by Emilia Finn
If I slip, I might just go to sleep and pray I never wake.
If I bust my leg open, I might just take my department issued gun and…
No.
My mom needs me. Even if she has no clue I exist anymore.
Using the handrail and the strength in my one leg, I lift a couple inches off the toilet and jerkily shuck my pants down. I don’t focus on my bare ass sitting on the freezing porcelain, or my balls shriveling up from the cold.
It doesn’t matter. They’re useless now anyway.
Slowly pushing my sweats over my stump, I drop the fabric, then go to work sliding it off my good leg while trying hard not to fall onto the damn floor. I toss those onto the growing pile of clothes mounting just outside the bathroom door, then taking a deep breath, I glance down and begin unwrapping the brace and new bandaging that holds my leg in. It’s been three weeks since it was taken from me, four weeks since I copped a bullet to the belly and another to the thigh. My stomach still hurts, like I’ve spent a hundred days doing six thousand ab crunches per day. It’s like a fiery belt that squeezes my torso from front to back and leaves me breathless.
All I want to do is breathe freely.
My thigh is still swollen, my stump even more so, but it’s all settling down; antibiotics and pain meds have my recovery under control to the point that I just have to wait… and rest.
And not fall in the shower.
Standing from the too-low toilet seat and swallowing the painful grunt, I use the wall and toilet handle to move closer to the shower. Hopping, but not too bouncy, since the impact hurts my dangling leg, I move close enough to let go of the toilet rail and instead grab the chair inside the shower. Using it as a type of old-folk’s walker, I scrape it across the floor until I’m completely inside the shower stall, then with a shaking body from lips to knees, I turn and edge my way onto the chair.
It feels like it should topple over, like the flimsy metal it’s made of should crumble under my weight, like – because I’m an asshole who thinks asshole thoughts – anything Andi built should fall apart in a gentle breeze. But it’s sturdy, it doesn’t creak, and when I’m finally seated, it provides safety and comfort I never would have expected for a cripple’s shower seat.
Winded and tempted to scratch at the scabbing on my belly, I reach out and flip the taps until high pressure spray hits the wall – she already angled the head away so I don’t cop a lap full of freezing water.
The spray turns from a freezing mist that brings goosebumps to the surface, to warm steam within seconds. Pulling in a long breath, I reach up and turn the head until the heavy spray slams against my back and massages my tense muscles. A week on crutches has left my shoulders and back knotted to hell and back, but the shower pulses against the tight muscles, allowing me to truly relax for the first time in… too long.
Way too fucking long.
I was going to take down the showerhead and wash up – two minutes in, soap, wash my hair, drown myself if I’m lucky, then get out and go to bed – but the massaging spray forces my head to drop until I simply feel.
Hot steam fills the open bathroom; I forgot to close the door, so the steam races out and marks my bedroom ceiling, but I have exactly zero fucks to give about that. Heavy droplets slam against my back in a fast tattoo that loosens the muscles in my shoulders. Each second I sit here, my shoulders droop lower and relax.
I had no clue how tense I was until this moment.
“Riley?” My eyes snap up as, panicked, Andi kicks her boots off at the door and peels her socks away. Her bright eyes scour my body; from my drooping head, to my lazy arms, over my still-bruised ribs, and over my thighs.
I don’t have the energy to be a dick to her, so I don’t ask her to leave. But nor do I lift my head and welcome her in. She pulls her top off in my peripherals and strips down to a black bra. Unsnapping her jeans, she shucks them down until she wears nothing but a matching bra and thong and rushes into the shower with me.
Still… nothing.
“Riley? Hey?” She squats between my legs and frames my face with soft hands. The water that bounces off my shoulders instantly beads on her face – on the tip of her nose, in her lashes – but her blue eyes bore into mine despite my efforts not to look. “What the hell are you doing in here, Cruz? This shit is dangerous.”
“Showering.” I clear my throat, draw in a long breath, and immediately regret it when her perfect scent mingles with the steam and fills my lungs. “I was being careful.”
