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He shrugs, kneeling in front of me and unwrapping the bandages. “You never know what accidents you might have while climbing. It’s better to be prepared.”
That’s one of the cardinal rules for going out in nature, and something I forgot this morning in my eagerness to enjoy the therapeutic wonders of the crisp mountain air.
He begins wrapping, and I hiss as lightning lances through me. “Sorry,” he says. “I do have pain medications, but they’re made for Kiphians. I don’t know how they’d interact with human bodies.”
“Yeah, I’d prefer not to go to the hospital if I can help it. Or explode.”
He barks out a surprised laugh. “Explode?”
“It could happen!” I defend myself. “Like you said, we don’t know how my body would react to the medication.”
He snickers. “Probably not that.”
I wince again as he pulls the wrap tight, this time flinching slightly in his grip. “Sorry, I’m trying to keep still.”
He shakes his head. “I get it. Sprained ankles hurt like hell. You want me to distract you?”
I raise my eyebrows. “How?”
“Tell me about your favorite memory,” he suggests softly.
When I first met him, I never would have pegged the arrogant athlete for being a good nurse, but I’m oddly soothed by his presence.
I think back on my happiest memories and find myself drawing a blank. It’s not that I’ve had a miserable life, far from it. Rather it’s that feeling when someone asks you your favorite food and suddenly, you forget everything you’ve ever eaten. Finally, one comes to me.
“When I was ten, my mom and dad took me outside the city I grew up in. We were pretty poor, but they’d managed to scrape together enough to take me camping just below the mountains for the weekend. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but even having the resources to go without worrying was really something special for us. I was elated because all my life, I’d stared up at those massive peaks and longed to climb them. I felt so free.”
He nods in understanding. “That’s how I felt the first time I climbed a mountain.”
“I thought you might relate,” I reply with a smile. “So, it’s quieter than I’ve ever known and darker than I’ve ever known when the sun goes down. And the sky just erupts in stars. Mom grabbed a picnic blanket and filled a basket with sweets, and told me we were going star-gazing. Then, she led me and Dad outside for a nighttime picnic. We laid out the blankets and stared upat the stars, wishing on the falling ones and making up stories behind constellations.”
“That sounds really nice,” Renxel says, and for a moment, I wonder if he’s jealous. I saw his parents and the way they talked to him. They were awful.
Memories of childhoods are often filtered by our innocence and rose colored glasses, so I could be misremembering my parents, but every single memory tells me that they were good, loving people. Times were hard, but they never stopped trying.
Maybe I’m just projecting. I could be the jealous one because he has both parents alive while mine are gone. It happens a lot, actually.
Every time I see a disrespectful teenager or a child throwing a tantrum, I want to shake them. I want to warn them that they should enjoy them while they can, because tomorrow isn’t promised.
I don’t know if it’s better to have good parents for a short time or awful parents for a very long time.
Renxel finishes his wrapping and gets to his feet. “Would you like something else to drink? I can have the synthesizer whip up some cocoa for us.”
“That would be amazing, thank you.” The warmth of his bedroom has soothed the shivers a bit, but I still feel a bone-penetrating chill that only a hot meal or beverage can warm.
“So, your parents, were they nervous about you moving here?” he asks, pressing buttons on the food synthesizer. “I mean, it’s very far away from any city, and you’re pretty much the only human here. Mine would’ve flipped out and driven me nuts trying to get me to come back to them.”
This is always the part where things get awkward. As soon as I say that I’m an orphan, people tend to look at me differently. They gaze at me with pity in their eyes and never know whatto say, meaning that I’m the one who usually ends up having to comfort them.
Swallowing, I shake my head with a rueful smile. “I wouldn’t know. They died when I was twelve.”
He freezes as he removes the cocoa from the synthesizer. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up any painful memories.”
“It’s okay,” I say, waving him off. “It’s not like I walk around wearing a shirt that reads,Beware of orphan.Although…” I trail off and then laugh. “I would actually wear something like that.”
“What were they like?” he asks, offering me a mug.
I sip it, enjoying the way that the warmth seeps into my stomach and radiates out to the rest of me.
