Page 138 of All I Have Left

I take the box of tissues next to me and throw it as hard asI can at his back. It nails him between the shoulder blades right before the door closes. Dramatically, he falls to the ground.

Leigha smiles. “I really did miss you guys.”

“I can’t understand why,” I mumble.

Smiling, she reaches next to her for her iPad. “How’s Evie doing?”

“Good, I suppose. She’s hasn’t left me yet.”

Her eyes soften, her hand clasping over mine on my knee. “Honey, that girl isn’t going anywhere. I’ve never seen two people quite like you guys. Just remember, this is only a short time. I know the road hasn’t been easy, but we’re a lot better off than we were when I first met you—no heartbeat and bleeding all over the table.” My chest tightens at what it must have looked like to her, and Evie. I can’t imagine what she went through trying to get me help. “Yeah, we’ve had to work at this with your medications and the fluid in your head, but it’s going to get better. It’s not permanent for you.” Those words shake me. “Some people don’t get that opportunity.”

Those words change me.

I do have a lot to be thankful for. I could be dead. I should be. But by some miracle, I’m not. And though some days I wonder why I’m not, it’s Evie that I’m more concerned about because I don’t want to leave her alone.

“You had your scans done yesterday, right?”

“Yeah.” My knee bounces nervously in the chair, my cheeks warming as Dr. Nehls comes in the room.

“Grayson,” he beams. “It’s good to see you.” I shake his hand and he dives right into my scans, telling me he’s concerned about fluid buildup and that may be the cause of my headaches. He decides he’s putting me on the diuretics he talked about to keep the fluid levels lower in my brain and a low-dose blood pressure medication.

“More medication. Awesome. Am I cleared then?” I ask, my knee bouncing again.

Dr. Nehls hands a five-dollar bill to Leigha and they crack up laughing.

I look between them, confused. “What?”

He nods to Leigha. “She bet me that’d be your first question to me. I said it’d be when can you drive.”

“When can I drive?”

“When you’re off most your medications and a year without a seizure.”

Shit.

“Clearly I know what’s on your mind,” she says, winking at me as she pockets the five bucks. “All the men under twenty-five we see, that’s their first question at this appointment.”

I don’t laugh.

Especially when Dr. Nehls adds, “Let’s give it a week on the blood pressure medication and see how that goes. If it evens out, then yes, you can resume… that.”

Motioning for me to stand, he performs a thorough neurological exam. It’s a lot of does this hurt? Turn your head to the side, walk in a straight line, hearing tests (still no hearing in left ear), balance tests (fail that too), and basic functions that used to be simple and now require so much effort on my part I fear life will never be easy again. Like being able to do things for myself. Never take advantage of being able to bend over and tie your damn shoes on your own, if you can.

If you can’t, well, there’s always slips-ons. Looks like I’ll be wearing them with you.

They tell me to get my blood pressure checked daily, and schedule me out for another three months. Then they hand me two more prescriptions and then I’m free to go. “If your blood pressure stays down, you’re free to, you know….” Dr. Nehl’s words trail off.

Beside him, Leigha winks at me and I don’t know why, but my cheeks flush.

I stand, shake his hand and say the words I should have said a long fucking time ago. “Thank you for saving my life.”

Though it’s not the outcome I was hoping for, I think about what Leigha said again.

Some people don’t get this opportunity.

Like Matt.

It’s the first time in months I’ve thought about him, and though he’d been on my mind every day since he died, after the accident I seemed selfishly absorbed in my own pity. I hadn’t realized that just because I couldn’t do things for myself, didn’t mean I shouldn’t be grateful.

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