“I said… get the hell away from me, Grace.”
I was angry. Fed up. Embarrassed. Grace deserved better than this from me, and I knew I could give it to her. I knew I was capable of giving it to her. I just had to start fucking walking again. Why wasn’t any of this shit working? Grace praised me day in and day out like I was making massive strides, but I couldn’t even make a damn sandwich on my own!
I was pathetic, and she didn’t need to be seeing any of it.
“Hayden, we have to get you off the floor. I have to take a look at you,” she said.
“Leave me here,” I said.
“That isn’t an option. I’m your nurse, and-”
“Well, you’re a shitty one.”
“What?” she asked.
I felt my anger bubbling out of control. I felt my veins bulging from my body. Every misstep. Every surgery. Every day I was absent from the office and every day someone kept me out of the loop with something came boiling over. I was being forgotten. Replaced. People were giving up on me. On this recuperation. There was talk of my not returning at all. Talk of me selling off my controlling shares and living the rest of my life in seclusion.
But that wasn’t fucking happening.
I was going back to work tomorrow.
“Who the hell takes a shower in the middle of the damn day? You’re supposed to be watching me,” I said.
“And you’re supposed to be following orders to the tee. Remember what the surgeon said? You know that after your physical therapy you have to stay in your wheelchair. Your body is spent! What were you doing upright in the kitchen?”
“I was hungry.”
“Then you come get me,” Grace said.
“You were showering. Like a maniac at four in the afternoon.”
“Then you still come get me,” she said. “Now are we done with this pity party? Because we still need to get you off the floor.”
I felt her reach for me again but my eyes snapped open. I tried to control the anger rising within my body, but I couldn’t. Grace grabbed tightly into my wrist to try and help me off the floor, but I wasn’t having it. I was moving on my own time, with my own strength, and with my own movements. I fought against her wishes, relegating myself to the damn floor instead of allowing this beautiful woman to help me once again.
But instead of allowing her to help, I snapped again. I yanked my wrist from her grasp and she came tumbling down to me.
Her naked body, wrapped in a robe and dripping with water.
And her knee slammed right into my shoulder.
The shoulder that had just healed only a few weeks ago.
“What the fu-? Get the hell out of here!” I exclaimed.
She scrambled off me as quickly as she could before she turned around and looked down at me.
Down.
People were always fucking looking down at me now.
“Get out,” I said.
“Hayden, stop fighting me. You can’t stay on the floor forever.”
“You’re fired,” I said.
Grace paused and I felt panic rising in my veins. This was the only way. The only way to get her to go on about her life. If I was going to have any chance at a relationship with her once I was fully healed and back to being the man I knew she needed, I had to get rid of her. The more she saw me like this— the more she helped— the more of a burden I became. She was stunting her life with this. Attaching herself to a crippled man who relied too heavily on her.