The grass crunches behind me as I head toward the sunroom door. I guess it was too much to hope that he’d just run off again like he did the other night.
“Your yard is amazing.” The compliment has me preening, but then he asks, “Didyoudo all of this?”
“It wasn’t that difficult.” That’s a lie that I can’t hide behind now that he has a full view of me hobbling along in front of him. I worked my ass off on this yard for years, picking good days to get shit done. Powering through bad days when I was so desperate to get out of the house that I refused to let the pain dictate my life. “Slow and steady wins the race.”
“Have you looked into getting the broken hardware in your back replaced?”
Pleasantries and reminders that I’m not what I used to be. Great. I wish he’d just get on with whatever he came to say. I guess this is the price I have to pay for acting like a Don Juan.
I set the bag down on my workbench in the sunroom, regretting now that I’d left the door propped open earlier when I find Remy standing in it. Is this the universe’s cruel way of making me pay for realizing fifteen years too late that I was an absolute heathen toward him back in the day?
“Yeah. Several times,” I try to say without sounding curt, sweeping off my bench for something to busy myself with. “But apparently, spinal surgeons aren’t keen on doing surgeries that could potentially paralyze the patient. Can’t say I am either.”
“Well, that’s why I stopped by.”
My hand stills with the dustpan brush in it. Please tell me he doesn’t have somemiraclesuggestion like every single one of my parents’ friends that they tell about‘Poor Chris.’
“You’re a spinal surgeon now?”
“No.” He kicks at a kernel of dried cement on the floor with the toe of his sneaker and then immediately blushes like doing so vandalized my home. That blush of his really isn’t something I needed to see right now, warring with my attempt to appear aloof. “I wanted to ask if…you’d like me to show you some exercises that might be able to help, in case you don’t want to come back to the center.”
That’swhy he’s here? Not to give me some further explanation about why he shot me down? I did call it right. He is here out of pity, just not for the reasons I thought.
“I think I manage just fine.” I use some of the anger boiling under my surface to heft my newest paver stone off the bench and set it on the stack of the ones by the far wall that I finished. “I kind of gave up on exercising a long time ago. I count this as a workout when I can.” I gesture to the general area of my sunroom and the backyard.
“You made these?” he asks, the wonder in his voice soothing some of my nerves as he inches forward. I nod, dreading what it will cost me to do so, but he surprises me, letting out a breathy sound. “Oh, my gosh. They’re beautiful. Like…that’s not even the right word.”
The look of awe and appreciation on his face as he reaches out and traces a fingertip over a design in one of the stones has me wanting to puff my chest out. I don’t know why it’s so important to me to impress him. I’ve gotten used to people either ignoring me like I don’t exist, throwing curious glances as though they wonder what happened to me, or worse, looking wary because of my size, like my broken gait must have been caused by violence.
“Just…wow,” he chuckles, the sound seeping into and warming my skin. “How do you know how to place all the pieces so perfectly?”
“I watch a lot of YouTube.”
Smiling at me, he makes a mystified noise and shakes his head. Gale trots past me and stops at the door to go inside, giving an impatient huff.
“Excuse me, Your Highness. It’s not my fault you didn’t finish your lunch.”
Opening the door of the house, I let her run inside. I don’t think anything about reverting to the casual conversations I have with my dog until I hear a soft laugh behind me.
“She’s cute. WhyGale?”
“Sayers,” I say plainly, not expecting him to understand.
“You named her after a football player.” He chuffs, nodding with his head down as though he’s embarrassed he didn’t guess sooner. I didn’t need to discover one more reason why I like clothed, older Remy.
“She runs like the wind and can stop on a dime,” I babble matter-of-factly.
His smile is warm when he meets my gaze. It feels like sunshine to my soul. I want to move closer to it like a starved houseplant and let it heal the empty parts of me.
Clearing his throat, he shifts in place.
“So…about the exercises.”
Nothing like a splash of cold water on an out-of-body experience. Scrubbing my hand down my face, I glance out the window.
“I told you. I can’t do all of that anymore.”
“I don’t mean like you used to…”
