Page 22 of Side Out

I manage to finagle my braced leg out of Clay’s Mercedes-AMG CLS, which I keep telling him is a ridiculously pretentious car for a college student, but that’s neither here nor there, grab my crutches and backpack, and watch as he drives away.

With my crutches under my arms, and my backpack on my back, I stare at the doors to the athletics facility. Trying my best to mentally prepare myself for the torture I’m about to endure. And as pissed off as I am about this entire situation, I know that I’ll never get better, I’ll never have a second chance, if I don’t take the first step.

“Well,” I say to no one but me. “Today’s as good a day as any.”

* * *

“Come on, Jax. Two more.”

I’m doing simple heel slides, and I can feel beads of sweat pouring down my forehead.

I’m sweating… from doing heel slides.

How the mighty have fallen.

“I know I just met you, Chris. But I really want to punch you in the face,” I huff out as I slowly slide my leg flat against the table.

Smirking, he replies, “I have that effect more often than not.” Don’t get me wrong, Chris seems like a nice guy, but this fucking sucks, and he’s the only one here I can take it out on. “But I promise, if you being pissed at me will motivate you to heal faster, then I can take it.” Chris winks and I roll my eyes. “Alright. Last one.”

It takes every muscle I have to slide my leg back toward my ass. I can only move it a few inches, but it may as well be a mile. Even bending the joint at such a small degree feels next to impossible.

“And back down,” Chris instructs.

I do as he says and return my leg to it’s resting position, thanking god that this hour of torture is finally over.

Chris helps me sit up and put my brace back on before handing me my water bottle. Once I’m off the brink of death, he hands me a packet of papers. I flip through it to find all of the exercises we did today. “I want you to do each of these twice a day until I see you next week.”

“Twice a day. Got it.”

“And remember, no weight bearing, no stairs, no driving, and always wear the brace.” I sigh heavily and nod. “I’ll see you back here, same time on…”

“Friday,” I answer eagerly. Because as much as I hated this, I want to get better even more.

“Friday,” Chris agrees before helping me get the rest of my things together.

We say our goodbyes, and I exit his office. But as his door closes behind me I see an all too familiar name on the one directly across the hall. I didn’t notice it when I walked in because my eyes were zeroed in on the office of doom. But there it is. His name in big letters with the school’s logo right on the door.

Theodore Young.

And as I let my eyes wander through the small window next to the door, I see him. Already staring at me.

But when I raise my hand to wave awkwardly, he doesn’t wave back. In fact, he pretends like I didn’t even do it at all and looks back at whatever he was doing on his computer.

Perfect.

As if I wasn’t already going to be dreading these appointments, now I have to deal with him pretending I’m not right across the hall.

Just fucking perfect.

* * *

My phone buzzes in my pocket as I stand outside of Chris’ office while waiting for him to finish up with the appointment before me. I had Clay drop me off early for my Friday appointment in hopes that if I stood out here long enough Theo would actually decide to speak to me. Or maybe even wave. Hell, I’d even take a simple look in my direction. However, despite how hard I stare through the window at him, he’s given me nothing.

But I know he knows I’m here because he did the same thing he did the other day. As soon as he saw me in the hall he buried his handsome fucking face in his computer screen and hasn’t looked up once since.

That was twenty minutes ago.

Pulling my phone out of my pocket I find a text from my brother.

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