Purple Hearts(54)

“I mean, look.” Jake nodded toward Luke, who was now raising his chin at us, lifting his hand with a relaxed smile, signaling five minutes. “Thank you for taking care of him.”

“Hey, it’s my job,” I said, shrugging. “And my pleasure, of course,” I added quickly. My heart started pounding. I thought of our plan to eke out the next few months on our own.

Being a bartender is practically half nurse, I figured. All that throw up? I’m used to long hours and demanding people with weird needs.

But looking at Luke, his face twisted in agony, his leg a spider web of red flesh and scar tissue, I wondered what the hell we were in for.





Luke


After Cassie left, Jake and Hailey got ready to wheel me to freedom. I’d shoved the bottle into my bag just in time when I’d heard their voices down the hall from my room. Now, thank the-whoever-above, my evening pill was cushioning every moment in a hand-spun cloud.

“I packed my stuff in there,” I said, reaching for my army bag. “If you could just hand it to me, I’ll hook it on my chair.”

“I’ll grab it!” Hailey offered, hoisting it on her shoulder.

“Oh, okay. Thank you,” I said, trying to be casual.

What if they found them and thought I was abusing again? Taking pills for pain wasn’t abuse. But Hailey and Jake were counting on me to stay sober, all the way sober. I mean, we hadn’t talked about it explicitly, but I assumed that they assumed I was. Based on the fact that they were talking to me at all.

But if I stayed completely sober, no pills, no anything, I couldn’t talk or think or move without feeling my leg wrung out like a sponge, my face twisting involuntarily, and the looks on their faces, the pitying, sad-eyed looks I’d seen them make while I did PT. I couldn’t take those. With Oxy it was as if the knives were made of plastic, the memory hooks made for fish. And even Yarvis had said it was a good idea to take the pills.

One thing at a time, he’d always tell me when I left the PT room covered in sweat. Without Oxy, it was everything at once. Johnno’s gonna kill me, Cassie’s gonna hate me, Dad already hates me, Frankie’s dead. Oxy made everything simple. One thing.

Get a haircut.

Get in the van.

Find some space in Cassie’s house.

Make myself walk. Make myself run. Be someone new.

One thing at a time.

I called it “cloud head.” My cloud head was carefree, dumb, sweet, like a kid. Cloud head didn’t want too many details. Cloud head knew that everything was going to be okay. My regular head couldn’t do that. My regular head would get caught up in everything that could go wrong, and lash out. I needed cloud head for tough times, so that they looked more simple and nice than they actually were, so I could get through them without worrying so much. And then when I didn’t worry so much, people liked me more.

“So when are you expected to walk again?” Jake asked.

Regular head didn’t like this question, because I didn’t know. It depended on how well the home PT exercises worked. But cloud head stepped in. “Soon, I hope. They gave me a cane, too, for when I’m ready to move out of the chair.”

“That’s good to hear, man,” Jake said.

“Who knows,” I said. “Maybe I’ll be better enough to shoot some hoops soon.”

“We’ll see,” Jake said.

Hailey had brought clippers from home and started to give my hair a buzz. I let myself enjoy her fingers on my scalp. Jake’s answer wasn’t a no, and here I was, getting a haircut, just like I’d wanted. Cloud head was working.

See, that was my mistake before. That’s why I had gotten addicted. Because I wanted only cloud head. That’s no way to live. You couldn’t be too carefree, because then you’d stop caring completely, and you sure couldn’t care for the people you loved. I loved my brother and sister-in-law. I loved my nephew, JJ. I even loved my dad. I still needed cloud head to be happy, but this time I wouldn’t let it take over.

When we were little, Jake and I used to dribble our basketballs down to the air-conditioned gym at the high school and shoot baskets. I was never very good, but he was great, so I signed him up for all the camps. We’d shoot hoops until it got cool enough to go back outside, where we’d hit ground balls to each other. We could escape and be content in our own little town and no one expected anything of us, except to be on time for hamburgers at six. That’s kind of what cloud head reminded me of. That and running. Nowhere particular to be, just moving through the world. One foot in front of the other. Simple. Not great, not bad, just okay.

“Are you excited to start nesting with your bride?” Hailey asked.

Regular head would have gotten nervous at the very mention of Cassie, knowing that she was better at faking it than I was. Regular head wouldn’t know what to say.

“Yeah, she’s great,” cloud head said. “She’s a musician.”

“Oh, my! I didn’t know that. She always seems so shy.”

“She’s very creative,” cloud head said.

Jake pushed me through the automatic doors toward the transport van, where a nurse would drive me to Cassie’s house.

Regular head started to panic. “I’ll see you in a couple weeks?” I asked. Jake was leaving again, and we hadn’t really gotten a chance to talk, for me to explain what my new plan for life was once I healed. Or rather, to explain that I needed to come up with a new plan, because I didn’t really have a plan yet. I guess I had been counting on the inspiration of nine months in the desert.