She stepped out of the room, light with elation. The assignment was a success.
Star and her other colleagues hugged her goodbye, tears in their eyes.
“I’ll be back,” Orchid promised.
The next day, she boarded the plane with a sense of satisfaction.
Over the ocean, one movie into her flight, New York suddenly seemed closer than it’d been during the past month and a half.
Phoenix hadn’t contacted her. Not once. After they’d spent months talking or texting several times a week.
Caleb’s warning echoed, again, that Phoenix lost interest easily. Her parents. Phoenix.Will he even remember to meet me at the airport?
CHAPTER 18
THE DENIAL TWIST
Phoenix
An unexpected thing happened when Phoenix’s phone buzzed. His heart ramped up with the thrill of seeing a text from Orchid.
“Hey Phoenix, I’m in baggage claim. Are you meeting me, or am I walking home?”
One side of his mouth quirked up, maybe for the first time in weeks. Then he shook his head, attempting to clear memories of Orchid’s heated stare, the tingle of her lips against his cheek, and her rose-tinged scent. Orchid’s honeyed voice filled his mind. These six weeks of therapy had worked him physically harder than any sport he’d ever played, or any triathlon. He’d fought to strengthen what remained of his muscles and learned how to manipulate prostheses.
During the lulls in therapy and exercise repetitions, he’d ruminated on solutions to an impossible problem.
The potential of their relationship, he realized, hinged on what he represented. They only made sense as a couple if he could be her protector and model of physical perfection, workout friend, dance partner, European travel guide.
At work, when he’d presented ads of injured soldiers, Orchid couldn’t even bring herself to look at the images—and those survivors had injuries less egregious than his.
He could find no way around the fact that he could not be who Orchid needed. There was no way she’d accept him.
He imagined her reaction to his wounds, flaps of muscle pulled taut over abrupt endings of bone, visible stitch lines. She’d be repulsed. Maybe her kindness would obligate her to look the other way, and he’d selfishly gain comfort from her presence. Then, even if she could get past the shock of seeing him so changed, how could he ask her to live this life?How can I hold her back from travel and beaches and everyday normalcy?
Orchid, who loved cobblestoned Paris and dancing, wouldn’t love wheelchairs and canes. Orchid, who couldn’t look at a cut on her own foot, wouldn’t be able to look at rows of stitches closing the blunt ends of limbs that made no sense. Maybe she’d suppress her disgust, at least at first. She’d go along, following a path out of pity for which she’d find no escape.
He’d pondered for long minutes. The phone rang. He startled at the vibrating cold steel in his hand. He answered before he could decide what he’d say.
“Hey,” he said, his voice sounding surprisingly raspy.
“Hey yourself. How are you? Are you picking me up?” she got right to the point.
“Nope.”
“What, did you forget about me?”
“Not exactly,” he answered. Guilt washed over him. Protecting her was no longer in his capability. He thought of calling her a car service.
“Are you okay? You sound funny.”
Phoenix recovered, basking in the normalcy of her sweet voice, in contrast to the sympathy and unease which tinged the calls from his office and friends.
“Funny?” he asked, delaying the response to the real questions. “You know me, I’m always funny.”
“That you are. You would’ve found me funny in China. Like, trying to speak with taxi drivers was a hoot.”
“Yeah? How was your trip?”
