Paraplegic

by Troy Dearbourne

  I switch my gaze back and forth between them. "Tell me what?"

  Calix adjust his sunglasses. "I'm blind!"

  I'm not sure if he's joking or if he's serious. I guess that would explain why he wears those ridiculous sunglasses indoors.

  "Blind?"

  "Yup."

  "Like, blind blind?"

  "Currently, I'm unaware of any other kind, but I will straightway inform you if such a discovery happens."

  Desiree returns with an almost empty bottle of water. "Break time's over, McKenzie," then squats down on the ledge in front of Calix. "Mr. West, I'm going to have to ask you to return to the recreational side of the pool. This area is for rehabilitation purposes only."

  Calix lifts his hand in salute once again. "Very well, Miss," then turns to face my general direction. I now notice he's never really looked directly at me. It all makes sense. "I shall see you tomorrow, McKenzie?"

  "No. I only have classes three days a week. I'll be here Friday, though."

  He smiles, his upper lip curling back to reveal a goofy grin. "Friday. That's gonna be a good day, I can feel it. Friday it is then!"

  Chapter 20

  I hear the door slam shut; father is going to work. August should be leaving for school shortly. Meanwhile, I have to bide my time and wait for mother to finish preparing his lunch, most likely peanut butter and jelly with an M n' M cookie for dessert, before she can come in and help me out of bed. To be fair, I'm not normally up this early. Why would I be? There's nothing to do once I'm up, not a whole lot to live for anymore. If I'm asleep, then I'm not aware of my disability. Sleep is my drug.

  I grab my phone from the nightstand and send mother a text letting her know I am awake. About twenty minutes later, she raps her knuckles against my bedroom door, then shuffles in. Our gazes lock together for a long moment. Guilt and sorrow mask all other expressions on her face. I can only imagine what's going through her head. There's only one thing harder than suffering from paraplegia – watching someone you love suffer from paraplegia.

  She moves over to the window and draws back the peach shades. "I'm thinking today is gonna be a bum day, television and junk food. Whattya say?" She puts on a smile as she says it, but it quickly droops; lips forming into a flat line. I nod weakly at her proposal.

  She tucks a hand behind my neck and another under my back, dragging me off the bed and onto my wheelchair. My bottom lip quivers with suppressed anger. Mother is barely able to get me out of bed by herself. She isn't that strong. You're such a burden, McKenzie.

  Once I'm seated comfortably, I move to the bathroom where I drain the ostomy bag in the toilet, then fasten a new one to my waist, pulling my green Henley shirt down over it so it's hidden from view; though, there's still a slight bulge from underneath the shirt itself. What has my life become?

  Mother is now in the kitchen pulling strawberry Pop Tarts out of the toaster. They smell a little burnt. August always likes his that way. He calls it crispy, says it caramelizes the sugary fruit inside. I call it what it really is - burnt. Truth is I don't think he even knows how to fully operate the toaster, resulting in a burnt Pop Tart every time.

  I park my chair next to the couch, and mother brings me a plate filled with two extra crispy Pop Tarts. I end up peeling off the burnt edging, but they still taste good.

  After watching our third consecutive episode of Chopped in honor of Aurora, the doorbell rings. Mother hops off the couch to answer it. I clear the dirty dishware and place them in the sink; I'm barely able to reach it from this seated position. When I return, I'm completely stunned by the person I see standing in the room.

  Xander!

  Mother looks over at me with a sheepish grin. "Honey, look who was at the door." Like I didn't already realize that on my own. I'm paralyzed, not blind.

  My palms suddenly moisten from anxiety. I didn't know he was coming. I thought he'd already left for college. I'm not dressed appropriately and my hair is a total mess. And I have no makeup on whatsoever. I can't let him see me like this. Why is he even here? He shouldn't be here.

  I place my moist hands over the wheels and move to the darkest corner of the room, hoping the shadows will veil me. "X-xander. What, um, what are you doing here?" clearing my throat "I thought you left for Duke last week?"

