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“I love you too, Joze,” I whispered to the dark room long after she’d left.
I WATCHED THE sun rise through my window, not having slept a minute through the night. I’d been tired enough that I could have passed out with no problem, but I knew I had better ways to use my time alone. Josie might have been willing to leave last night to grab a bite to eat and a night of sleep, but I knew her too well—she’d be back first thing this morning, and she wouldn’t leave my side until I had to beg her while Rowen tugged her away.
Josie was persistent, and she didn’t waver. I admired those qualities in her, but I’d have to figure out a way around those qualities. The whole reason I’d spent the night as an insomniac was so I could come up with a plan to let her go. In the event I never recovered, I would not allow her to waste the rest of her life waiting on me and wiping my ass. She’d argue around every point I could bring up as to why she shouldn’t have a lifetime of taking care of me, but I had to get her to see that I didn’t want that kind of life for her. I wanted the best for her.
I knew enough to accept that if this was how I was stuck until the day I died, staying at my side would be the opposite of the best for her. I could try pushing her away, but something told me if I tried that, she’d only hold on tighter. I could play the hopeless and helpless card, which wasn’t a stretch from reality, and hope it sent her running. Maybe I could give denial a try to attempt to frustrate her until she couldn’t wait to be rid of me. I’d spent the night sorting through dozens of different things I could try, but nothing I came up with was likely to scare her away. Josie wasn’t the type of person who abandoned ship when life got hard. She was the one who battened down the hatches and held on for dear life until the storm had passed.
A part of me didn’t want to let her go. The self-serving part. I wanted to spend every day with Josie, just as I’d been planning, but with the way I was now, I couldn’t keep her in my life without shifting her into more of a mother role.
I’d had one mother, and that was more than enough. I wouldn’t sentence Josie to that kind of future.
Of course, I knew mapping out my future as a paralyzed man might have been a bit premature, but I also knew the way I felt and the impact I’d taken. Karma had finally found me and was paying me back for twenty years of being a piece of shit to most everyone and everything. As far as people who deserved to walk again following this kind of an injury, I was at the tail end of that line.
I wasn’t going to walk again. I didn’t need a doctor to tell me that.
But when an older man wearing blue scrubs slipped into my room a few minutes after the sun had risen, I guessed one was going to try. I thought I’d had a rough job, riding pissed off animals that were trying to kill the person hanging on to their backs, but this guy had to look a person in the face and tell them life as they knew it, and the one they had planned however many years down the road, was over. Cancer doctors had to tell patients they only had months to live, and ER docs had to tell families their loved ones hadn’t made it, but this doctor had to look patients in the eye and tell them that they were going to live but the lives they’d lead would make them wish they’d died.
I almost felt a moment of pity for the doctor grabbing the chair from across the room and pushing it toward me . . . then I noticed he was looking at me with the same expression. I saw pity and something in his eyes that led me to believe he was counting his blessings that he could still move. Pity and relief. That was the way people would look at me from now on, I guessed. Pity for me, relief for themselves.
That realization made me glare holes into the ceiling tiles.
“I’m Doctor Payton, the spinal trauma specialist here,” he said as he settled into the chair pushed up next to me. “How are
you doing this morning, Mr. Black?”
I huffed, continuing to glare at the ceiling. “I’m feeling fucking on top of the world.”
Doc Payton sniffed, leaning back in his chair. “Happy to know you’re in good spirits. Most patients in your situation find themselves depressed and pissed off at the world, so your outlook is a nice change of pace.”
I gave him a sideways look. “I was shittin’ you, Doc.”
He scrolled around on the tablet in his lap. “I was too.”
Great, I had a smartass for a doctor.
“So when can I bust out of here?” I asked, though I continued to focus on the ceiling. During the course of the night, as a handful of nurses had come in to check on me, I’d found it hard to look at people who could still use their legs and bodies, as if they were to blame for what had happened to me. The bitterness and resentment theory was already holding up.
The doctor looked up from his tablet. “You’ve sustained a serious injury to your spinal column. You won’t be released for a few more days. We’ve still got to run tests, schedule an MRI, some more X-rays—”
“Hold up.” My eyes cut in his direction. “Did you just say more X-rays? As in I’ve already had some done?”
“We did X-rays immediately after you were admitted. It’s standard when we’re dealing with anyone in your kind of situation.”
“My kind of situation?” My brows lifted—at least they could still move. I’d have to get really good at using them.
“Your kind of situation being the potential to have injured or severed something in your spinal column.” The doctor’s voice was calm, as though he was used to having this kind of a conversation every day. I felt as though my life was ending, as if I was waving good-bye as it floated away, and he was talking to me like he was discussing the weather over a cup of coffee.
I felt the blood in my veins heat. At least the veins from my neck up. “Why did my friends tell me no X-rays had been done yet then?” I didn’t say “girlfriend and friends” because the sooner I stopped thinking of Joze like that, the sooner I could embrace my bright future of being paralyzed.
“Maybe because the results were inconclusive and they guessed I’d be better at explaining that to you than they would.” Doc Payton was back to messing with his tablet. If I could have used my arms, I might have grabbed it and tossed it against the wall.
“Is my back broken or isn’t it, Doc?” I asked a bit more sharply than I’d intended.
“In the way you’re asking, no, it isn’t.” I was just thinking about exhaling a hell of a lot of relief when he continued. “But there is some serious trauma, or swelling, to the middle part of your spine, meaning there could be some serious nerve damage.”
I should have been relieved I hadn’t broken my back, but something about the nerve damage part and the uncertain note in the doctor’s voice gave me pause. “Well, does that mean I’ll walk again? Does it mean I’ll recover from this?”
He typed a few more things into his tablet before looking at me again. “It’s too early to say.”
