Alec stalks towards me, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “You need help, Quint. You’re having a breakdown. Right now, in fact. I don’t know whyyoucan’t see it, but I can. Everyone can. I thought this place could be a fresh start for us. Somewhere you could heal. With my help.”
“Fuck you.” Over the threshold, I can breathe again, but he’s still advancing on me. “Get back.”
“Quint—” He lunges for my arm, and my foot misses the top step.
For a moment—one very long, terrifying moment—it’s like I’m in some sort of suspended animation. My arms flail, grabbing for the railing, for anything to hold on to, but all I see is Alec’s face. And the lack of emotion in his eyes.
Impact. Pain. Then nothing.
* * *
Quinton
“Traumatic brain injury”
“You probably won’t walk again.”
“I’ll take care of you, Quint.”
My dreams are as fragmented as my memories. And my thoughts. I can’t seem to hold one for more than a few minutes. The morning sun slices across the end of the bed, and I stare at it for a good ten minutes before Alec breezes into the room, a wide smile on his face.
“Time to get up, baby. Can’t sleep the day away. Breakfast is ready.” He slides his arms under me, lifts me out of bed, and sets me in my wheelchair.
My stomach rumbles slightly, but I’m not truly hungry. I don’t remember the last time I wanted to eat. At least two months ago. Before I fell down a flight of metal stairs, fracturing three vertebrae in my back, cracking my skull in two places, and breaking my femur.
“He was lucky, but the nerve damage? It’ll be with him for the rest of his life,” Alec says to someone I can’t see. Machines beep all around me, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t open my eyes.
When I finally did, Alec was there. Explaining everything. Two days in a medically induced coma. Two surgeries before I woke up. Three more in the weeks following.
He’s been at my side the whole time. The stairs that took my ability to walk—or even stand for more than a few minutes—are just outside our condo door, and every single day, he tells me he’s so sorry we have to live here. But my old apartment building isn’t accessible, and he’d already given up the lease on his former place.
At least with the open floor plan, I can get around. Though, there’s no elevator in the building, so my entire world has been reduced to these four walls and what I can see from the windows.
I have enough mobility and strength to take care of my morning needs, but that’s about it. My legs are shaking by the time I’m back in the wheelchair, and I’m a little dizzy.
Rolling myself out to the main room leaves my arms feeling like limp noodles. Every day, the trip is harder than the day before. Shouldn’t I be getting stronger by now? I need to ask Alec to check the wheel locks again.
“Pancakes,” he says as he sets a plate in front of me, then leans down and kisses me. No matter how many times we fight, this is one thing we do well. The man can kiss like it’s an Olympic sport and he’s going for the gold medal. Even if I do hate pancakes. They get soggy. “Here are your meds.”
Four pills tumble into my palm, and Alec nudges the glass of juice on the right side of the plate.
Oxycontin for the nerve pain. Prozac for the anxiety I can’t seem to shake. A multi-vitamin, and…something else. Why can’t I remember what the last one is? “Alec? What is this one?” I ask, holding up a little white pill.
“You ask me that every morning, love,” he says as he sits next to me. “It’s a mix of homeopathic herbs for pain and mental clarity. Don’t you remember Dr. Trax coming a few weeks ago?” Pulling out his phone, he taps the screen a few times and shows me smiling next to an older man with a kindly face and hair as white as his doctor’s coat.
“No. I mean…maybe?” The memories are fuzzy. All of my memories are fuzzy. Trax’s hands were cold. He tested my range of motion. Said I needed more medication.
The accident destroyed my back. Stole my ability to walk. But that’s not all. My mind will never be what it was. A tear burns my eye, and Alec cups the back of my neck and wipes it away. “It’s okay, Quint. I’m here, and I’ll never leave you. I love you.”
He loves me. That’s the one thing I haven’t lost. I still matter to him. So why does it feel like he’s holding something back? That behind his earnest blue eyes and encouraging smile, there’s something he’s not telling me?
* * *
“It’s fucked.”My voice cracks as I slam the lid down on my laptop. “I can’t remember how to do anything, Alec. It’sright there!”I slap my palm against my forehead like I can shake all my formerskills loose if I just hit myself hard enough. “I was so close...before.I think I was just a couple of days away from a prototype.”
“You had an idea. Some buggy code,” Alec says. “Nothing workable yet. Why don’t you take a break? We can check out that new Netflix special on social media.”
Alec starts to massage my shoulders, his strong fingers stroking the sides of my neck where the muscles feel like rubber bands about to snap. “You’ve been at this all day, love. It’s not good for you to hunch over your laptop for hours on end.”