  He sits down on the leather sofa closest to me, which is only seven, maybe eight feet away. I want to disappear into a hole right now. "I had to come back to pack up a few more things. I'm heading back there tonight, but wanted to stop by first." He pauses, eyes sweeping up and down my crippled frame. Somebody please kill me! "I'm sorry." He drops his head in his hand. "I should've called when I heard. I just - I don't know. I wasn't sure what to say, so I decided it was best not to say anything."

  "It's fine," a nervous chuckle follows my words.

  Mother turns toward the kitchen. "I'll go get you two some water." No! Don't leave me. Don't you dare – she left.

  Xander continues to stare at me with those big, sorrowful puppy dog eyes. It's so uncomfortable. I'm not different, okay? I'm not!

  I avoid eye contact with him and drop my head to stare at my lap. That's when I realize my shirt is covered with Pop Tart crumbs.

  "So, um, how's - how's life been?" he breaths.

  How's life? Did he seriously just ask me that? Ugh! I should smack him right now.

  "Uh, well, it's been, um, interesting, I guess," a quick motion towards my wheels.

  He chuckles nervously this time. "Oh, yeah, I guess . . . I guess that's probably true," then shoots a glance out the window.

  Where in the world is mother? How long does it take to fill a glass of water?

  I pass the time by picking the crumbs off my shirt and popping them in my mouth. I raise my head slightly – he's still staring at me. Realizing this moment won't pass on it's own, I try hurrying it along. "So . . . how's basketball been for you?"

  "Oh, you know, fine. Just fine." He pauses again, fiddling with the zipper on his leather jacket. "Um, Duke's Coach said my gameplay at Stardust High was impressive, earning me a position as a starter next season."

  "Wow. That's so cool," my voice filled with anything other than true enthusiasm. More silence proceeds.

  Did mother decide to fill every water cup in the house? Where is she!

  Xander's phone is laying on the seat beside his knee, lighting up as a phone call comes in. A picture pops up on the screen along with a cute sounding ringtone. From my angle, the picture is upside down, but I don't need to see it right side up in order to make out the image – it's a picture of Xander and some blonde girl with Duke's mascot photobombing them in the background. The two of them look really happy. And she's really pretty.

  I can't believe him. One minute he's ready to take me to his first college party as his plus-one, and then less than a month later he's already found a replacement? What a jerk!

  Xander's phone continues to ring. He flips it facedown, looking almost as uncomfortable as me.

  "You should answer that," a cold tone is in my voice.

  "It'll go to voicemail." It rings a third time; he stuffs it under his leg to muffle the sound.

  All of the sudden, my inferior emotions vanish. Why did I place him on such a pedestal for so long? McKenzie, you're so stupid! You put a text message from him as a priority over your own best friend, and now she's dead because of it!

  "Listen, I need to go. It's a long drive to Duke. I'm sorry about what happened to you, truly." He gets up to leave, looking over his shoulder one last time, "Have a good life, McKenzie." The front door slams shut behind him.

  At that exact moment, mother returns with two glasses of water in her hands, glancing around the now empty room. "Sweetie, what happened?"

  I look at her through a veil of tears. "I never want to see him ever again! Do you hear me? Ever!"

  I feel so lost. My past doesn't even seem like my own anymore, the girl I used to be, the friends I used to have. Nothing is the same. Especially me.

  When I
see photographs of myself in my cheer uniform, teetering on top of the cheer pyramid, I don't even recognize myself. I'm slowly forgetting what it was like to be that girl. Pretty . . . popular . . . free. . .

  Freedom.

  I release an enraged scream, throwing my hands skyward, the veins in my neck convulsing from strain, ultimately fading as it moves out over The Bluff. I'm positioned beneath the shade of the oak tree, it's limbs casting dancing shadows on the rough grass. This is the only place I feel calm, kind of like a safe haven, a place of refuge.

  "You look worse than normal? Everything okay, Bestie?" Aurora moves out from behind the oak tree and sits down beside me.

  "Xander left me!" Those words come out with such force, like I can't hold them back any longer.

  "What?" she gasps, cupping both hands over her cheeks. "Kenzie, that's terrible. What happened?"

