Page 50 of Make Mine Sweet
“I crashed my motorcycle.” Those four words sum up the event that threw my whole life upside down.
His blue eyes go wide. “You have a motorcycle?”
He sounds more excited about this news than I bet Tess would like.
“Not anymore.” I don’t think I could stand to ride one now. “I was driving too fast, and a jackrabbit crossed the road in front of me. I swerved and lost control of the bike. I landed on my left side, and my leg was too damaged to ever heal right. So the doctors amputated it, right about here.”
I hitch my shorts up a few inches and gesture to where my thigh fits into the black plastic socket. I don’t normally talk about my prosthetic leg, and I sure don’t show it to people, but August just watches with mild curiosity. The weirdest thing is, it’s kind of nice to talk about.
“Did you hit the jackrabbit?” Naturally he landed on the most important part of the story.
I tick my head to the side. “Missed him.”
“I’m glad you have a super leg,” he tells me. “It helps you just like my super shields help me.”
Emotions flash and scramble around in my brain. I haven’t been very grateful, but he’s right. I should be. It takes me a second to speak through the lump in my throat. “I’m glad I have it, too.”
“Can I give Dutch a bath?”
I laugh, surprised but relieved at his quick change of topic. “Maybe not today.”
“Can I throw the ball?”
“Have at it.”
August runs back into the yard to find one of the tennis balls scattered in the grass and starts pitching it to the dog. Dutch retrieves it and drops it gently for him, ready to go until the kid’s arm gives out.
“I’m sorry about your accident,” Tess says softly. “Was there really a jackrabbit?”
“I can’t say why I swerved. I don’t really remember the crash well.” The taste of blood in my mouth and the overpowering smell of gasoline and motor oil—thatI remember too well. “I was in the middle of nowhere—perfect opportunity for going way too fast, not as great for getting medical care in a hurry.”
“You had to wait a long time?”
“It was thirty minutes before paramedics arrived. I had to do my own triage.” At the crinkle of confusion between her eyebrows, I clarify. “I’m a certified EMT. The training was supposed to come in handy if I ever ran into emergencies with clients on a mountainside. Never thought I’d have to put a tourniquet on myself.”
I still, remembering how I fought to stay conscious as I tightened my belt around my leg, positive if I closed my eyes I’d never open them again.
“Ian.” Before I can fully process the delight of Tess whispering my name, she slips one hand around mine, giving me all new sensations to revel in. “You saved your own life?”
I never thought about it that way. “The paramedics saved me. I just made sure there was something left to save.”
She squeezes my hand tighter. “You’re downplaying it.”
I was no hero that day. Pushing the motorcycle to its limits, buying into my own hype and thinking I was somehow invincible—I brought on all my trouble myself. The fact that I didn’t die from my mistakes is more miracle than heroics.
But this conversation has already strayed into the “too much” category. I don’t need to drive it home by talking any more about my ego and just how badly I screwed up. The one saving grace is that I didn’t hurt anyone else when I went down.
“Anyway, now it’s just me and my residual limb.” I slap my empty hand down on my socket, grimacing at the term. “Stump.”
Tess makes a small sound of dismay.
“You don’t like those options either?” The guys in the rehabilitation center had a whole raft of terms for their remaining limbs, not all of them ones I’d want to repeat to Tess. “How about Peggy?”
She laughs, shaking her head.
“Nubbin?”
“Ew.” She sounds like she just stepped in something disgusting and pulls her hand from mine. “Absolutely not. That word is an abomination. Never use it to refer to any body part ever again.”
