Shock clenched his stomach as he recognized the dark circles haunting Caleb and his mom’s features mirrored on his own face.Damned train took more than my limbs.It gutted his insides until he couldn’t recognize what was left. Those wounded soldiers from their non-profit work had more tenacity than he could’ve previously appreciated.
Time was up. Through the flimsy door, a familiar booming voice greeted his mother, and a softer one followed. He looked down at the T-shirt and gym shorts emblazoned with a prestigious school logo that no longer seemed important. The outfit had been his uniform since descending into this surreal torture. The short sleeves and short pants exposed bandaged endings of limbs.
Here goes nothing.He pushed open the door. Two sets of eyes turned towards him. The few revolutions his chair took to reach them fractured into dozens of split-second judgments that passed on his friends’ faces. Dex’s mouth wavered at the corners, like a hairline fracture on a window about to shatter. He turned, teeth glinting white beneath a bushy beard. His narrowing eyes belied his effort to mask his emotions. Fiona, on the other hand, conveyed her shock in a silent film with no subtitles. Her mouth gaped open in a pink oval like a mewling kitten, then slammed shut in an apparent memory of manners, only to be replaced by fingers twitching uselessly at the hem of her tunic.
“Hey,” Dex said with affection, taking a step to meet him before he leaned down for a one-armed hug. “I cannot believe what happened.”
“Yeah, me either.”
Fiona recovered enough to bend and hug his seated form. “You okay?”
Nothing was okay. The frozen horror on his friends’ faces confirmed this. “I’m about as okay as I look.”
Dex brought over a chair for his wife. She sank into it, eyes rimming red.
“Everyone sends their greetings,” Dex said, propping a card onto Phoenix’s side table. He plopped onto one side of the hospital bed.
“And they brought pastries,” his mom said, indicating the white paper bag. “I’ll get some coffee for us.” She pushed out of the room, her cardigan floating behind her.
“They find the bum you saved?” Dex asked, bushy eyebrows knitting into one.
“Nope. Caleb’s spent hours with the cops. They looked at all the surveillance tapes but the cameras down in that part of the station were busted. Not that I see the point.”
“Maybe he wants to get the guy into therapy?” Dex chuckled at his own ludicrous scenario.
“I think if he ever found him, Caleb would want to finish the job.”
“I’d like to find him so we can get you guys on talk shows together. Turn you into the media hero that you deserve to be,” Dex said. His art-director-quirky bowtie bounced with mirth.
“I’m no hero, and I definitely don’t want media,” Phoenix said.
He pictured sitting on stage in his wheelchair next to the dirty bum. His stomach heaved. His eyes watered.
“You have everything you need?” Fiona asked, leaning forward to put a hand on his. Etched lines dragged the corners of her mouth towards the ground like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
“Yeah, Mom’s made sure I have the best of everything. She even convinced insurance to maximize my inpatient rehab.” He didn’t want to talk about this.Just go.
“Any cute nurses?” Fiona asked, running a hand through her hair.
Dex brightened. “Didn’t you have something going with that L’Oreal marketer?”
Fiona turned to face his chair. “Who?”
“Orchid. She’s in China,” Phoenix said.
“Oh, the one you brought to the Effies?”
“Yeah, but we’re not in touch anymore.” The night before Orchid had left portended a future. One finger beneath his chin, she had brought his face closer to hers. She had leaned to bestow a kiss sweeter than caramel, her lips brushing his until he had lost any sense of time. What cruelty to have every memory paired with imagining her repulsion.
Phoenix nodded his chin towards the card, seeking a distraction from the focus on him. “How’s everyone at the office?”
“Everyone’s fine. Worried about you, of course. Liv really wants to come visit.”
He didn’t want Liv to see him like this. “Tell her I’m not up for company.”
Dex pushed up his sleeves, looked at Phoenix and pulled them back down. “She’ll be disappointed. She told me she’d feel better if she could see you.”
“You sure she’d feel better?”
