It’s just a fucking stump.
I’m scared the water will hurt my incision, but I’m more terrified that if I don’t have a shower right now, I might lose my sanity completely.
Moving into the bathroom and stopping by the toilet, I rest my crutches against the wall and lower to the closed lid. The doctor just yanked forty or so metal staples from my skin – a little water won’t do me any harm. Holding onto the handle Andi had installed beside the toilet, I lean forward, unlace my single Nike, and toss it into my room while I ponder what the fuck I’m supposed to do with my odd shoes now. I unzip my coat with shaking hands, and toss it aside, then yank my shirt over my head so I’m sitting in my cold bathroom in sweatpants and a ball of lead sitting low in my gut.
If I slip, I might just go to sleep and pray I never wake.
If I bust my leg open, I might just take my department issued gun and…
No.
My mom needs me. Even if she has no clue I exist anymore.
Using the handrail and the strength in my one leg, I lift a couple inches off the toilet and jerkily shuck my pants down. I don’t focus on my bare ass sitting on the freezing porcelain, or my balls shriveling up from the cold.
It doesn’t matter. They’re useless now anyway.
Slowly pushing my sweats over mystump, I drop the fabric, then go to work sliding it off my good leg while trying hard not to fall onto the damn floor. I toss those onto the growing pile of clothes mounting just outside the bathroom door, then taking a deep breath, I glance down and begin unwrapping the brace and new bandaging that holds my leg in. It’s been three weeks since it was taken from me, four weeks since I copped a bullet to the belly and another to the thigh. My stomach still hurts, like I’ve spent a hundred days doing six thousand ab crunches per day. It’s like a fiery belt that squeezes my torso from front to back and leaves me breathless.
All I want to do is breathe freely.
My thigh is still swollen, my stump even more so, but it’s all settling down; antibiotics and pain meds have my recovery under control to the point that I just have to wait… and rest.
And not fall in the shower.
Standing from the too-low toilet seat and swallowing the painful grunt, I use the wall and toilet handle to move closer to the shower. Hopping, but not too bouncy, since the impact hurts my dangling leg, I move close enough to let go of the toilet rail and instead grab the chair inside the shower. Using it as a type of old-folk’s walker, I scrape it across the floor until I’m completely inside the shower stall, then with a shaking body from lips to knees, I turn and edge my way onto the chair.
It feels like it should topple over, like the flimsy metal it’s made of should crumble under my weight, like – because I’m an asshole who thinks asshole thoughts – anything Andi built should fall apart in a gentle breeze. But it’s sturdy, it doesn’t creak, and when I’m finally seated, it provides safety and comfort I never would have expected for a cripple’s shower seat.
Winded and tempted to scratch at the scabbing on my belly, I reach out and flip the taps until high pressure spray hits the wall – she already angled the head away so I don’t cop a lap full of freezing water.
The spray turns from a freezing mist that brings goosebumps to the surface, to warm steam within seconds. Pulling in a long breath, I reach up and turn the head until the heavy spray slams against my back and massages my tense muscles. A week on crutches has left my shoulders and back knotted to hell and back, but the shower pulses against the tight muscles, allowing me to truly relax for the first time in… too long.
Way too fucking long.
I was going to take down the showerhead and wash up – two minutes in, soap, wash my hair, drown myself if I’m lucky, then get out and go to bed – but the massaging spray forces my head to drop until I simplyfeel.
Hot steam fills the open bathroom; I forgot to close the door, so the steam races out and marks my bedroom ceiling, but I have exactly zero fucks to give about that. Heavy droplets slam against my back in a fast tattoo that loosens the muscles in my shoulders. Each second I sit here, my shoulders droop lower and relax.
I had no clue how tense I was until this moment.
“Riley?” My eyes snap up as, panicked, Andi kicks her boots off at the door and peels her socks away. Her bright eyes scour my body; from my drooping head, to my lazy arms, over my still-bruised ribs, and over my thighs.
I don’t have the energy to be a dick to her, so I don’t ask her to leave. But nor do I lift my head and welcome her in. She pulls her top off in my peripherals and strips down to a black bra. Unsnapping her jeans, she shucks them down until she wears nothing but a matching bra and thong and rushes into the shower with me.
Still… nothing.
“Riley? Hey?” She squats between my legs and frames my face with soft hands. The water that bounces off my shoulders instantly beads on her face – on the tip of her nose, in her lashes – but her blue eyes bore into mine despite my efforts not to look. “What the hell are you doing in here, Cruz? This shit is dangerous.”
“Showering.” I clear my throat, draw in a long breath, and immediately regret it when her perfect scent mingles with the steam and fills my lungs. “I was being careful.”
“You nearly gave me a freakin’ heart attack.” Her nose is only three inches from mine, her eyes close enough I can picture the forever we might have had once upon a time. I could lean forward and take a little comfort; and the worst thing is, I’m not sure she’d say no. I’m the one making us miserable. Her sadness is purely on me, but I can’t stop the way my heart bleeds.
She’s in sexy lingerie, in the shower, and not only can’t I get hard for her, but even if I could, I couldn’t stand and slam her against the wall and use her body the way it was made to be used.
I’m a fucking eunuch, and she’s too perfect to be tied down to a cripple that can’t ever take care of her the way she needs to be taken care of. She’s not shallow, so I know she doesn’t need a rich man, but with me, she doesn’t even get a capable man. I can’t stay on at the station, I can’t push paper all day, and I can’t be on unemployment benefits. Soon my savings will dwindle away, but my mortgage will continue to be deducted for the next decade. Eventually, my house will go into foreclosure, and I’ll be just like all the other amputees sleeping in the street, because they can’t work.
One single kiss now is tempting. The temptation to ask her to stay is so potent it makes me sick. But that would be the most selfish thing I could ever do.