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I didn’t limp or hop across the street to Jack and Anna’s house. I marched like a man and the click of my cane was the only sign that I had a secret beneath my clothes. Soon, I wouldn’t even need my cane anymore. In fact, I barely relied on it now, just like the doctors had said I would. Instead of the agonising, ill-fitted wooden leg that I’d refused to let Cem replace, this one fit like a tightly laced boot. A boot that felt almost normal even after just a few weeks.
My new transtibial prosthesis had a carbon pylon and foot, shock absorbers, silicone liners, and top-of-the-line technology. I’d run on a treadmill at the doctor’s request. I’d scaled an obstacle course at my physiotherapist’s encouragement. I’d jumped and lunged and was slowly building up faith in myself and the prosthetic. The only thing I hadn’t done was swim.
My heart kicked again at the thought of returning to the Great Barrier Reef.
Of watching Neri dive again, hold her breath like a mermaid again, of kissing her again.
For the first time in forever, my body stirred.
My belly tightened.
But then terror dampened my urges.
Five years is a long time...she might have moved on.
My chest squeezed; I marched a little faster.
I paused by their front gate.
Memories of sitting with her in Jack’s Jeep after I’d kissed her at the Craypot swarmed me. I’d known the moment she found me in the sea that I was hers. I would be hers until my dying day. But...if the loss of losing me—of spending the past five years thinking I was dead was enough to force her to find comfort with another, then...I would accept that.
I would let her be happy.
Because that was my entire purpose.
To make her happy.
My hands landed on the gate, but I didn’t push it open. The thought of knocking on the front door seemed too formal, too...cold.
I needed to see my old home.
I needed to step into the garden where I’d lived and fallen in love. I needed to smell the chlorine that clung to everything and feel the stagnant heat before I could trust this was real.
Biting my bottom lip, I skirted the front garden, bypassed the Jeep, and cut down the side of the house. The glitter of the pool blinded me as I stepped into the space where I’d spent so many dinners, so many nights, so many moments.
The vegetable garden Neri had kept thriving along the fence was gone, replaced with pretty flowers and grasses. The boulders around the pool were dusty with unuse, and the sala—
I froze and clutched my cane.
The sala that Jack had so kindly turned into a bedroom for me was...gone.
I frowned as I studied the little patio area complete with a wave sculpture and table and chairs. No signs of the original sala or the room where I’d slept.
What happened?
Did they tear it down because of me?
Stepping onto the back deck where a few planks needed replacing, I glanced through the sliding doors to the kitchen beyond.
The smash of a pan and the yelp of surprise was the only warning I had before Anna tripped through the doors and stood gaping at me.
Jack stumbled after her, his white t-shirt and cargo shorts covered in red sauce from whatever he’d been cooking for dinner.
No one spoke.
I didn’t think words were possible.
My heart skipped and squeezed as I drank in my surrogate parents. Parents who’d protected me, encouraged me, doubted me, hurt me, and ultimately given me a life I wouldn’t have had with their daughter who was always meant to be mine.
