Even if I couldn’t feel my damn nuts at the moment.
I fought the urge to reach down and touch them and my dick to make sure they were still in place. I was doing that a lot—feeling around my stomach, my ass, my knees. Everything was inplace. It was just…detached, all the nerves misfiring, leaving me mostly numb.
The way my toes were burning now, though, was a nice reminder that they still existed. And I was definitely going to need something for the pain as the burning started to get worse.
“I’ll see you after work tomorrow?”
Tollin stood up and looked down at me. “Maybe I should take the day off and?—”
“No.” I had my first PT session in the morning. I didn’t want him there for that. I knew I was going to cry. “I need to do some of this by myself, okay?”
“Alright. But you’re still moving out of that loft, right? And in with us? I can give Lyria the go-ahead to start the ramp build for the house? We got an email from the contractor, and they’re ready to start next week.”
My stomach hurt as I faced yet another consequence of my accident. I didn’t want to live with him. I wanted to live alone. I didn’t want to sacrifice independence because someone made a bad decision and took me along with them.
But what else could I do right now?
I took a breath and nodded.
I reminded myself that whatever happened now—whatever I was giving up—it wouldn’t be forever. If I became a full-time wheelchair user, that didn’t mean I had to live with my brother and let him wipe my ass and spoon-feed me soup or whatever he was thinking I needed him for. I could learn to live on my own. When I was done with taking Raleigh to the cleaners, and with the investments I currently had, I could build myself a little sanctuary and figure out who I was now that my past had been burned away.
I just needed time, and for the moment, time was all I had.
Five
RYAN
One Year Later
Throwingmy satchel onto the couch, I dragged my fingers through my hair. I didn’t regret my life—so to speak. Not…not entirely. There were pieces I missed since walking away from the medical field. I missed Gracie, though she and Hasan came over at least twice a month since Gracie was an only child, and I was the single person in her life willing to help her with wedding planning.
I also missed the thrill of the chase when we were speeding down the road with the sirens blaring. I missed the feeling I got deep in my gut when we helped someone and I knew they were going to be okay.
But I didn’t miss the way my heart felt like it was being ripped out of my chest when the calls were bad. When the violence was overwhelming.
When I had to watch someone being rushed through automatic double doors, knowing I would never see him again, not knowing if he would ever be back up on his feet.
Not knowing if his life being changed would ruin him.
Not knowing if he would stick to the promises I’d forced him to make while trying to keep him stable.
I shook my head, trying to get the vision of Atlas out from behind my eyelids. It was a damn near impossible task, of course. I thought of him almost every single day. Sometimes one of his old songs would come on the radio, or someone would post an article about him on social media, and it would be like tearing open fresh wounds.
Sometimes I would see a guy with shaggy, dark hair and tattoos and think,Oh! There he is!
But it was never him.
The echo of his voice was with me the day I went to my parents’ house and told them I wouldn’t be taking the MCAT. That I was accepting a job at the college prep academy that paid well and gave me a moving stipend. The ghost of his hand was in mine, squeezing my fingers gently when they looked me in the eye and said that if I was going to spit in the face of all the love and financial support they’d given me over the years, I was dead to them.
That I was nothing.
I was no longer their son.
The memory of his faith in me—a total stranger—comforted me at night when I realized that in choosing myself, I was entirely alone. I’d never had time to create my own little family. My own little circle. I had Gracie and, by extension, now Hasan.
And that was it.
I was making some friends at the school, but they weren’t my people. Most of the professors had decades on me and didn’t appreciate that I had tattoos under my sleeves and a foul mouth that couldn’t be controlled the moment students weren’t in earshot.
