by Dale Mayer
He looked up in surprise. “Actually I have,” he said. “I was just thinking about going for a swim to help digest some of the food I shoved down there.”
“Just make sure you wait a little bit, please,” she cautioned.
Of course, always the nurse, he thought. The two of them walked past and headed to the cafeteria. Gregory wondered if an invitation would have been in the offering from her.
He moved toward the water. He had on his shorts and knew he could make his way in the pool, yet he couldn’t force himself now that he was here. He had wanted to get out. He could have gone up and had dessert or something with them. They’d offered a branch of friendship, and instead, he’d been churlish and refused. He deserved to be alone right now. As he sat here, frowning, he turned to look up to see Meredith standing on the top step, looking at him. She frowned, and he frowned right back.
“Do you want company?” she asked him.
Immediately his back stiffened, and he shook his head. “I’m fine,” he said, and she quickly disappeared.
He groaned and quickly pulled off his T-shirt. He put his wheelchair alongside the ladder to get into the pool, hit the brakes on it, stood and helped himself into the water. As soon as the first wave splashed over his head, he could feel some of his tension easing. Now he was just miserable, and, every time he saw her, he felt like he said the wrong thing. And that wasn’t fair to her, and it surely wasn’t the reason he came here.
Putting some of his muscles to use, he swam laps, trying not to roll with his uneven leg movements and to stay straight. It didn’t take too long to get caught up in the natural rhythm, and, as soon as he did, his stiffness left. Once he did a few more laps and calmed his breathing, he lowered himself in the water.
Shane had had a hard talk with him today. Gregory hadn’t in any way realized he was doing it, but Shane had taken him to task for not showing up for the job. Gregory had been hurt and insulted at the time, but then, when Shane explained about how Gregory was putting up a front and telling them everything was fine but was only giving about seventy percent because he was sore, Gregory could see what Shane was talking about.
It wasn’t his usual way to act, but Gregory realized that the other rehab center had let him get away with a lot, whereas Shane wouldn’t let him get away with anything. Gregory knew that he would thank Shane for it later, but right now it felt brutal.
Gregory didn’t know how long he swam. It was hard to keep track. But, when he finally stopped, instead of feeling exhausted, he felt energized. His body hummed with joy; his muscles swelled with pleasure. He pulled himself up beside the wheelchair and just sat here. It was such a beautiful way to end a day, and he knew he’d sleep so much better.
But, of course, he hadn’t thought about a towel. He looked around for one to grab and saw Meredith walking toward him, a towel in her hand. She held it out to him. Taking it, he muttered, “Thanks,” and quickly dried his face. “Are you done eating already?” he asked, still drying his hair and not looking at her.
“Yes,” she said. “Stan got called back to an emergency.”
“Ah,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “Sorry that your dinner date was cut short.”
An awkward silence followed for a moment, and then she crouched beside him. “Stan is a good friend,” she said, looking Gregory in the eyes. “Shane is a good friend. Many other males here are also my good friends. You’ll see me sharing a meal with them, many times probably,” she said. “We’re part of a very large family here, and it’s very peaceful, comfortable. When I have something I need to talk out, I can pick any one of them, and I know that they’ll just let me vent. They won’t tell me how to fix the problem. They won’t tell me what to do. They’ll just listen, so that I can get some of it off my chest.”
He nodded slowly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be childish.”
“No,” she said, straightening. “But it’s obvious that something about my dinner with Stan bothered you, and it’s something we have to talk about.”
Immediately he shook his head. “No,” he said, “we don’t have to at all.”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “We do.”
“Well, not today,” he said. “I don’t think I can handle more today.”
“Well, I agree with you there,” she said. “I’ve been doing double-duty for several days, and I’m exhausted. I had a hard swim earlier, and now I’ve just eaten, so I’m heading back to my place. I’ll see you in the morning.” She turned, walked alongside the pool, picked up a towel that he hadn’t even realized was there on the back of a chair, threw it over her shoulder and disappeared.
She was right; they did need to talk. But he was also right in that it didn’t need to be today. He was the one who would need some time to work up what he wanted to say. Because really, what could he say? Sorry seemed awfully useless now.
Chapter 9
It was noon the next day when she finally sat back and looked up to see Dani walking in, a smile on her face.
“You’ve done really, really well,” Dani said. “I’m so sorry about the staffing shortage, but I just heard from Hannah, and she’ll be back in tomorrow.”
Meredith gave a huge sigh of relief. “Good,” she said. “I’ve been trying to handle it, but it’s getting away from me.”
“Understood. Hanna will see if she can get in to do an hour or two today and maybe catch up on some of the paperwork for you, but she wants to avoid the patients until she’s a hundred percent clear of flu symptoms.”
“Absolutely,” Meredith said. “It’s always the rule, isn’t it? The last thing we want to do is spread any germs around this place.”
“Exactly. Now I told her, that if she wasn’t feeling up to it, not worry. The paperwork would still be there tomorrow.”
“It always is,” Meredith said with a heavy sigh. “It always is.”
