I’m ready to start using my crutches as soon as I get home. I want to toss myself from this wheelchair into a full sprint, but I need to take everything one step at a time, literally.
The crutches are adjusted to my height, and I watch a few tutorials on how to use them properly after falling on the floor after my first few attempts. I feel like an idiot once I’ve finally mastered it, and I walk myself from one end of the upstairs hallway to the other and back without any issues.
Adas is going to be so proud of me when he sees this!
I continue practicing until I feel ready to take on the uneven terrain of the garden. All this walking isn’t worth it if I can’t do it properly in my favorite place.
Leo isn’t anywhere to be found when I slip through the patio doors, this time able to open them and keep them open without anyone’s help.
Oh well. He was here for the first steps.
Part of me wants an audience for every new level of progress because I don’t truly believe that it’s happening. I feel like I could be in one of my many dreams where I wake up with the ability to walk fully and without issue. Having another person see me gives me something to hold onto, to remind me that this is my reality, and I’m truly making the best of it.
The weather is a little more breezy than it has been lately, almost like autumn is rolling in early. I take a few steps toward my favorite spot near the patio furniture. I can sit down and help myself back up into my crutches with ease, again feeling as if this is all just a cruel joke to keep me grasping at a future that I could never really have.
I gaze over the property towards the tree line, reminded of the first time Adas brought me out here in my wheelchair. I smile at the memory, feeling a bitter stone in my belly as I’m reminded of my flashback with the gun.
Adas would be even more impressed with me if I could fire a gun from my crutches.
The thought scares me at first; I wasn’t even able to fire the gun sitting down without being sent into a tailspin of anxiety. Just remembering it makes me want to begin hyperventilating, maybe even throw up if I let myself get too upset about it.
But Adas needs his wife back.
I make my way back inside to locate the gun he had let me use. I figure that since I’ve already handled one of them before, I should at least stick with the one I’d used. Adas chose it for me specifically, and I feel like there’s a good reason for it.
Adas doesn’t like to hide his weapons. He has a case of guns right inside the left-hand corner of his bedroom,ourbedroom. For once, having them out in the open doesn’t scare me as much.
I immediately recognize the one he had given me to practice with, and I slowly remove it from the unlocked case.
It isn’t loaded, so I shuffle through the cabinet at the bottom of the case for ammo. If I just do exactly as Adas did, I won’t be able to fail. That’s all I need to remember.
More carefully than I probably need to, I triple-check the bullets to make sure I have the right ammo for the gun I’ve taken. I load it just as Adas showed me, making sure that everything clicks into place exactly how it did for him.
Before I go outside again, I need to rest for a bit. As much as I love the freedom that walking gives me, my legs aren’t fully adjusted to the strain yet, and I’ll exhaust myself too quickly if I don’t take any breaks.
I place the gun down carefully on the bed, pulling myself up and lying next to it as I stare at the ceiling. I wonder how often I’ve been in this position, just staring into the flat, muted white surface. Would we have been fighting? Was I very sick?
Even though I try to elicit a memory or vestigial reaction within myself, I can’t seem to feel anything.
I’ve gotten so frustrated with my memory for refusing to catch up with the rest of my body as I heal. I went from being bedridden to walking on my own in a matter of three months. How can I still not remember a damn thing?!
As I continue staring, I realize that I’ve worked myself up again, feeling my blood pressure beginning to rise. This has been happening a lot more frequently since I’ve been walking more; I get frustrated by something, then I have to calm myself for five minutes, so I don’t explode and throw something.
The doctor says that this could be a left-over effect from the injury, which makes my terrible, stupid brain function contrast even more with how easily I’ve learned to walk again. It makes me wonder how many of those athletes in the documentaries suffer from secret shame like this. Did they have to trade their sanity for their ability to walk just like me?
I fall asleep for an hour, waking just in time to get back outside before the sun begins to set. It’s warmer now than it was before, and the air is totally still. My hair doesn’t blow in my face as much as it was before, which is a huge relief since I need to use both my arms to walk now.
I hobble along the grass, struggling to get my footing until I’m only twenty feet from the shooting range. Taking the same spot that Adas was in, I position myself in the least awkward stance that I can without compromising my balance.
Holding the gun again feels just as scary as it did before, and my nerves begin to hum with anxiety, almost as if on cue. There’s a pit in my belly or some kind of writhing creature that feels like it’s pacing around in its enclosure.
I hold up the gun to aim it when I hear my phone ringing.
“Fuck!” I shout into the treetops, sending a flock of birds screaming into the setting sun.
It takes effort, but I’m able to carefully place the gun down without losing my footing as I fish my phone out of my pants pocket.
It’s a call from Adas, finally.