“You nearly gave me a freakin’ heart attack.” Her nose is only three inches from mine, her eyes close enough I can picture the forever we might have had once upon a time. I could lean forward and take a little comfort; and the worst thing is, I’m not sure she’d say no. I’m the one making us miserable. Her sadness is purely on me, but I can’t stop the way my heart bleeds.
She’s in sexy lingerie, in the shower, and not only can’t I get hard for her, but even if I could, I couldn’t stand and slam her against the wall and use her body the way it was made to be used.
I’m a fucking eunuch, and she’s too perfect to be tied down to a cripple that can’t ever take care of her the way she needs to be taken care of. She’s not shallow, so I know she doesn’t need a rich man, but with me, she doesn’t even get a capable man. I can’t stay on at the station, I can’t push paper all day, and I can’t be on unemployment benefits. Soon my savings will dwindle away, but my mortgage will continue to be deducted for the next decade. Eventually, my house will go into foreclosure, and I’ll be just like all the other amputees sleeping in the street, because they can’t work.
One single kiss now is tempting. The temptation to ask her to stay is so potent it makes me sick. But that would be the most selfish thing I could ever do.
Andi deserves freedom. So I don’t kiss, I don’t ask, and I don’t pretend like everything is going to be okay for us.
“I had it under control. Can you hop out? I’m not done.”
“No.” She slides her thumb beneath my eye and accepts me as I lean into it. “I don’t wanna go anywhere, and I don’t wanna leave you.” Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she studies my eyes and reads all my secrets. “I don’t want you to push me away anymore. I really, really don’t want you to push me away. It’s so fucking lonely in that guest bedroom.”
“Can I have a little privacy? Please?” I’m begging you.
“No.” Adjusting on her bent legs, she places a hand on my good leg to keep her balance. “Can we pretend you don’t hate my guts for a couple hours? Seeing you in pain kills me.” She slams a fist against her bare chest. “It fucking guts me that you’re hurt. But I can’t seem to sleep all that well lately when I know you blame me for what happened. Maybe if we just pretend for–”
“Blame you?” My heart races, a painful throb that slams against my diaphragm and robs me of breath. “Blame you for what?”
“For getting hurt. Because I was a total fucking jerk to you on the phone that time. I was a dick and pushed you away, then the next day, you got hurt, and you might’ve been paying more attention at work if you weren’t so focused on your asshole girlfriend.” Now it’s her turn to hide her eyes from me. Standing, she walks around my chair and pumps shampoo into her hand. Dropping my head back and allowing myself a moment that I know I’ll regret later, I rest the back of my head against her belly and stare at the ceiling. The shower spray now hits her back, and the mist settles on my face while she runs her fingers through my hair.
“I was scared of commitment,” she admits quietly. “I was scared that you might get bored with me, so I did it first. I pushed you away, then I sat at home with a broken heart because I’m a saboteur of my own happiness. You called me the night you got hurt.” Her nails scrape over my scalp and relax me in ways I haven’t felt in months. “I was so freakin’ happy you called me, because I was going to tell you how I felt, and that I was sorry for being a bitch. I was going to ask for another chance, but then you hung up and never t
ook my calls again.”
A thick veil sits over my brain when it comes to that night. I can barely remember Kane Bishop in the station, his escape, his girlfriend fighting for his freedom. I barely remember arguing with Jess Lenaghan that night, and I definitely can’t place who shot me. I know now, because Alex and Oz told me, but if I had to rely on my memory, I’d be clueless.
But I do remember calling Andi that night.
I remember the way she made me feel.
“You were in a club, Dee.” I reach back, because I can’t not touch, and cup her thighs. For the first time since this all began, I voluntarily touch her, and the way her breath rushes out on a gasp proves she notices, too. “You went out, back to your old world, and didn’t give a shit about me. You broke my fuckin’ heart.”
