Anything but Ordinary(27)

He dabbed at his eyes with his wrist, gesturing around the room. “I thought about making it more like your physical therapy room at the hospital, but then I remembered those mornings at the Y.…”

When Bryce made the Tennessee AAU team in eighth grade, her father had driven her to the Nashville Y to lift weights most mornings before school. Bryce had hated it at first, groaning and snapping at her dad as he pulled her out of bed, even crying some days from the fatigue, but then he would say, “Okay. Go back to sleep. If you want to skip today, that’s fine.” She would stay silent, then, pulling on her sweatshirt, and walk ahead of him out to the car.

He turned her to face him now, both hands on her shoulders. “It’s not going to be easy.”

Bryce just nodded. She still resented her dad for not telling her that he’d stopped coaching. For spending every night holed up in the den. But then she looked around the room. It said everything that he couldn’t. That he was sorry for what happened. That he never meant to push her so hard. That he needed to get back to normal just as badly as she did.

Finally, she smiled, putting her hands on his. “You know me too well.”

Five minutes later, Bryce was in a Hilwood High T-shirt and shiny blue athletic shorts. She sat at the rowing machine, trying to keep her knobby knees from pressing together, gripping and regripping the handles to find the perfect fit.

She pushed her body backward off the metal plate by straightening her legs, yanking the bands with her. Her thigh muscles were already trembling. Her shoulders cried out with the effort. She clenched her jaw against the pain and smiled up at her dad.

“Thatta girl,” he said. “We’ll make the first goal five.”

Warmth ran through Bryce’s veins. Maybe it was the endorphins, maybe it was just muscle strain, but Bryce got a special pleasure from working out. It was her drug, and her dad had just provided her with unlimited doses.

“Unh!” she grunted, shooting her body backward, again yanking the rowing bands. She held the tension for a millisecond, then let go as she poised for another rep.

“Can we do this every day?” she asked her dad breathlessly.

“That’s the idea,” he answered.

She used to train twice a day. Mornings in the weight room, afternoons in the pool. Bryce shot back for another rep, watching her puny quads ball up under her shorts and release, feeling now like they were going to detach from the bone.

“Maybe we could make long-term goals, too,” Bryce panted. “Try to get my PRs back to what they were.”

“Bryce? Are you down here?” Bryce’s mother’s voice came down the stairs. A moment later she entered, holding a mug of steaming tea. She took in the miniature workout center with her eyebrows raised. “What is this?” she asked slowly.

“This…” Bryce’s father said, “is a gift for my daughter.”

Bryce’s mother’s knuckles whitened around her mug. Her darting eyes rested on the Rocky poster. “You did all this without talking to me first?”

“It’s just some basic stuff.”

“You really think she’s in a condition to use all this?” her mother said tersely. “She has a CAT scan tomorrow, by the way.”

Her mother turned to Bryce. “Bryce, your laundry is still on the dryer.”

Bryce nodded, taking the hint. With her head down, she made her way out the door, grabbing the clean clothes on her way to her room. But her mother’s voice didn’t leave her.

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” she hissed.

Bryce’s head shot up. There were now two walls and a large room between her and her parents, but she could hear them as if they were right next to her. She wanted to cover her ears, or to move further away, but she knew somehow that it would make no difference.

“Do you want her to have a relapse? You heard what the doctor said. I’m not going to let you push her like you did before.”

Alone in her room, Bryce cringed. She could feel the words echo in her skull.

“Goddamnit, Beth.” Her father spoke in hardly more than a whisper. She always knew he was angry when his voice got that quiet. “I get it. I almost killed our daughter. You haven’t let me forget that in five years. But for god’s sake, let me help her get better.”

“I’m just trying to—”

“Would you just have her stay inside all day, never try and get back to normal?”

“No, but…” Her mother’s voice choked. “We’re supposed to be a team.”

Bryce sat on her bed, feeling sick. They weren’t a team anymore. Her accident had split them in two. And her recovery was pushing them further apart.

She heard her father scoff. “Wow, Beth, you were really thinking of the team when you took on a thousand clients and turned our house into your office.”

Bryce broke away to the small bathroom next to her room and turned on the faucet, letting the roar of the water drown her parents out, dabbing at the tears that were beginning to form in the corners of her eyes. When she came back into her room, she saw her phone was lit up with missed calls and text messages. They were all from Greg.

pls pick up bry. we need to talk.

Another missed call after that. And then:

meet me tonite? arboretum @ midnight. i’ll be waiting.