Page 6 of Shattered

“Not interested.” Pain shoots through my leg when I stand up, and I fall right back into my chair.

“Why aren’t you using a walking aid?” he asks, almost bored.

“Not my style.”

“It’s been six months since your accident. You’re telling me you’ve never tried a walking aid? How many times have you fallen on your ass?” Ramos asks angrily as I stand again. “Do you wanna get injured worse?”

“I’m not using a fucking cane!” I snap.

“Would you at least sit down so we can talk? I have you for fifteen minutes, and there are some things we should go over.”

I hobble to the door before spinning in place and glaring at the doctor.

“I don’t think you hear me, doc. You can take your opinion and shove it up your ass.”

“You can’t keep running from this, Asher. You’ll only make it worse.”

“Eat a bag of dicks.”

Halfway through the door, his hand clamps down on my forearm. Before he can speak, I turn around, burning a hole through his eyes with mine.

“My busted leg is not going to stop me from laying you out in a world of pain if you don’t let go of my fucking arm,” I hiss.

Ramos does the smart thing and immediately backs off.

By the time I make it back to my car, my leg is throbbing like hell. It does this when I walk too much, and it’s downright excruciating. I’m in no mood to be lectured, so I drive around for a while. When I return to the house, the movers are gone, and Bane is at the kitchen table, writing a list on scrap paper.

“How’d your appointment go?” Bane asks hopefully, not lifting his eyes.

“The doctor was useless,” I say, shifting my weight onto my good leg. All the movement has my leg throbbing.

Bane shakes his head. He’s tired of fighting this with me. “I’m going to pick up some groceries. Want the usual?”

“Yeah.”

Once Bane takes off, I go to the stairs, hellbent on mastering them before he sees me struggle. Thankfully, it has a railing on each side. Though the rails are narrow and challenging to brace against, I can use my arms to offset my weight and limp up the stairs. It takes longer than it should, and I’m tired when I reach the top.

Before going to my bedroom, I head into the bathroom beside it. Bane is the one who picked this house, so I didn’t know what I was walking into. My blood boils when I see the toilet low to the ground and the raised seat placed above it. The thing looks untouched as if it was just bought from the handicap store or wherever people get thisequipment from. In a fit of rage, I grab the thing by its handles and biff it into the bathtub with a massive crash.

There are no railings or anything to grab by the toilet, just a towel rail mounted to my right and the counter that I can reach, but it’s too far away to be of any leverage. I yank down my pants and put all my faith in the mounted towel rail, putting most of my weight on it and utilizing the counter for balance. I lower myself about halfway down before my leg cramps, and I drop, tightening my grip on the towel rail. It rips straight out of the wall, and I’m gashed in the cheek by an attached screw as I bounce off the edge of the toilet and hit the ground, my legs tangling in my pants at my ankles. I toss the useless piece of shit rod and swipe my hand across my face, finding a sticky patch of blood. With pain lingering everywhere, I try to lift myself to the side of the bathtub and stumble, my left foot shooting out to hit the wall, sending pain pulsating into my busted thigh.

In a fit of blind rage, I somehow get myself to my feet before taking the towel rail and slamming it into the back of the toilet, cracking the porcelain. I use that rail to beat the fuck out of everything I can find, only stopping when the vanity mirror explodes in shards of glass.

Chapter 2

Lila

When Ian and I bought this house, the first thing I did was paint sunflowers in the kitchen. Before we were even unpacked, I was on a ladder. This house was the first space that was mine, and sunflowers were always my favorite. At first, Ian agreed to put the sunflowers in the kitchen. Once he saw how much I loved them, he let me paint them almost everywhere. He smiled so much watching me.

Since he left, the sunflowers don’t glow as much as they used to.

I’m making my morning coffee when Ian appears in my back door window, greeting me with a half smile. I’m still in my pajamas, a loose T-shirt, and baggy pants, but at least I brushed my hair for the first time in a few days. My ex-husband, in contrast, is impeccably groomed as always, with a clean shave, neat hair, and pearly white teeth.

He lets himself in, shutting the door behind him cordially. “Hey, sorry about this.”

“It’s fine,” I say.

It’snotfine. He hasn’t set foot on this property since he left. We’ve seen each other, of course, but it’s like the house is a boundary he doesn’t cross anymore, which I’ve been grateful for.

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