said, I was improving in lots of other ways. My shoulder was healing “beautifully,” the dermatologist had said, and the scabs on my face had left no scars. The stitches on my neck were starting to dissolve, and, if I didn’t look in the mirror, parts of my body felt almost normal.
Just not normal enough.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t made any progress. I could rattle off every muscle in the lower extremities like some kind of med student. My core strength, Rob said, was “phenomenal,” and I could do sit-ups all day long. My arms and shoulders were “beasts.” I had the gluteus muscles “of a champion,” and my adductors, hip flexors, gluteus medius, rectus femoris, sartiorius, and deep gluteal muscles were all in excellent working order. I could even stand pretty well—twelve minutes was my record—but only if I held on to something, or someone.
The problems were all with the muscles responsible for extending the foot forward when taking a step. They were falling down on the job. Aside from that one delightful big toe (thanks to one feisty flexor hallucis longus), everything below my knee, to use the technical term, was “flaccid.”
I preferred “floppy,” personally.
Either way, it wasn’t good. The tibialis anterior, tibialis posterior, popliteus fibularis longus, fibularis brevis, plantaris soleus, and gastrocnemius were all, um, pretty limp. Particularly frustrating were the semimembranosus, semitendinosus, and biceps femoris, which are the muscles that work to extend the leg. I could bring my thigh forward (thanks to a “boss” iliopsoas), but I couldn’t straighten it.
Still.
That’s why I wasn’t going to the Valentine’s party. That whole final week was a slow realization that, where walking was concerned, at least, despite the trying, and the determination, and all those hours of tutoring, and the many impressive gains I could claim—I was still going to fail.
I never failed. I’d never failed anything. Not even a spelling quiz.
It kept me from sleeping. Over and over that final week, I’d doze off for a few minutes at bedtime and then startle awake, restlessly shifting under my covers. Several nights I just couldn’t take the anxiety, and I wound up transferring to my chair, careful not to wake Kit, and then sneaking to the gym. There, I’d hoist myself up onto the walking bars, brace with both hands, and pace back and forth until I was on the verge of collapse.
It was probably a bad idea, going to the gym at night. I would no doubt have done better to let my body rest. But I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I kept thinking if I just pushed a little harder, I could break through. The prospect of failing this challenge—possibly the only one that ever really mattered—left me too panicked to think straight.
The night before Kit’s party, I went to the gym again. My arms were sore from all the laps on the bars, and I could hear Ian’s Scottish voice saying “arms are not legs,” but I didn’t care. It wasn’t my arms I cared about. I went back and forth, back and forth—ten times, then twenty, willing my lower legs to swing forward, willing the balls of my feet to push off, willing for something, anything, to spark to life.
Then, just short of thirty, my arm just gave out.
It happened fast. I crumpled, smacking down on the mat hard, and lay there, panting. And there, with my face against the mat, smarting like I’d been slapped, it truly hit me: I wasn’t going to walk again.
I really wasn’t.
I wasn’t going to overcome this. I wasn’t going to be good as new. I wasn’t going to show them all. I wasn’t going to be the exception to the rule. I wasn’t going to give an inspirational talk that would go viral on the Internet.
Every single thing I’d experienced, or thought about, or hoped for up until this moment seemed cartoonish. This whole experience had been so frantic and dreamlike it was almost like nothing at all had been real. Until now. Alone, on the floor, I finally, really got it. The only thing that was real anymore:
I was going to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair.
* * *
I’D BARELY FINISHED the thought when I heard a voice—a Scottish voice. “What the hell is going on?”
I didn’t move. Just lay there and calculated the odds of another Scottish person happening to pass through the rehab gym in the middle of the night.
Unlikely.
Then I heard Ian’s sneakers squeak the floor—fast, like he was running—and then he was saying my name, urgently, like I might be in danger:
“Maggie, what happened?”
I couldn’t lift my face from the mat. “You don’t call me Maggie anymore.”
Then he was down on his hands and knees beside me. “What happened? Tell me.”
“Why are you even here?”
“Working late. What happened?”
He was perched to call for help. But I didn’t need help. I put my hand out to keep him right there, and then I explained everything the only way I could.
“I failed,” I said.
“Were you in here using the bars? By yourself? Jesus, Maggie, you’re not supposed to come here alone.”
But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
“Are you hurt?” Ian asked.
“No.”
“Can you get up?”
“No.”
“Let’s get you back to your room.” He gathered me into his arms.
“No,” I said. “Just give me a minute.”
Ian hesitated.
“Please,” I said.
Then Ian rocked back, without letting me go, and sat on the mat, still holding me.