“No…” She slides her soapy hands along my neck and arches my head around until I turn and stare up into her eyes. Breathing heavily, like she’s just run a marathon, she leans forward and drops a kiss on my wet brow. “No, I didn’t forget about you. Not for a single second.” Leaning back, she nudges my head until I go back to staring away so she can continue washing my hair. “I was out because Mia needed help. I was in a club because my boss is an idiot who can’t figure out why her desperate attempts to trap a man aren’t resulting in declarations of love. I was sitting at home, staring at my stupid phone, waiting for you to forgive me, but when it rang, it was her. She was drunk, spewing.” She exhales so hard, I feel it on the back of my neck. “She was crying, so I went to help her before some predator did. Then you called.” She yanks my head back and hurts my gut more than I’ll ever admit. “You called, then you hung up! I didn’t hear from you again until I walked into a hospital room and found you like…”
“Like what, Dee?” I lift a brow when her eyes go to my legs. “Say it. Say cripple.”
“Cripple?” She moves around the front of my chair and leans forward until both hands rest on my legs. “Jesus. Is that what you think I see when I look at you?” When I don’t argue, she grunts like I frustrate her. “You aren’t crippled! You’re missing half a leg. Not even half! More like, twenty percent of a leg. Or one whole foot, and twelve percent of a leg.”
“You done?”
“Not until you listen to me and stop with the pity party. You’re not crippled! You can get up by yourself, you can pull your crutches out and do whatever the hell you want. And if your stubborn ass goes to your appointment on Monday, you can get a new leg and ditch the crutches. You think I haven’t had this conversation before? Do you forget Timmy, the stubborn coot who refused to help himself until his wife was ready to murder him? She brought his stubborn ass to me, and I got him up again. If you think for one damn second I won’t work a thousand times harder for you, then you don’t know shit about me. Being an amputee is not being a cripple, Riley Cruz, it’s different, and you have the chance to get up and walk again. Stephen Hawking was a paraplegic. The real Superman was a paraplegic. Fr–”
“Christopher Reeve.”
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m yelling! Franklin D Roosevelt! Colt Wynn!” She throws her hand toward the doorway for some asinine reason, as though she has these men sitting in the bedroom waiting to prove her point. “These people were paraplegics. They had real fucking problems. You? You’re missing five toes and a fuckin’ ankle. Get the hell over your pity party and become my superman!” She grabs my face and squeezes. “I’m standing right here, begging for you to have me. What more do you want? My soul? You got it. My blood? My heart already beats for you. You want me to chop a leg off too, so we can compare how much pain we’re in? I can do whatever you want me to do, but I cannot give up on you!”
“You don’t want me.” I turn away from her; just my head, my eyes, since I can’t fucking get up whenever I want to. “And you’re ruining this cripple’s shower. It’s the first one I’ve had in weeks, so if you don’t mind…”
“I do mind! You know what I haven’t had in weeks? A decent fucking sleep! An appetite. Someone to hug me. Some to share a meal with. Someone to return my feelings, because it hurts that I love you, that I’m taking a chance on something really fucking scary, and it’s almost like you’d step in front of a bullet and use that as an excuse not to be with me. Am I that repulsive? That annoying? Am I only good enough to fuck, but not worth taking home to your sweet momma?”
“You’re being ridiculous!”
“And you’re being ridiculous. We were made for each other.”
“I asked you to meet my mom!” I feel like a genius for a microsecond. Just. One. Single. Microsecond.
“And I was scared, so I ran. I can own the fact that I ran. But that doesn’t deserve a lifetime of unhappiness, not when the man I love is right here!”
“You don’t love me. You don’t know what that means.”
She drops to her knees, but her hands remain on my face. “It means I’d rather die than give up on you. It means you giving up on yourself pisses me the hell off. It means sleeping in airports, quitting jobs, becoming homeless, and taking the biggest leap of my life on a man that has told me for a week straight he can’t fucking stand me. It means barging into an old folks home with lies about our upcoming nuptials, just to gain entrance to see a woman I expected better of. I was so fucking pissed she left you to rot. I went in there with a fake diamond on my finger and a plan to tear the woman apart limb by limb, only to fall in love with another Cruz.”