  "He found someone new, someone better, someone . . . uncrippled." I glance down at my legs; I want to just chop them off.

  "Well, you know what? He's gonna be uber sorry when you get your legs back."

  "No, Rora! No. Don't you get it? I'm not getting my legs back! It's impossible."

  "Five percent."

  "Oh, don't you give me that five percent nonsense. The doctors told me that so I wouldn't commit suicide. They figure they'll give this girl some false hope to lead her on, to hang that silver lining where it's always just out of her reach. That's all. It's not real. It's not possible. It's not happening."

  Aurora sighs, turning her head towards a colony of dandelions, plucking them from the earth, then braiding their stems together. "Tell me about the place."

  "What place?"

  "You know, that place you're visiting to get better."

  "The rehab center? It's a glorified prison filled with a bunch of loonies."

  "You mean people like you?"

  I scoff, which turns into a laugh. "Hardly! I'm not crazy. You should see this one guy, Maverick. The kid has vertigo so bad, he needs these meds to keep him upright. Only problem is the side effects make him . . . loopy. And that's being kind."

  "Reminds me of that one time we rode those tea cups at the county fair." She smiles reminiscently. "Sounds like you're making friends at least, right?"

  "I wouldn't call them that. I barely know them. And there's another guy there, Calix, who keeps showing up and is always eerily nice to me. He's like gum on the bottom of your shoe – he won't go away." I pause for a long moment, taking in the beautiful scenery around me. "I just want things to go back to the way they were," my words hushed.

  "Teddy Roosevelt said 'Complaining about a problem without proposing a solution is called whining'."

  I arch an eyebrow her way. "I'm not whining."

  "Then what are you doing?"

  I don't truthfully know the answer to that question. Aurora's right, it doesn't feel good to admit it, but I'm whining. But how does someone like me propose a solution? It's not like I can become unparalyzed at will. If I could, believe me, I would have shoved this wheelchair off The Bluff weeks ago and never looked back.

  "There's hope" she tells me. "You're still getting surgery, aren't you?"

  "Mother says we're meeting with a specialist tomorrow to see if I'm a candidate."

  She finishes braiding the dandelions together, then slips the stems in between my strands of hair. "As long as there's air in your lungs, then there's hope."

  Chapter 21

  Today Desiree wants me to run through my wheelchairs ed class - still feels weird calling it that. By now, I've mostly gotten the hang of maneuvering around in this chair, but she insisted with that thick Czech accent of hers that I still run through the obstacle course a few times. Her way of trying to make things fun, I guess. Kind of hard to have fun when the entirety of your playground consists of one chair and a pair of wheels.

  Desiree leisurely pushes me through the winding corridors of the rehab center. "Where are we going?"

  "The place where you learn to drive, of course. Where else?" She says that with a tinge of mystery in her voice.

  Before long, I realize she's taking me to the parking lot. We move through the automatic doors of the entrance and then outside. It's a sunny day, hardly a cloud to flaw the near perfect sky. I can feel my skin instantly warm, soaking up the sun's rays like the pale, shriveled up sponge that I am. It's a nice contrast to the Center's chilled climate.

  The parking lot is spacious with tall lamppost erected fifty feet apart from one another. In the midst of the parking lot is a series of orange traffic cones deliberately positioned in a labyrinth-like pattern, much like ones you would face during a real drivers test. Cardboard cutouts of human silhouettes are position throughout the maze of cones to add a certain level of difficulty.

  I rotate my head, examining the layout of the obstacle course. "Um. You seriously want me to go through that?"

  "It is part of your classes, no?" she almost looks hurt over my lack of enthusiasm to participate.

  "Uh. I guess so."

  She claps her hands together. "Wonderful," then shoos me toward the starting line.

  I lazily run through the obstacle course, taking my sweet time navigating in between the traffic cones, while making sure to avoid the cardboard cutouts. It's tight. There isn't a whole lot of room, maybe three to four inches of space between my wheels and the cones, but at this speed it isn't too difficult to avoid them.