Probably, all his medical training told him to get me back to my room, and check my vitals, and attend brusquely to my physical health. But he went against it. He believed me that I was not hurt. He trusted that I didn’t need to be hauled back out into the bright hallway. He understood what I’d been doing. He knew as well as anybody that I hadn’t made enough progress. He got it.
And so he didn’t ask me any more questions. He just held me there, against his chest, on the mat, in the dark gym, stroking my hair.
* * *
I MUST HAVE fallen asleep, and Ian must have carried me back to my bed in his arms, because the next morning, I woke up in my room with Kit still snoozing away—but I didn’t remember going back.
I went through the motions that day. This was it. This was really it. Everything was exactly the same, except for one crucial thing: There was no hope anymore.
Kit stayed with me the whole day, cutting hearts for the party and making organizational phone calls, but I didn’t tell her. I didn’t want her to argue with me. There was nothing to argue about. She popped out for a bit in the late afternoon while I had PT with Rob, and when I came back, she was still gone. I fell asleep hard that afternoon, and I didn’t wake un
til supper: hospital food. There’d be nothing delicious tonight. Kit would be at the helm of her epic party, and I would be in here. Alone. Eating Jell-O.
As my meal came into focus, something across the room came into focus, too. A dress, hanging from the television stand, with a note on it in Kit’s writing—big, in Sharpie:
Genuine vintage roller-disco diva dress
off the (right) shoulder!
JUST YOUR SIZE!
$5 at Salvation Army! (I washed it for you!) Come to the party!!!!!!
It was a pink-and-gold, one-shoulder, polyester maxidress with ruffles. It was hilarious, and also strangely lovely.
But I still wasn’t going to the party.
I lifted the yellowish plastic cover on the dinner plate. Some kind of gray meat, rehydrated mashed potatoes, and canned green beans.
Nope.
I poked at the Jell-O. I listened to the nurses joke around out at the station. One of them had a little thing for Man-Bun-Rob, and she’d heard he was going to be there.
Guess that meant there would be no tutoring for me tonight, either.
Fine. It was pointless, anyway.
On the tray, dessert was a chocolate chip cookie, which seemed like a stroke of luck—until I bit in and discovered it was oatmeal raisin.
Things seemed quieter than usual. Everybody, I guess, was in the rehab gym.
Then the door pushed open, and it was Kit.
“I need you,” she said.
“What?”
“The mariachi band is terrible! The children are crying!”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“Oh, yes, it can!” she said, pulling back my covers. “Go pee. Brush your teeth. Put on your dress! You’re doing a love song medley in ten minutes.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
She put a hand on one hip. “How many times have I been there for you when you needed me?”
“Are we talking recently, or our entire lives? Because I think you started with a deficit.”
Kit pulled on my arm. “I need you. The kids need you. Valentine’s Day needs you. Ian’s mother needs you!”
What? She got my attention with that last one. “Ian’s mother?”
She pointed at me, and repeated the favorite saying of hers Ian had told us once: “When you don’t know what to do for yourself, do something for somebody else.”
* * *
SHE GOT ME with that.
I did go to the party—although, when I showed up, the mariachi band was totally normal, not one kid was crying, and it was clear that Kit had tricked me.
I glared at her. “Not cool.”
“Just try to keep that scowl on your face while you eat one of these cookies,” she said, handing me a heart-shaped one with sprinkles.
It wasn’t oatmeal raisin, I’ll give it that.
Kit had gone all out. There was a craft table, a disco ball, the world-famous stolen chocolate fountain, and hearts and streamers everywhere. She had even hung a ball of mistletoe off the end of a stick to dangle over people’s heads and force them to kiss. Rob was doing the honors for her, bursting out with that foghorn laugh every time it worked.
Confessions: It was a lovely party, I did love wearing my diva dress, I did sing a love song medley, and everything about being there was better than being in my room alone. It was, in truth, an effective distraction.
As sad as I was, I felt a little happy, too.
I stayed and stayed. We sent the children to bed at eight o’clock, and we all continued eating cookies and singing our hearts out.
My best song of the night by far was my last one: I absolutely belted out “Best of My Love,” and halfway through, I looked up and saw Ian across the room, watching like he was spellbound. That, of course, made me sing harder and better, and I poured everything I had into the rest of it. At the end, I got the cheering equivalent of a standing O, and when I rolled across the room for cookies afterward, Ian followed and met me there.
We both held still for a few seconds too long.
“That was a hell of a song,” he said at last, his expression focused and warm and non-robot-like. The sound of the real Ian filled me with longing.
“Thank you.”
“I’ve never met anybody who could sing like you do.”
Now I smiled. “Thank you.”
“It’s good to see you,” he said.
“You could have seen me all week in the gym, if you hadn’t been ignoring me.”
“I wasn’t ignoring you,” he said, frowning. “I was—” But then he stopped. And he didn’t start again.