“You saw my mom?” Tears burn my eyes, because pathetically, I miss my mom more than any full grown man should. I miss Andi. I miss freedom. I miss the happiness that only Andi can bring me. “You didn’t actually yell at her, did you? Please tell me you didn’t hurt my mom.”
“No! I brought her cupcakes, and hugs, and my pet pig. We hung out and discussed soap operas, then we discussed you, because she was so fucking sure you were coming to see her. You’ve been out of the hospital for a week, Riley, and I know it might’ve been painful, I know it wouldn’t be easy, but I’m still disappointed in you that you’ve left her waiting.”
“I can’t let her see me like this! It would break her heart.”
“It’s just a fucking leg! Wear pants, lean on me, and we can make it look almost legit. But ya know what does breaks her heart?”
“Don’t, Dee. Don’t say it.”
“You! Not coming to see her. She’s waiting. Every single day, she’s out of bed, dressing up. She puts on her pearls, and slides on a little lipstick.”
“She’s out of bed?”
“Yes! She’s running laps into the carpet while she waits for you to arrive. And I made the mistake of not taking my fake ring off, so now she’s waiting on your wedding announcement. I’m not even sorry, because it makes her happy.”
“Deedee…” I have no words for her. No argument. Because she’s still as crazy and impulsive as ever, but this time, her words are the words my heart wants to hear.
But I can’t.
I can’t give her a lifetime of poverty and zero intimacy.
I can’t expect her to give up her world to become my caregiver, and I sure as fuck am not going to share her. Empty my piss bottle in the morning, then again at night when she gets home from whoever actually has a dick that works.
“I can’t do this, Dee. I…” She told me to let her go when I was of sound mind, when I wasn’t mid-tantrum, high on pain meds, and wasn’t fresh out of the hospital.
It’s time to let her go.
Drawing in a long breath, I let it out again and break my own heart. “I don’t want you. I don’t want you here, I don’t want to be with you. I just want you to catch the next flight outta here, and I don’t want you to come back to this town ever again. You were…” I’m an asshole. I’m a despicable human being.. “You were the girl I fucked in a car during a wedding. You were tight, and warm, and so fucking tasty it sent me wild with need. But I don’t want a relationship with you. You’re immature and flakey, and I like women who are more… normal.”
Her eyes turn to
slits. Her chest lifts and falls, and I get the feeling her flexing hands on my legs are tempted to knock me the fuck out.
“Rip the Band-Aid off, Dee. Say whatever mean thing you’re gonna say, then leave.”
“Whatever mean thing? You want me to call you an asshole? A coward?”
“If that’s what you need to do to finally accept this. I’ve been telling you for a week, and I didn’t take your calls for the three weeks before that. It’s time you took a hint and got on with your life.”
“You want my mean words, Riley Cruz? You want what’s on my mind?”
Here it comes. I’m tempted to cringe away to soften the blow. “Yes.”
“I’m not gonna call you a coward. I’m not gonna call you an asshole, either.” Pushing off me, she stands tall and slams her hands onto her trim hips. “But I’m gonna call you a liar. A big, fat, lying liar that doesn’t know his ass from his nose these days. You’ve been lying since we met, lying since you were hurt, and lying since you got home. And it’s all so convoluted now, you don’t even know which way is up. All you know is that you need to spook me away.”
Turning on her heels, she exits the shower and shows me a perfect ass framed in perfect lace. She snaps the towel from the rail, then sets the spare on the toilet seat, since she’s much too considerate not to make my final exit easier. Tucking the thick cotton around her chest and tucking it in at her breasts, she turns back with a furious glare. “You’re still an asshole, though.”
She spins away and exits the bathroom with a flair. Door slamming, feet stomping, another door slamming at the guest bedroom.
I sit in the shower for a full ten minutes to give her time to escape my home with her dignity – and her pig. I stay put until the tears on my cheeks are washed away, because I might’ve just made the biggest mistake of my life. I don’t climb off the shower chair until the hot water turns cool. And when I switch it off, I sit for another ten minutes and study the ugly scar at the end of my leg and wish it wasn’t so.