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She waited for my answer. She waited for me to reassure her that I was still there and that I was just waiting for her to call me out on it before I put up a fight, but I couldn’t answer her honest question with a guaranteed lie. I couldn’t promise her the guy she’d grown up with and fallen in love with was the same one sprawled out beside her. I wasn’t that guy anymore, as much as I might have wanted him to come back.
After letting another minute pass, she cleared her throat. “Thank you, Mr. Winters. I believe I already signed all of the paperwork?”
“It’s all taken care of, Miss Gibson, and Tom will be over later this afternoon to demonstrate how it works.” Steve shuffled through a few papers and handed Josie a few copies before backing out of the room. “It was a pleasure meeting you both. If you need anything, just give me a ring. I wrote my personal number on the paperwork there.” He was passing through the doorway when he stopped. His gaze drifted to me, and a smile I was all too familiar with crept onto his mouth—the apologetic version. “Good luck, Garth.”
I nodded. “I think it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than luck to get me through this, but thank you for the sentiments.”
His eyes drifted to Josie and lingered on her a moment before moving back to mine. “It looks like you’ve got a lot more than just luck on your side.” He let that hang in the air for a moment before he waved and disappeared down the hall.
I didn’t want to think too long about what he meant, because I already knew I had the best woman in the world at my side, along with more good friends than I deserved. But even before I’d broken my back, I’d struggled with the guilt of accepting that I could never give them what they’d given me, though I’d die trying.
Now though, I couldn’t even change the oil in Mr. Gibson’s truck or fix the leaky kitchen faucet for Mrs. Gibson. I couldn’t help Jesse toil a long day away over at Willow Springs, and I sure as shit couldn’t crawl onto the back of another bull to put more money into creating Josie’s and my dream ranch. I couldn’t do anything to be worthy of their friendship, nor could I do anything worthwhile to earn it.
I was a charity case. That was just as paralyzing a realization as the condition my body was in.
“Please tell me you didn’t sell a kidney or sign up to have your eggs harvested or anything like that to pay for that thing, Joze. Please tell me you didn’t pay for it at all and this is all some big mistake and once Steve realizes that, he’s going to come marching back without so many smiles and nice words and repo that baby right out of my room.” I paused to inhale. I didn’t know why, but talking seemed to have become a rigorous activity. “Please don’t tell me you blew a load of cash so I could drool upright too.”
She gave me a pity chuckle, but I could tell she didn’t find any humor in my words. “Then we just won’t discuss it, okay? If you don’t want to know the truth, I won’t give it to you. I’ll let you just imagine whatever you want.”
“Joze . . .” My jaw ground together as I accepted what she was saying. I didn’t need to check the price tag to guess that that thing had cost more than my new truck.
“You needed a wheelchair, you’ve got one. We can check that off the list,” she said. “The next thing on the docket I need to discuss with you is making an appointment with the local doctor Dr. Payton referred us to. He said this doctor was like some spinal cord miracle worker or something. I called to set up an appointment, and they said they couldn’t get you in until next week. When I said that wasn’t good enough, they changed next week to tomorrow at two o’clock. Now I’m not sure how we’re going to get you there—yet—but I’ll have something worked out by then. I just wanted you to know so you could prepare yourself since I know you’re such a non-fan of doctors and them actually trying to help you.” She didn’t sound as if she planned on coming up for air, probably because she knew I was just waiting to pop in and argue with her. She was right.
“Might as well cancel it, Joze.” I rushed to get my words out just as quickly as she had. “Because I won’t be going. Let someone else see the ‘miracle worker.’ Someone who actually believes in miracles.”
She flinched. Just barely, but enough for me to notice. She recovered quickly though. “Be serious. You have to see a doctor. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending like nothing’s happened won’t help you get better.”
“I’m not going to get better.” My voice was rising, filling the room.
She shoved off the bed. “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I’ve realized and agonized over that and accepted that you might not get better in the way you’re so fixated on right now?” She was talking with her hands and arms, flailing them like she was tossing dozens of invisible Frisbees. “But there is more than one way you can get better, and until you meet with a doctor or doctors, that’s never going to happen.”
I couldn’t look her in the eye any longer, so my gaze drifted to the ceiling. “There’s no doctor or do
ctors who can make me better, short of figuring out a way to fix my back so I can walk again. Sorry, Joze. I know that’s not what you or anyone else pacing around your living room wants to hear, but I’m not going to smile and lie through my teeth that with some occupational therapy and a support group, I’ll be able to ‘get better.’” My voice was even louder. Was I shouting at her? Was she backing away from me because of the shouting? Or because of what I was saying? Or because of both? Oh God, what was I doing? “I’m not getting better so accept it already! I have!”
She charged forward, her mouth opening as if she was ready to shout back at me just as loudly and with just as much conviction, but a second later, her mouth closed and that determined gleam in her eyes faded. I watched it fade completely until all that was left was a glazed-over smolder of finality. Then she backed away.
“Accept this,” she said in a voice so low I had to strain to hear it. “You can push me away all you want, but I’m not going anywhere.”
THE WHEELCHAIR TRAINING guy came that afternoon. He left about five minutes later. Along with him, the electric wheelchair left too. I told him to make sure Josie got a full refund, and he promised he’d take care of it.
After he’d left with the wheelchair, I’d expected to hear the same rushed boot-steps bursting into my room, but instead I was met with an eerie quiet. It was as if the house were empty, though I knew someone was lingering close by. I’d caught a glimpse earlier of a folded up piece of paper hanging out of the back of Jesse’s pocket. It was a schedule of who was on “Garth” duty when.
I was like a child who needed both a babysitter and a caretaker. As someone who’d been so uncomfortable being dependent on other people that I used to break out in hives, I didn’t know what to do with having to be babysat around the clock.
From the light streaming into the room, I knew it was getting close to dinnertime, but the endless hammering that had commenced a few hours ago continued on, making me wish I had a pair of earplugs. I didn’t need to ask what was being built outside. Even though I’d sent back the wheelchair, I knew what they were working on. Poor Mrs. Gibson. She’d probably figured she’d one day have to accept a ramp being built up to her front door since her husband’s body would have to give out eventually after ranching for sixty-plus years, but I doubted she’d anticipated her daughter’s boyfriend who’d become paralyzed after getting thrown from a bull named VooDoo being responsible for the ramp.
To drown out the sound of the hammering, I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to fall asleep. Somehow, that only exacerbated the noise, so I just kept my eyes open and hoped that when night fell, they’d put away their hammers and give it up for a few hours.
But when night finally did come, those hammers were still pounding. I was getting close to throwing my head back and hollering for someone when a figure magically appeared in the doorway. I thought I’d seen Rowen pissed before, and I had—only about a few hundred times—but this was different. Based upon her expression, this was pissed to the tenth power.
Stepping inside the room, she shoved the door closed. It slammed, rattling the window across the room. Her hair was pulled back into some messy bun, and she was wearing a mix of her country clothes and what I guessed was her Seattle wardrobe, making her look as though someone with split personalities had dressed her. Rowen’s skin was so white I’d always teased her that sunlight actually bounced off her skin instead of absorbing into it, but tonight, at least in her face, she was so flushed she looked more red than white.
She stayed by the door, butting her shoulder into it and shifting her eyes in my direction. “We’re going to have our talk now,” she stated in a relatively calm voice.
“Been looking forward to it.”
Her eyebrows peaked. “You remember how this is going to work? Maybe I should recap . . . by having a talk, I mean I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen.” She pointed at me before zipping her fingers across the seam of her lips. “Is that understood?”