“Kit said you weren’t coming to the party.”
“I’m not.”
“But you’re here.”
“I’m just stealing cookies.”
“I see.”
He gestured back at the hallway to the offices. “I was working late.”
“You do that a lot.”
“I’ve been researching your injury, actually,” he said, looking a little embarrassed about it. “Trying to think of some way to help.”
I had to hand it to him. That was nice. But I said, “It’s a waste of time. It’s over.”
“What’s over?”
“My recovery.”
He shook his head. “There are all kinds of ways to recover.”
I looked away.
It would have been a good time for him to escape, but he didn’t. Instead, he attempted to start up some chitchat. He nodded at the room. “Looks like you’re all having fun.”
“Not on purpose,” I said. “Kit forced us.”
He glanced over at Kit, who noticed us talking. When he turned back, he let his eyes take me in. “Great dress.”
“I think I’m going to become a one-shoulder-dress person,” I said. “You know, even when I have the option of two.”
“You should.”
“It can be my signature thing. Then, when I do something truly amazing that history needs to commemorate with a statue, they’ll have no choice but to put me in this.” I flipped one of the ruffles.
Ian smiled then—a genuine smile. Hadn’t seen that in a long time.
He was about to say something else when Kit showed up next to us and said, “Mistletoe bomb!”
Ian and I looked up. She was holding the mistletoe over our heads.
“Mistletoe is for Christmas,” Ian said.
“Ask me if I care,” Kit said.
“She’s been forcing people to kiss with that thing all night,” I explained.
“You’re going to force me to kiss your sister?”
Kit gave a shrug. “Kinda looks that way.”
“He can’t kiss me,” I told Kit. “It’s against the rules.”
“Which rules?” she asked.
“All of them,” I answered.
But Ian was considering his options. “What happens if I refuse?”
Kit leveled a don’t-mess-around look at him, and then, like it was a challenge, she said, “Then I guess you’ll waste a chance for a kiss.”
“You don’t have to kiss me,” I said to Ian, and then to Kit, “Cut it out! You’re going to get him fired!”
But Ian squatted down in front of my chair. He flipped up the foot rests as he lifted one foot, then the other, setting them flat on the floor. I was barefoot and I could feel, in places, how cool the surface was. Then Ian leaned close for me to put my hands on his shoulders, like he’d done so often in the pool, and he placed his hands on my hips to steady me, and I leaned forward, and I locked my knees, and I moved toward him—and we stood.
“It’s bad luck to ignore mistletoe,” Ian said.
Those blue eyes. His face so close. The air tingled in my lungs. Was he going to do this? “Nobody in this room needs any more bad luck,” I said.
His gaze was locked on mine. “Very true.”
“But you can’t kiss me,” I said, hoping like hell he wouldn’t agree.
“I can’t?”
“What if somebody r
eports you?”
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t?”
“Want to know the only question I care about?”
I nodded.
He looked into my eyes and said, “What do you want?”
I held my breath. What did I want?
What the hell kind of question was that?
I wanted him.
I wanted to drag him up to the rooftop and stay there all night.
I wanted to be the girl I used to be. The one with the hair, and jeans, and hips. The one with at least a chance of being wanted back.
But no way was I saying that.
I might never get the things I wanted. But at least I was the only one who had to know.
I shrugged.
Ian studied me, as if he could tell by looking.
Then he glanced up at the mistletoe one more time and shrugged right back.
He pressed closer, and he tightened his arm around my waist. I stretched my arms up around his neck, and as I did, I ran my eyes over his collarbones at the V of his blue scrubs, then up along his jaw, to let my gaze rest on his mouth.
Then he leaned down toward me. It felt like slow-motion, with Nina crooning “Midnight Train to Georgia” in the background. Inches away, he slowed down and lingered, like he was savoring the moment. Like he was taking it in. I hadn’t noticed how much Kit had dimmed the lights until suddenly the disco-ball light seemed to fill the room with stars, and it felt like the only steady thing in the world was Ian.
Everything about him felt solid and sturdy and like something I wanted to cling to. There he was, so close up, then closer—and then, impossibly, he lowered his mouth to mine.
Maybe he shouldn’t have done it. But oh, God, I was so unspeakably glad he did.
And there was his mouth again, the same but better, like something lost forever and then found again, and everything suddenly swirled too much for me to see anything at all. I sank into the warmth and comfort and electricity of that moment, knowing it couldn’t last long, but wishing it could go on forever.
Until the music suddenly stopped.
And the lights flipped on, bright as searchlights.
The room froze. The karaoke machine even went dead. We turned to figure out what was going on, and we both saw the same thing at the same time: Myles.
Myles had walked in.
How to Walk Away Page 22