  I pass the time thinking about how long I'll be stuck here. That thought creeps into my brain every once in awhile. Makes me give thought to residents like Calix and Maverick; how long have they been here? How long have most of the residents been here? How long will I be here?

  Surgery!

  My heart skips a beat at that thought, and immediately my stomach swells with uneasiness. Why are you so worried about it, McKenzie? This could mean getting your legs back! But what if I don't? What if something goes wrong during the surgery that prevents me from ever walking again? I can't handle living out the rest of my days confined to this chair. I just can't!

  I make it through the obstacle course and circle back around to the beginning. "Is everything alright?" Desiree stoops down to my eye-level. I must have some sort of dismal expression plastered on to my face. I can feel the tears welling in my eyes, but I somehow manage to override their determination to fall. Why am I so emotional?

  "Yeah. I'm fine," I manage to mumble.

  "Fine?" She cocks her head sideways. "In my years of hearing that word, fine never means fine. It goes: great, good, okay, bummed, terrible, kill me now, and then fine." She uses her hands to illustrate the levels of emotions as she says it, moving down with each one.

  I actually find her actions amusing, and to my surprise, even chuckle a little bit. "No, really, I'm okay."

  "Ah, so now we've moved on up to okay, have we? That's good," she gives me a blue-eyed wink as she stands from her crouched position. "Run it again."

  "Are you serious? But I just did. And I didn't hit a single traffic cone either."

  "Oh, that?" she throws her head back and laughs deviously. "No, that was just your warmup." She pulls a stopwatch from her pink and blue scrubs pocket. "This time it's for real."

  I feel my eyebrow arch with interest. "Do I smell a challenge?" She bobs her head up and down in confirmation. "Challenge accepted!"

  Desiree places her thumb above the knob on the stopwatch, ready to pound it in at any moment. I steady my hands just inches above my wheels, slightly lunged forward for better aerodynamics, not breaking my gaze from the obstacle course in front of me. I can feel my heart throb from within my chest, a thick bead of perspiration slipping through the creases in my forehead, waiting for Desiree's signal.

  "Go!" She slams her thumb on the stopwatch clicker.

  I zoom down the open stretch, spinning my wheels faster and faster, the summer air ripping itself through my hair and drying my moist forehead. I approach the first corner, quickly deciding whether I should take it slow, or drift through it. No one
has ever achieved greatness by being slow - drift it is! My wheels shudder beneath my iron grip as I slide around the corner - heart rate spiking as I nearly topple over. I struggle to regain my balance, veering off the track and plowing down multiple traffic cones until finally skidding to a halt. Desiree is bent over with laughter. After glancing at all the traffic cones that are now laying on their side, I find it hard to conceal a grin of my own.

  Desiree jogs over to me. "You'll get better with time. For now, how 'bout we go into the air conditioning and get some lunch?"

  I wipe the sweat from my face. "That sounds great."

  The Center's cafeteria reminds me of the one we had at Stardust High. Though, I suppose there isn't much deviation from the general appearance of one cafeteria to another. White walls, black and white checkered floor, one long line of food resting under heat lamps, starting with soups, then meats, all the way down to the dessert section. Although, the overall quality of food appears to be significantly higher than what we had at Stardust High. Most of that stuff was prepackaged anyway and in dire need of salt.

  Mother had returned from running errands. Usually, she drops me off, then leaves for a few hours; picking me up once class is over. But today she came back early due to us meeting with the specialist after lunch. I'm suddenly not as hungry as I was a few minutes ago. I'm dreading that meeting. I still don't fully know why; I just am. My throat tries to close up every time I think about it.

  Mother tells me to find us a seat, while she waits in line for our order. I choose a table two down from an elderly couple; husband and wife I presume. The husband is in a wheelchair just like me - I wonder if he's a plegic. The wife lifts a shaky, wrinkled hand towards his lips, gently feeding him spoonfuls of chicken noodle soup. He doesn't look capable of expression too many emotions, like he's in some sort of vegetative state. But it doesn't seem to prevent her from caring for him. My heart warms at the thought - some people still do honor for better or for worse.