Purple Hearts(55)

“Maybe pick me up for a Bears game once the season starts up again?” I continued. The Bears were our high school team; they played where Jake and I used to practice.

“We don’t have a place to put a wheelchair in the Honda,” Jake said, uncomfortable.

“Maybe we could rent a van?” Hailey asked.

Cloud head tried to reassure regular head that it would be fine. But I couldn’t not care about the prospect of being alone in Cassie’s apartment, in a neighborhood I didn’t know, unable to tell anyone I was there without having to justify our situation.

“Nah, I’ll be up and about soon,” cloud head said, hoping I was right.

“Take care of yourself,” Jake said. I shook his hand. Hailey bent down to hug me.

From the windows of the van, cloud head waved good-bye.

? ? ?

When I woke up, we were in East Austin, and the Oxy had worn off, leaving a headache and a beating in my joints. I started to dig into my bag to pop another pill, but before I could find the bottle, Cassie was sliding open the van doors.

“Hey,” she said, her hair up in a tiny ponytail. “Let’s get you settled.”

The bastard nurse came around the front of the van, scoping out the little white house as he activated the platform. There were two front doors, one with a red A over it, one with a B.

“You’re on the first floor, then?” he asked Cassie.

“No, um. Second, actually,” she said, her tone uncertain.

“Second, as in upstairs?” I said.

I could barely walk for five minutes without collapsing in pain, let alone take stairs. Cassie hadn’t mentioned this. I could feel my jaw clenching. It would take all the restraint I had to wait to explode at her.

“Yeah,” she said. “I told you that.”

Oh. I might not have been fully present during that conversation. Shit.

The nurse nodded toward the second floor. “You gonna need my help to get him up there?”

“Nope, we got it covered,” I said.

“Suit yourself,” he said, and pulled the lever to bring the platform back into the vehicle. Cassie looked at me, incredulous, and back at the nurse, but he closed the van door, turned the ignition, and drove away.

Cassie threw up her hands. “What do you mean, ‘we got it covered’?”

I didn’t want his hands on me, carrying me like a wet noodle. And maybe this was what I needed to start walking. No choice. A kick in the ass. “We’ll be fine. You saw me today. I can probably get up there by myself.”

She wheeled me down the sidewalk, my bag on her back. “Are you kidding?” Cassie paused, softening when she saw my face, and approached the door. She gestured toward her body, perhaps two-thirds the size of mine. “Look at me.” She turned toward the door and knocked on A. “I’m gonna grab some help just in case.”

“Wait, Cassie . . .” I clutched my wheels, still fuming.

A middle-age woman opened it, dirty-blond ringlets framing a kind, puffy face. She wore leopard-print leggings and a T-shirt that said WAKE ME UP WHEN IT’S OVER.

Amen to that. She looked down at me, her expression curious. I nodded hello.

“Hey, Rita,” Cassie said, putting on a big smile. “This is Luke, my new husband I was telling you about.”

The stairs swallowed all of my concentration. At least ten minutes later, we were still only halfway up, and I was soaked with sweat from the effort. My wheelchair was folded at the bottom of the steps, my bag on top of it, guarded by a yipping mutant of a dog.

“One, two, three,” they counted, panting, and I pushed as hard as I could with my good leg, their bodies propelling me upward and forward, landing on the next step with less than a millimeter to spare. My bum leg trailed uselessly behind me, pins flaring with every movement.

Six more steps to go.

“This is a bad idea,” I said for the fifth time. “We should just call the hospital. I should go back.”

In the physiotherapy room mirror I’d watch myself hauling the limb in its droidlike, knee-immobilizing brace with the swing of my hips, or even my hands, like a cord of wood, an object that didn’t even belong to me. Sometimes I could put weight on it, but tonight I could give it about twenty pounds of pressure before the pain would stab me enough to almost knock me out. Less than 25 percent of body weight, that’s for sure.

Cassie and the nurse were right, and I hated them for it. I couldn’t do this alone.

“We can do it,” Cassie said, beads of sweat dripping down her red face.

“I’m game,” Rita said, her breath thin. “This is the closest I’ve been in twenty years to a sweaty man under fifty years old.”

Every step was harder than the last. By the end, I could see tears mixing with Cassie’s sweat. I’d landed my full weight on her toes more than once.

I sat at the top of the stairs as Cassie and Rita went to fetch the wheelchair.

My leg was trembling, my stomach heavy, my face burning with shame. They shouldn’t have to do this. I shouldn’t have to do this. And if this was a sign of what was to come, then I would either be stuck at Cassie’s place, completely frozen, or the equivalent of a two-hundred-pound toddler who’d throw a tantrum every time he had to get out of his stroller.

They held the chair steady as I dragged my lower half up to the seat, grabbing on to any available hold like some desperate, feral creature, slithering into a sitting position.