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“Who do we have here?” Tracey asks, motioning to Riley.
“This is my friend Riley,” I tell her.
“And you’re comfortable with her sitting in the room?”
Riley’s eyes meet mine from across the room and she smiles. And that slight smile gives me the encouragement I need to speak the truth—the truth only she can get out of me. “She’s the only one I’m comfortable with.”
Riley’s body relaxes with her exhale and I know I’ve said the right thing because her knees are no longer bouncing, her gaze is no longer wandering. And me? I realize now why I was happy to see her this morning—because there was a reason I asked her to come with me today. I wanted her here. No. I needed her here.
She just doesn’t know how much.
“How’s the wound healing?”
“Good,” I say, but I’m still watching Riley.
“Still bleeding?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“That’s good, Lance Corporal.”
I tear my gaze away from Riley and focus on Tracey. “Dylan’s fine, Ma’am.”
She nods once. “Okay, Dylan. You ready for me to take a look at it?”
It takes longer than it should for me to shrug out of my shirt and as soon as it’s off, both Tracey and Dr. Garvis block my view of Riley to inspect my shoulder.
He checks the entry wound first and then the exit. “It’s healing well,” Dr. Garvis says while Tracey takes notes in her now open folder. I wonder what it says about me. How much detail goes into medical records of wounded Marines? Does it state how it happened? Not the technical aspects of what bullet or gun caused it but how. When. Where. Who.
They speak for a few minutes, their words a jumbled mess of medical terms and timelines. Dr. Garvis moves back to his seat behind his desk, his fingers typing away when I hear the gasp come from Riley. My eyes snap to hers—wide and glazed with tears.
It dawns on me that it’s the first time she’s ever seen it. Sure, she knows it exists, she’s seen it bandaged up, but she’s never seen it. She raises her hand and covers her mouth and when she sees I’ve noticed her reaction, she looks away.
Tracey must see it, too, because she stands in front of me, blocking Riley’s view. “Still okay, Dylan?”
I nod and look over her shoulder at Riley, who’s now looking everywhere but at me. “Riley,” I call out.
“Yeah?”
I motion for her to sit on the bed with me and without hesitation; she picks up her bag and sits next to me, her hand immediately on my leg.
Tracey smiles. “I’ve gone over your file,” she says, “and I’ve come up with a rehabilitation plan for the injury. We weren’t sure if you needed more time for it to heal or if your current exercises are helping—”
“He does these spinny things,” Riley interrupts.
Tracey quirks an eyebrow at her, her amusement evident. “Spinny things?”
“Yeah.” Riley holds her free hand to her chest, then rotates her shoulder like she must’ve seen me doing a few times. “Spinny things.”
Tracey smiles.
So do I.
“And these ones,” Riley continues, releasing my hand. She has both hands on her chest now, her elbows moving back and forth and I wonder if I’ve looked as ridiculous as she does at this very moment.
Tracey laughs. “Well, it’s good to know you’ve been doing them,” she murmurs, scribbling more notes in the folder.
I cover Riley’s hand with mine when she places it back on my leg. Then I nudge her with my elbow. “You been watching me?” I joke.
She shrugs.
“So keep doing those,” Tracey says, looking up from her notes. “Give it about a week or so and you can start adding weights. You can start with—” She breaks off when Riley moves quickly to pull out a notebook from her bag. She flips open the cover and sets the tip of the pen on a blank page, her eyes on Tracey. Then she nods.
Tracey looks at me.
I shrug.
Dr. Garvis joins us.
“Go on,” Riley says. She looks down at her book, just long enough for her to write: Dylan’s rehab on the top of the page, and then refocuses on Tracey.
“Riley?” I ask, my gaze moving from Tracey to her. “What are you doing?”
“Taking notes,” she answers.
She’s already written Tracey and Dr. Garvis in the time it’s taken me to ask a simple question.
The rest of us stay quiet, our eyes on her. “What?” she asks, looking between us.
“Nothing.” I shake my head, smiling to myself.
“I’ll be giving Dylan a copy of the rehab plan and all the exercises so you don’t have—”
Riley waves her hand dismissively. “But that’s for him. These are for me.”
Dr. Garvis asks, “For you?”
Riley shrugs. “So I can make sure he does it and kick his ass if he doesn’t.”
“Some friend you have here, Dylan,” Tracey says.
“Yeah.” I can’t stop smiling. “She’s just lucky she’s beautiful.”
We spend a good half hour in the room while Tracey and I discuss my new rehab plan and Riley frantically takes notes. Ten pages of them, last I counted. She asks a lot of questions, too. Questions I would’ve never thought to ask. Tracey and Dr. Garvis answer every one as best they can and at the end of it all, Doc says, “If everything goes well, we’ll have you back to your unit in four to six months.”
