“Sort of? I told you he’s been flirting.”
“But you’re not sure.”
“Excuse me for not speaking fluent gay, okay? I’ve never had a man flirt with me before, so I may have gotten some signals wrong, though I doubt it.”
Nash sighed. “It doesn’t even matter at this point. You need to apologize. And by apologize, I mean grovel. Buy fucking flowers and chocolate and fall on your knees and beg for forgiveness.” He looked at my half-leg under the table. “Well, proverbial knees ’cause that may hurt for you. I’m sure Heath would understand the compromise there.”
“I don’t know what came over me.”
His face softened. “You’ve been dealing with a lot. It’s not an excuse, but I can see how that contributed to you feeling overwhelmed.”
Overwhelmed. That was actually a damn good description of how I had felt in the moment. Overwhelmed, overloaded with signals, unable to process them all and deal with them. And so I had short-circuited, to stay in a similar analogy, and Heath had been the victim of that little meltdown.
Like Nash said, it was no excuse, and it didn’t justify my behavior in any way, but it did help me understand what had happened.
I swallowed. “I’ve been having a hard time dealing with things.”
“Define things.”
I loved that Nash never let us get away with shit, including fooling ourselves. “With losing my leg and what that means for me and my future. I thought that…” I had to let out a shuddering breath, awfully close to tears. “I thought I could focus on my recovery, on learning to function with my prosthesis, and that I could pick up life again.”
“As if nothing had happened…”
“Sort of, yeah. But everything’s going so much slower than I counted on.”
“You thought the averages wouldn’t apply to you.”
“Can you blame me? I’m not average, Nash. No offense, but I’ve never been average in my life. I’ve always been faster and fitter than everyone else. I don’t fail. It’s not in my dictionary. So for me to accept that…”
Goddammit, now my voice did break, and my throat was so tight I had trouble swallowing.
“You think you’re failing in your recovery?”
Did I? “I’m certainly not going fast. I still can’t wear the damn prosthesis for more than an hour at a time, and my balance is shit. I keep tripping over my own feet, and I’m just so, so tired of it. I want my life back!”
“You can’t.” Nash’s voice was kind but firm. “You’ll never get your old life back, Creek. Ever. With the loss of your leg, you lost that part of your life too. Things will never be the same again.”
I buried my head in my hands, the tears unstoppable now. “I know that. Deep down, I know.”
But I hadn’t accepted it. I didn’t need Nash to point that out to me because I damn well knew the truth. I’d been fighting against it all this time, unable to accept that it was truly gone. I could never be a soldier again, at least not the way I had been.
And, over time, I might get strong enough and skilled enough with my prosthesis to regain a lot of mobility, including maybe even sports, but I would always be an amputee. Nothing I did would ever give me back my leg, and god, fury flared inside me all over again.
It was so unfair. I had done nothing to deserve this, yet here I was.
“I don’t wanna drown in a fucking ‘why me’ pity party,” I forced out between my teeth. “That’s not who I am.”
“Creek.”
Nash waited patiently until I looked up, tear-stricken face and all.
“There’s a difference between having a pity party and grieving. You lost something, a part of yourself, and you’re allowed to mourn that. In fact, I’d encourage you to. Unless you give yourself permission to grieve, you’ll never be able to move on and ultimately accept your new reality.”
Denial.
Anger.
Bargaining.
