Like she’s waiting on my acknowledgment, she lifts a brow and continues only after I nod. “I’m staying in your home until I feel like you’re all better. I’ll sleep in the guest bedroom, so you don’t have to worry about me being all up in your space at night.” She gives a dainty little shrug. “I mean, I intend to be up in your space all day, but at night when you need privacy, I’ll give it to you. I won’t be an annoying houseguest; I’m not one of those clinger girls, so don’t fret. Oh, and also, I have a pet pig. Her name is Nacho, she’s litter trained, and usually eats from the table, but she won’t be a bother for you. I expect to be informed of your physical therapy appointments, and then I’ll escort you to them. I want a part in your recovery. I’m going to help you walk again, and when you take your first steps, I want the first high-five.” Her eyes flash with anger. “You have no clue how fucking pissed I’ll be if you give it to your cute therapist with the tight ass and smirky-smirk. Don’t test me on this if you want to live. Do you have any questions so far?”
“Umm…”
“Good.” She reaches into her back pocket and yanks out a charger cable for my cell. “Yours will die soon, but I want your stubborn ass to still be able to call someone if you need help. Or, ya know, text me. I’ll be in the next room waiting.” She tosses the cord down beside the bag of meds. “You’ve been in this room for hours with those, and you’re neither stoned, nor are you dead, so I think I can trust you to administer them yourself. If you’d rather I helped, or if you aren’t feeling so well, that’s okay, tell me. I’ll help. I ransacked your bags while you’ve been in here sulking, and I found the paperwork from your surgeon and your schedule for upcoming appointments; you’re due to be casted for prosthesis eleven days from now.”
I cough to clear the nerves from my throat. “I think that’s too soon. Right?” For the first time since this began, I’m asking a legitimate question about my recovery. “I feel like it’s way too soon.”
“It’s not. We’re going to keep up with your physical therapy every single day, get you ready for it. I know the hospital will have sent you home with shrinkers.”
“Shrinkers?”
She nods toward my leg. “The super tight sock holding you all in. I bought more for you yesterday, and have more coming in the mail, since they’re cheaper online. We keep them on all the time; they help, I promise. Eleven days from now, a lot of your swelling will have gone down, which means you’ll be ready.”
“But eleven days is so soon.” I’m still in so much fucking pain, I can hardly sit in front of her right now and not break down from the fire in my veins. But they want me to stand and walk in eleven days?
“No.” She lifts one knee and rests it on my bed. She’s not scared of me anymore. She’s hitting her stubborn stride and has forgotten to be afraid. “You’re beingcastedin eleven days, but it’ll take a few weeks from then to be made. You’ll be eight or so weeks post-op before you’re standing in it.”
“Do I have to?”
Pausing, she tilts her head to the side. She’s so fucking beautiful, it makes me sick. “Do you have to, what?”
“Get a prosthetic?”
Her eyes narrow. “Ah… I mean, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t. Would you prefer to be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life? On crutches? Scoot on your butt?”Is she waiting for me to shake my head?“Prosthetic technology has come so far the last few years. When you wear it with pants, no one will know anything is different. Your gait will be natural, the materials they make them from are much better now, lighter, easier to work with, so you won’t be weighed down on one side. You still have your knee, so we don’t have to worry about mechanical knees sticking or jamming up.” Her eyes blaze with hope. “You’ll be able to run again, Riley. The only thing that’ll hold you back isyou; not your leg. So I guess, the right answer isyes. Yes, you’ll want a prosthetic, and yes, you’ll want to get up again, as fast as possible. Are you in pain right now?”
I shake my head.
She smirks. “Liar. You know how I know? Because I can see the pain in your eyes. Now try again, and don’t be a hero; there’s no one here to impress. Are you in pain right now?”
“If you already know, then why the fuck are you asking? Do you wanna hear me bitch out loud? Do you like hearing me cry and admitting my weaknesses?”
“No.” She lowers her leg and moves back half a step. “I want you to talk to me, I want you to communicate, because I can’t read your mind.” She points at her chest. “I’m just Andi, just a person, just a friend. I’m not your doctor, not your boss, and not your nurse, which means I’m already at a disadvantage. I wantrealanswers, because I want to help you.” Her eyes soften. “You don’t have to be in pain. I’ve been researching the last couple days. I have a notebook full of shit we can try to bring your pain under control.”
I need to be alone while my leg throbs, to break down and wait it out. I need privacy to cry it out, because it hurtsthatmuch, and I can’t break apart in front of her. She’s just Andi, just the person that controls my heart, the person who commands my world. A man in my position can’t afford to cry in front of a woman like her.
“You have a notebook?”
“Yes! An actual book I sat with last night. I’ve been looking things up on the internet. I’ve been hanging out in chat forums for amputees. I’ve been in chat forums with doctors. I’ve been in chat forums withdoctors who are amputees. There’s a forum for everything these days! I’ve asked a million questions, I’ve written a million notes down. I don’t know your pain, Riley. I don’t know anything that’s going on inside your head, and I don’t pretend to know. I won’t act like what’s happened isn’t a big deal, but the things Icancontrol, things like tossing your rug and researching prosthetists, I’ll do so you don’t have to.”
“You tossed my rug?”
She waves me off with a snigger. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll discuss it another time.” Drawing in a long breath as though to prepare herself, she drops her hands to her hips, prays to her shoes, then walks around my side of the bed until my heart stops in my throat and my hands itch to touch her.
She’s right there. A foot away.
But then she makes it worse. She lowers to the edge of the bed so her back is to my legs, but she watches me over her shoulder. Her weight jostles the mattress and zings pain through my stomach, but she can’t know that, and I sure as shit won’t cry about it and tell her. “I want to help you, Riley.” Long lashes kiss her cheeks when she blinks. She’s purposelytryingto seduce me with her words and innocence. “It really, truly matters to me that you’re okay. So I’m here to stay, and not even threat of a police escort will scare me away. I know the cops around here, and they’re all a bunch of wimps.”
“Andi…”
“Dee.” She frowns. “You call me Dee, or Deedee, or fuck-yeah-baby-take-me-deeper.”
My eyes narrow; I’m so angry at her mocking, and furious that there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.
“Don’t go using full names now just to put me in my place. It pisses me off.” Turning on the bed, her right knee comes up to rest against my hip. “I get we fought a few weeks ago, but it wasn’t even a big fight. Not really. This shit is being blownwayout of proportion, since the timing was super shitty. Now you’re using my one bad moment as an excuse to be mean, but I won’t put up with it. I said I was sorry for being a jerk, and I damn well expect that to be enough. Jesus, Riley!” She throws her hands up. “If you’re done with me, for real done, then you need to communicate that properly, without an angry tantrum, and maybe not on the day you come home from the hospital. Otherwise, I’m likely to think you’re just having a crappy day and taking it out on me. If that’s the case, then I’m planting my Juicy Couture ass on your couch and crushing chips into the cushions.”
In pain, emotional, and on the cusp of a brand-new existence, my eyes still linger to the way her chest bounces when she drops her hands back into her lap.
And yet, I feel nothing stir.