“I am interviewing for more staff. I’m sorry I’m not further along on that process.”
Meredith nodded and waved off her comments.
Dani looked at her and asked, “Are you doing okay with Gregory?”
Meredith gave an irritable shrug. “I am. It’s not that easy, and I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to do, as we do need to talk and clear the air, but I can’t seem to find the right time.”
“You know you have to pick your time carefully, right?” Dani asked softly, checking to make sure nobody else was listening to their private conversation.
“I know,” she said. “I was hoping to avoid him, and then I pushed the issue last night.” She sighed. “But he said we couldn’t talk yesterday, and I was too tired anyway.”
“Maybe have a talk with Shane first, and see if Gregory’s adapting well. The last thing we want to do is cause a relapse.”
At that, she winced. “Right, that would push the conversation back a couple more weeks.”
“Maybe just try to be friends for now?” Dani asked curiously. “I’m not sure what it is you’re trying to do, whether you want to go back to him or not.”
“I know. It’s kind of hard. I want to be friendly. We can’t go back to what we had because, well, … I just don’t think we can,” she said honestly. “Maybe something better though. But I don’t even know if I like him right now.” She had a sad smile on her lips as she spoke. “I don’t really recognize him.”
“So you know what this is,” Dani said. “This is the time to get to know each other, like really get to know him, to see who he is inside, not just the outside.”
“That’s all we ever see here, isn’t it? So many are broken. So many are working on becoming better,” Meredith said. “We see so much of the inner person all the time here.”
“And I think it’s very different here for him,” Dani said. “And he needs time. He needs space.”
“And that’s exactly what I was trying to give him,” Meredith said. “But it’s not easy being his primary care nurse, which throws us together. Often.”
/> “I know,” Dani said with the sweetest smile. “I do understand.” With a lopsided grin, the two women exchanged hugs. “Now let’s hope Hannah comes this afternoon,” Dani said as she headed out. “That will help relieve some of your workload. I really appreciate you stepping up while she’s been down.”
“You know me,” Meredith said. “The super-responsible type.” And, with a flippant look, she grabbed her tablet. “Speaking of which, I have to go.”
“Don’t avoid him,” Dani called out to her retreating back. “Just treat him like one of the regular guys.”
“Oh, he is,” Meredith threw back, with a saucy grin, turning to see Dani. “Just with one big difference.”
Dani chuckled. “And that difference, of course, is everything.”
Meredith thought about that as she kept going because a lot of truth was in that statement. She already knew who he was in one way; this situation would just add another layer to her knowledge. Maybe this time she would make a better decision, and so could he.
Gregory worked as he’d never worked in his life. His water-based military training had been absolutely brutal, and, at the time, he’d cursed his way through it, finding strength in the brotherhood around him to make it through. But right now, he didn’t think anything could possibly be worse than what he was doing. And when he finally collapsed, his body shaking, Shane squatted beside him and said, “Remember. On a scale of one to ten, you are to tell me when you’re at a six.”
Gregory glared at him. “And why would I do that?” he asked. “If I keep giving my body a chance to quit before it’s done, it’ll never push the level of achievement higher.”
“Because, when you go past a six out of ten,” Shane said patiently, “you’re pushing your body well past the point where it can recover easily. And, instead of helping your body, you’re hurting it. You’re putting it into a stressful position it can’t recover from easily. That’s not what we want.”
“I want to get better,” Gregory snapped. “I want to be healthy again. I want to be strong again.”
Shane straightened, looked at him and said, “What you really want is to turn back time to be who you were before. That’s not happening.” He closed his folder and picked up his tablet. “We’re done here for the day. I suggest you either get back to your room and have a shower or maybe do some time at the pool.” And he turned and walked out.
Gregory, still writhing with anger, wanted to follow him and yell at him and scream and rail at the injustices of life. Instead, he picked up the weights and did ten more reps, feeling the sweat pour off his body until he couldn’t lift the weights again.
He groaned and collapsed on the mat and just laid here. He thought he was done being angry about his current life; he thought he was done being frustrated and hating his world. And yet, coming here, seeing Meredith, seeing her happy and joyful and laughing with all the other men made him realize just how much he wanted to be that man again.
But he wouldn’t ever be that man again.
She was a nurse. She saw more broken men than he’d ever seen in his life. And he didn’t give a damn because it was his life, his broken body he wanted her to see, but he didn’t want her to see it as it was today; he wanted her to see it as it had been. Only his body wouldn’t be that fit again.
And, to his humiliation, he could feel tears burning up in the corner of his eyes. He immediately squeezed his eyes closed to stop the tears from leaking out. The last thing he wanted was to be caught crying like a baby. When he’d laid on the battlefield in pieces, he had bawled in agony. But then every man around him—except for those dead friends whose eyes he could see staring skyward—were crying too. There was nothing like that horrible sense of waking up and realizing how vastly his world had changed.
For a long time, he’d wished he’d died on that field. But, in his last rehab center—for whatever reason—he’d been fine there. He’d been doing okay, until he’d come here, and they’d taken all that false reality away from him. They’d taken that mirage that he was comfortable living in, and they’d showed him where he really was and what he really could do—or not do.
