I’d relented and gone to Kent after all. He’d immediately clocked me as Creek’s brother the moment I stepped into his office and he saw my last name. He was an amputee, which I was pretty sure Creek appreciated because Creek only trusted people to help him if they had experience with what he was going through.
He was also patient, which was also something my brother probably needed.And I liked him immediately.
I was halfway through a toe-touch when Kent spoke, and I looked up at him, struggling to stand upright. He helped me finish the set and then eased a chair over so I could sit.
“Did you just tell me to do yoga?”
“Yeah. You know, the ancient Sanskrit word that means to join,” Kent said with a smile.He knew I was a historian, so he was probably giving me shit. “It’s a lot of stretching and twisting, and core building.”
“You know,” I said, rolling my eyes, “I think I’ve heard of it somewhere.”
“I don’t know what you small-town Texas people are about.” Kent winked as he sat down to check my ankles. After PT, they would start to turn inward and stay that way for hours. “And I know that sounds woo-woo or whatever, but trust me.There’s actual science behind it, especially if the studio follows traditional practices that are adapted for people with disabilities. I think it might be a good idea for you.”
I wrinkled my nose as he started pushing on the arches of my feet. “Do they even have classes like that here that I can do?”
“Yeah, actually, I attend a studio that has all kinds of accessibility classes,” Kent said thoughtfully. He rocked his prosthetic foot back and forth almost absently.
“What does that mean?”
He looked up at me. “Accessible?”
“No,” I said with a sigh. “I know what the word means. I have a fucking doctorate. I mean—what does an accessible class mean? Not everyone’s needs are the same.”
Kent’s face softened. “Right. Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply?—”
“No.” I felt a bit like an ass. “I don’t mean to be snappy. It’s just…” I hesitated. Kent was my physical therapist, not my mental health one. I didn’t need to be trauma-dumping all over him.
He let my legs go and sat back, resting on his hands. “You can talk to me, you know.”
“I don’t want to burden you.”
He laughed. “If you and your brother didn’t have the same last name, that statement would have tipped me off that you’re related. You’re not a burden for needing things.But I have a feeling you were made to feel like that a lot, even before all this happened.”
I swallowed heavily, then shrugged. “I was always underestimated growing up. I was short. Lived in a glass closet. I mean, being a sort of twinky high schooler in small-town Texas, there weren’t a lot of places to hide. It was better in college, but I have this horrible baby face, and I’m still fucking short, so people have a bad habit of treating me like I’m some kid.So I tried to take care of myself, but it didn’t always work out.”
He grimaced. “Yeah.”
“Creek was—is,” I corrected, “a really good brother, but he can be a bit much sometimes.I want to feel like I can do this on my own, but I’m not sure anyone believes in me.”
“I get it. People help when you don’t want help. They’re a little too careful with you.”
Yeah. Even Nash, though I was starting to realize that maybe Nash wasn’t doing it because he thought I was some chibi version of a human with big anime eyes or whatever. He wasdoing it out of a sense of overwhelming guilt. Like he was trying to atone for a sin that wasn’t even his.
Survivor’s guilt was destroying him from the inside out.
But the way he was with me sometimes was hard because it made me afraid that everyone was going to see me as some incapable, incompetent burden who couldn’t take care of himself. Hell, I couldn’t even jerk off because my hands wouldn’t cooperate. So why wouldn’t he see me as someone who was entirely unable?
“Hey,” Kent said softly. I looked down at him. “It gets better. It takes time for people to adjust. I won’t even tell you the hell I went through with my mom. I was a teenager when I lost my leg, and when I came home from the hospital, she acted like I’d slipped through a time machine and was two again. She tried to wipe my ass once.”
I reared back. “Whoa.”
Kent grimaced. “Mm-hmm. It was hell getting her to back off. It took forever, but eventually she realized I could handle it. I think a lot of it is fear. The people who love us don’t want us to suffer any more than we already have.”
I eyed the wedding ring he wore. “Did your…wife?”
“Husband,” he corrected carefully.
“Did he ever…? I don’t know… Struggle with how to handle it?”
