“You could ask him?”
Nash chuckled. “That’s not how Dominic works. He asks the questions, not me. I’m supposed to find the answers myself.”
“Well, that’s helpful. So, any ideas on how to find our identity in ourselves and firmly plant it there or whatever?”
“Nope. None.”
“Guess we’re fucked, then.”
Nash gently bumped my shoulder. “Nah, we’ll figure it out.”
I admired his optimism, but I didn’t share it. Nash was a born leader. No matter what career he chose after this, he’d do a stellar job. Me? Not so much. Yes, I had leadership qualities, but all of them were tied to the Army. I’d embraced that life with all I had…and now I was left with nothing. It might not’ve been healthy to make the Army my life, but it was, and I didn’t see a way out of that anytime soon.
Time was running out, though. I had a few months until the Army would stop paying for my recovery, and after that, I was shit out of options. I’d have disability benefits, but not enoughto live on. What the hell was I going to do? Who’d want to hire a thirty-four-year-old grumpy, one-legged veteran with a shitty attitude and a crappy disposition? Employers wouldn’t exactly be lining up for me, government requirements or not.
Well, I had a little time to figure it out, so I’d better get on it.
CHAPTER FOUR
HEATH
“I miss yoga class.”
Stretching in my sorry excuse for a backyard that barely fit my mat while checking the clock every six minutes so I wasn’t late to PT wasn’t exactly conducive to relaxation. But every time I considered it, my chest went a little tight, and I had to swallow back a heavy sense of doom.
“Did you say a heavy sense of doom?” came my therapist’s voice, tinny from the old speaker on my laptop.
I looked over at my computer screen and offered Alicia a sheepish smile. We didn’t always do Zoom sessions for therapy, but she was currently in Italy—somewhere I’d much rather be than here, getting ready for my session with Kent. I was going to see Sergeant Grumpy in a few hours, which was not helping my mood.
I flopped back on the mat and covered my face as I stretched my bottom half out as far as it could go. “I definitely didn’t mean to say that part out loud.”
“I’m glad your subconscious is following therapy rules,” she said with a laugh.
Rolling onto my stomach, I propped my chin up on my hands and started doing curls. My legs still felt strange and uneven—mostly because they were strange and uneven. But I couldn’t help wondering if that feeling would last forever.
I was twenty-nine, so at some point, I would live with one leg longer than I’d lived with two—assuming I didn’t die tragic and young. But it was hard to imagine this would ever feel…
“Normal?” she offered.
Dammit, I was doing it again. Somewhere along this session, my internal monologue had gone external.
I thumped my head on the ground. “I give up.”
She laughed again. “Listen, it’s ass o’clock here, so let’s finish this up. I have a bottle of wine waiting for me, and I’d like to start drinking it without patient judgment.”
I glanced up with a huge grin. Fuck, I really liked her. I wondered what the policy was on therapists becoming your best friend. Not that I was going to ask. And I made damn sure to keep my jaw shut for that thought.
“Fair enough. When in Rome. Literally,” I said.
I started back up with my curls and grimaced. There was a tightness near my knee that was starting to freak me out. It was the sensation I wasn’t supposed to be feeling. Watching my muscle shrink was weird enough in itself—but it was normal. Feeling my knee struggle to bend? That was one big red flag my doctor had warned me about right after the surgery.
“What time do you have to leave for your session?” she asked.
I squinted at the tiny numbers in the corner of the laptop screen. “Forty minutes if the wind is in my favor.”
Her smile widened. “And that feeling of doom?”
“It’s still there,” I admitted. “Kent thinks I can try full weight-bearing without a cane today, and that’s got me kind of freaked.”
