Charlie got a kick out of working out together. It was something he enjoyed, so I liked it, too. I wasn’t as athletic as him and Kallie, and never had been, but I’d liked cheerleading and exploring caves before, so working out wasn’t so much a chore as it was a fun activity for us to do as a couple.
We did some upper body strength exercises with the weights, before Charlie laid me down on a yoga mat to help me stretch. He lifted my knees to my chest and moved my feet back and forth, flexing my toes toward my calf.
“What’s wrong?” Charlie noticed I was a bit uncomfortable the moment I realized it myself.
“I feel a cramp in my foot.” I wrinkled my nose. “But it’s probably just a phantom pain. I know I don’t have any sensation there.”
Charlie began rubbing the ball of my foot, flexing my leg to my chest and back out. “Can you feel anything now?” Charlie asked.
“No.” I scowled. “The tension is still there, but I know it’s not real.”
Charlie helped me sit up and get back into my wheelchair. “Let’s get the TENS out. That’s seemed to help before.”
The hospital had lent us a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation machine, often called a TENS unit, to help with my therapy. It was a small machine that had electrode pads attached to it, which delivered small electrical currents to my muscles. It was supposed to help release endorphins and encourage pain relief. Charlie lifted my shirt and placed the pads of the machine all over my lower back before he turned the machine on. The TENS unit was sort of loud, and it emitted a loud vibrating noise that sounded very much like… something else. I always snickered whenever it came on.
“I find it amusing you still think that’s so funny,” Charlie said.
“Iama child.” As the machine worked, the tension in my back began to ease, and my shoulders slackened. I shifted in my seat as a sense of relief flooded through me.
“I guess I didn’t feel as good as I thought,” I admitted. “The TENS is actually helping me feel a lot better.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”
“I’m just used to being in pain now. It’s easy to ignore it if it’s not completely overwhelming.”
“Well, this will help with that.”
He took a seat on the yoga mat in front of me, doing a round of push-ups before switching into sit-ups. I observed in appreciation. I loved watching my man work out.
Charlie took a deep breath as he finished a round, then said, “I’m sorry if we’re not making good progress.”
“What do you mean? I think I’ve come a long way since I was first injured,” I said.
“We’re able to manage your pain better, and some things have improved, but I don’t want you to feel like you can’t do things on your own.”
I felt a lump rise in my throat. Oberi stopped playing with the chew toy and looked at me. “That’s okay. It’s what the doctors told us to expect.”
“Are you sad that you still struggle with your wheelchair?”
I shrugged. “I mean… sometimes. But mostly, I’m tired of how people treat me.”
“There are a lot of assholes here at the Institute,” he agreed.
“It’s more than that. Ez is still spending a lot of time researching my spinal injury, and I wish he wouldn’t.”
“He loves you. He wants to see you walk again.”
“But I don’t need to walk. I need… support.”
Charlie waited for me to go on, and I rushed to explain. “People are always looking for some miracle that will make me walk again. But you know what would be simpler? Building more ramps.” I sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Or making larger doorways, or even just putting a minute of thought into how I can get around.”
“I hear that,” Charlie replied. “I don’t like it when people act like my blindness needs to be cured, either.”
“Right. It’s like it’s inconvenient for society to accommodate me, even if the solution is easy, so they’ll go out of their way to find complex solutions to make me walk again. They want me to be just like everyone else, andcure me, rather than provide me with ways to make life accessible. Not being able to walk is hard, but it wouldn’t be as hard if our society didn’t keep putting barriers in the way that don’t need to be there.”
“I completely understand,” Charlie said enthusiastically. “My reading glasses are great. They don’t make me see, but they help me to read things. I didn’t need to see back when I was on the streets— I neededresources, like access to housing, or a job, and affordable food. When it comes to my blindness, I don’t need to be cured; I need tools. And I wouldn’t want a cure, anyway.”
“You don’t want to be able to see?” I glanced over.