And what he really looked like beside the rest of the men in the world.
Deep down, Gregory knew it wasn’t Hathaway House’s fault, but he wanted to rail at them and make it their fault. He knew as much as anything it was the fact that Shane wasn’t a pushover, like his other therapist had been.
It was also Meredith’s presence here. He’d come here specifically to see her, but he’d expected to still be that king of the walk. That same confident, capable person who had arrived on the first day at Hathaway House. Instead, he was more broken than he’d ever been, and he couldn’t show her that confident person anymore because he didn’t exist, had never existed. He was just someone Gregory had made up to make it through life when the reality inside him was that he hadn’t even begun to heal.
At the sound of footsteps, he quickly sat up and struggled over to his wheelchair.
He was just hopping in and collapsing down when a woman’s voice called from the doorway, “Are you okay?”
He mustered up a smile, nodded and said, “Just fine, heading back for a shower now.”
The woman in scrubs nodded and walked away. He thought her name was Shannon. He again wondered if having Meredith around was helping or hurting him. He wanted her to be the goal at the end of the day, but he also knew he couldn’t make that his goal, as it was something out of his own control. But just because he knew that didn’t mean that he wanted that to be the truth. He wanted something so much better for himself. And Hathaway House was giving it to him, just not the way he expected.
Exhausted and depressed like he hadn’t been in months, he made his way back to his room slowly. He had a shower, taking his time because he was so tired. As he let the heat roll down his sore muscles, he knew that he had pushed it too far. He had refused to listen to Shane once again, and he would pay for it tonight. Maybe even sooner than that.
Back at his bed, he took several muscle relaxants, and, rather than struggling to stay awake, he laid down, pulled a sheet over himself and closed his eyes.
Chapter 10
When Meredith got to work the next morning, she found Dani waiting for her. In a serious voice, Dani said, “I need to talk to you.”
Surprised, she nodded. “Here or in your office?”
“In my office.” Worried, Meredith followed Dani to her private office, and she closed the door and motioned at the chair, just saying, “Be seated.”
She got doubly worried. “Have I done something wrong?”
Dani immediately shook her head. “No, you haven’t. However, it goes back to you and Gregory.”
“Oh, in what way?”
“Some of the others on his team feel that your relationship is impacting his ability to heal.”
Meredith sagged in the chair. “And I was trying to avoid him, other than doing my job, hoping that, if I wasn’t around all the time, it would make it easier for him.”
“I think we need to make it a little more than that,” Dani said. “He hasn’t requested this, but I’ll be interested to see if he says anything about it. I’d like you to switch your care to exclude him. And I will ask one of the other nurses to pick up his room as part of their roster.”
Meredith could feel a little bit of her shrinking inside yet again. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Is that really necessary?”
“No, maybe not,” Dani said honestly. “Shane says that Gregory’s angry at himself, and he’s pushing himself well past the point of normal. Shane thinks that’s because a certain amount of Gregory’s rage has come back because he’s not where he was before he was injured, and Shane’s wondering if it’s because Gregory can see you around here.”
“I didn’t tell Shane about our history,” Meredith said honestly, “but I probably should have.”
“I told him,” Dani said. “You know we can’t keep something like that a secret from our patient’s tea
m. But Shane thinks that Gregory wants to impress you, that he wants you to see him as he was, and so he’s pushing himself, and what we’re heading toward is a complete breakdown.”
Meredith chewed on her bottom lip, worried. “We’ve certainly seen that in a few of our cases,” she said, “at least ones with that much rage still in them.”
“Exactly,” Dani said. “We understand the rage. What Gregory has to do is get past it and get to the acceptance part. And I don’t know at what point in time we’ll see the blowout. I don’t want you to set it off, and I don’t want him to use you as a catalyst. This needs to be his fight for his own healing and not because of what he lost and thinks he can never regain.”
Meredith reached up, not surprised to feel tears dripping down her cheeks. Dani reached for a box of tissues and held it out to her. She pulled out one and dabbed at the corner of her eyes. “I had convinced myself that it would be easy to see him, and then I would be totally over him,” she said. “But I’m not. And to see how hard he’s working, to see what he’s trying to do, … I know he came here overconfident and had that knocked out of him in his very first session with Shane. But it was hard to see him drop down to no confidence.”
“And again, we’ve seen it time and time again,” Dani said gently. “He has to get through this yawning pit of despair so he can come out the other side and crawl back up to the light again. You know perfectly well he can get back to being the person he was when he arrived. But the person he was upon arrival wasn’t real. That was fake. That was Gregory’s fantasy, his imagination. No way is he as strong as he thought he was. And all Shane has done is show him that he was hiding his defects. Defects that would have caught up with Gregory sooner or later. Those weaknesses are what will put him back into a wheelchair in a few years.”
Meredith gave Dani a watery smile. “The thing is, we both know that. But when it becomes personal …”
“Which is why I want to remove the personal element,” Dani said. “Let’s try it for a week, and see if he notices.”