Page 111 of Light in the Dark
"It’s not. It's stupid. You don't need to deal with my shit."
She laughs. "Fee, you've been through a lot, too. You're allowed to have feelings about it. And Iwantyou to share them with me." She kisses me again, another soft, damp, quick touch of the lips—a promise of a kiss. "Just be patient with me, okay?"
I nod. "That I can do."
Eighteen
EMBER
I'm cranky, sweaty, tired, sore, hungry, and sick of…well, everything. Connie, my physical therapist, worked me to the bone today—I'm still having balance issues, and now that my cast is off, I have to rehab the atrophied muscles in my leg. Fine motor skills—like holding a pencil, buttoning a shirt, tying shoelaces…they’re all harder than they should be.
Fucking racoon.
Fucking Amy whatever the fuck her last name is.
And fuck my dumbass for making the decision to drive when I knew damn well I was in no state to be behind the wheel. PSA, kids: driving while hysterical is just as dangerous as driving while drunk or texting.
I glare at Connie as she wipes the equipment down. "I hate you, you know."
She just grins at me, taking my ire in stride, as usual. "Honey, that's fine. Hate me all you want—my job ain't to make you like me, it's to get you mobile again. And you're almost there."
Connie is fantastic. She's a six-foot-tall Black woman with waist-length micro-braids shot through with pink and purple streaks that remind me of Faye. She has multiple degrees and more certifications than I can list, a wicked sense of humor, and a way of getting that last bit of effort out of me even when I'm at my worst. Which I am, today.
I love Connie.
I also love to hate Connie.
Today is the latter.
"I thought we were friends," I tell her.
"We're friends until your session starts and we're friends when it's over," she says. "During your session, I'm not your friend—I'm the taskmaster who's gonna whip your ass into the best shape of your life."
She's doing exactly that. Apparently, rehabbing my leg, lungs, ribs, and motor skills means working me like I'm training for the Olympics. I lift weights. I cycle on those medieval torture devices where you pull the handles and pump the pedals at the same time. I do burpees—fuck burpees, by the way. I do a lot of single leg work, balancing, lifting while balancing, and standing on one leg while holding a weight overhead. I swim. I jog. I blow into a machine to test my lung capacity. Run while connected to a bunch of shit to test my VO2 Max.
All that is three days a week. I also have speech therapy to help me stop flipping words around or smooshing them together. I have PT focused on my fine motor skills. I have talk therapy to help me past my freight train of emotional baggage—that was my idea, though.
And through it all, Felix has been my rock.
He drives me to all my appointments and picks me up. Takes me to ice cream after and listens to me bitch. He takes me to The Alt so I can hang out with the girls—Lainey and Layla, and sometimes Noelle and Raina—and do homework and study.
MSU, apparently, has a satellite campus in Three Rivers that operates out of the community college; I transferred my handful of credits and now I'm finishing my degree through them. Which means Felix is also taking me to school and picking me up twice a week.
We've established a kind of detente of sorts—we're more very good friends than anything, at the moment. Albeit friends who hold hands and occasionally share a kiss. It's been hard, if I'm being honest. I see him doing so many things for me—he cooks or brings food home most nights, drives me everywhere, and until I got my cast off, carried things for me, opened doors…and he never complains about any of it. Never acts like he's sick of doing it. Never asks for anything in return. He respects my space and privacy, my determination to fix my body, emotions.
But I live with him. I hear him shower. He walks around in nothing but a pair of shorts. We sit together and watch TV at night, and more often than not, my head ends up on his chest and his arm around me.
Basically, he's doing all the work of taking care of me, supporting me, and being there for me in every possible way—like a very needy live-in girlfriend—without the benefit of sex.
Like a friends-with-benefits situation in reverse: all the commitment, none of the fun.
"You're spacin' out over there, honey," Connie says. "Back to earth, now. Your man’s gonna be here any minute."
"He's not my man," I argue.
Connie tosses the antibacterial wipe into a trash can and levels me an incredulous head tilt/stare of disbelief. "Not—? Ohhh, lordy, help me.Notyourman?" She turns away, shaking her head in disgust. "Not your man. Child, I thought you were smart."
I frown at her. "Excuse me?"
