CALL ME
Me
Later. I’m fine.
Lia
I’m coming home.
Me
Don’t. I’m handling it. Stay with Ethan. Drink a daiquiri, or whatever.
I silence my phone before she can argue and stare at the ceiling. The boot is heavy and foreign—a constant reminder that I’ve lost control of my own body. Six to eight weeks. That’s almost two months of being useless.
I can’t afford to be useless. Not when I barely deserve this job in the first place.
I was twenty credits short of my degree when Lia’s illness took a turn for the worse. By then I’d already been missing class for a few semesters to care for her as she was bleeding internally. I dropped out, didn’t tell her, and my roommate founded Meow Mobile and hired me as a favor.
Clayton doesn’t care I don’t technically have the credentials of a computer engineer, as long as I can get the results he needs. He schmoozed himself in with some startup accelerator called Trede over in Climax, and they gave him funding to bring fast internet out here. Clay says his whole shtick is rural connectivity, but the money guys obviously like being able to stream video from their vacation homes.
At any rate, I spent almost a decade building Clayton’s vision from Fork Lick. Lia is stable and healthy, I still have a pity job, and I’m about to be drugged out on painkillers, unable to work for two months. How long until Clay realizes he will need someone with actual training to keep the Catskills connected?
I have to figure something out.
Getting to the bathroom takes twenty minutes and most of my dignity. The crutches are awkward, and my armpits ache from last night’s trip from the car to the house. Every hop sends a jolt of pain through my ankle, despite the cast. I have to sit on the edge of the tub just to catch my breath.
Really great, Thorne.
I make it downstairs by sitting on each step and sliding like a child, the crutches clattering beside me. By the time I reach the kitchen, I’m sweating and my hands are shaking.
Coffee. I need coffee.
I prop the crutches against the counter and hop to the cabinet where I keep my beans. Fresh-ground dark roast is one luxury I allow myself.
College in New York City got me hooked on the good shit—the one good thing that came from those years—and I import it in bulk. I don’t think about the rest of it. The half-finished degree. The frantic phone calls from my sister. The spreadsheets I made to track Lia’s symptoms instead of my coursework. Our parents worked a lot, and I looked out for Lia. It made sense that she turned to me when she was sick. I never imagined how much her illness would change us both.
And now she’s healthy and I’m hurt, and I will make myself this pot of coffee, so help me.
The grinder is, of course, on the top shelf because I’m tall, and I never considered I might one day be functioning on one leg.
I stretch for it, balancing on my good foot, and grab it by the cord. I set it on the counter and reach for the bag of beans, but my hand is shaking from the effort of staying upright, and the bag slips.
Coffee beans scatter across the counter, onto the floor, bouncing and rolling into every corner of the kitchen.
“Fuck,” I mutter, staring at the disaster.
I can’t bend. Can’t balance on one foot like a flamingo and sweep. Can’t do anything except stand here like an idiot in my own kitchen, defeated by caffeine beans.
I grab the edge of the counter, breathing hard, trying not to think about how I’m going to make it through this. Trying not to think about my company’s product launch in two days, which requires me to be sharp and focused and not foggy with pain medication.
Speaking of which…
The prescription bottle sits on the counter where I left it last night after Eva dropped me off. I’m not ready to think about Eva right now.
So I stare at the Oxycodone. Take one every four to six hours as needed for pain. I tap the bottle, knowing I need it, knowing I can’t take it if I want to function and stay here all alone with no one to notice if I slip and fall.
I shove the bottle aside. I’ll take ibuprofen. It won’t be enough, but it’ll take the edge off.
