Chapter Four
“So if you take a look at that chart I gave you, what I’ve highlighted are your anti-gravity muscles, which makes them sound extremely cool,” Reid explained, putting his hands on Gabriel’s shoulders so he could demonstrate.
“Following so far,” Gabriel said, his tense muscles relaxing under Reid’s hands. That was good. Gabriel wasn’t fighting him, which meant he had a better chance of recovering quickly.
“Okay, so, I’m gonna lightly touch them so you can feel where I’m talking about, because when we sit down and work out an exercise plan for you, you need to make sure that you actually usethesemuscles to do them. There’s no point in doing them otherwise.”
“This is starting to sound like work,” Gabriel said, rolling his shoulders back into Reid’s hands, as though he wanted more contact. Reid kneaded the muscles lightly, just enough to loosen them up a little more.
Ideally, Gabriel would have had someone to do that for him, but Reid couldn’t exactly volunteer to follow him home.
As much as he would have enjoyed that.
“It is, but I know you’re capable of it. No one gets to do what you’ve done sitting on their ass,” Reid said.
Gabriel chuckled at that. “I got where I am almostentirelysitting on my ass, which I think is half the problem.”
“Yeah, well… it’s never too late to change your habits. And I’m not supposed to say this, but if the normal amount of exercise you get keeps you comfortable once you’ve recovered, you don’t actually need to keep this up. You’re very unlikely to end up with chronic needs as long as you stick to the plan.”
“That’s comforting, because if my life depended on it I’d probably die.”
Reid laughed. “Well, I haven’t lost a patient yet, so you’re in good hands. Anyway. These muscles on the top of your shoulders are called your deltoids, and you kinda need them because they’re helping to hold your head up. There’s another important one here, in your lower back, and I bet that’s the one giving you the most pain right now.”
Gabriel nodded tightly, shifting under Reid’s touch. He felt so small right now that Reid couldn’t help but want to do whatever he could to make him better.
“The ones running over your hips are important too,” he added. “And your butt, which I won’t touch because you’re sitting on it.”
Gabriel snorted. “I’m good at that. Although… less so at the moment.”
“Yeah, because you still need those muscles to sit comfortably. Your arms are probably pretty weak as well, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Gabriel agreed.
“Can you hold one out for me?” Reid asked.
Gabriel sighed, rolling his shoulders back and then lifting one arm. Reid could see that he didn’t want to do this, but he couldalsosee the pain and exhaustion in Gabriel’s face. No one wanted to be hurt, but at least Gabriel didn’t need to be convinced that he needed to get better.
That put him ahead of alotof Reid’s other patients, most of whom spent at least the first few sessions in denial.
Of course, most of them had also been through something traumatic that they hadn’t been expecting, whereas Gabriel had gone into this knowingly.
Reid was starting to see that it had still been traumatic, though. Gabriel had all the markers of someone who’d just been through something huge and life-changing.
That made a kind of sense. Not many people went to space. Very few as young as Gabriel, who was only twenty-six.
“Okay, so,” Reid began, supporting Gabriel’s arm by the wrist. “Pretty much all of these muscles suck right now, yeah?”
Gabriel smiled wryly. “To be fair, they sucked before I left, too.”
“You still need to be able to hold and carry stuff,” Reid said. “But I wanna work on your biggest concerns, because you know your body better than I do.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Gabriel sighed again. “I just want to be able to walk back and forth to work without collapsing once I get there. It’s a three-minute walk.”
“Well, good news is that the best way to improve your walking stamina is to walk,” Reid said. “Three minutes is probably enough to start with, but it wouldn’t hurt to do a little more. Where do you work?”
“The downtown campus of UW,” Gabriel responded, holding his arm close to his body as Reid let go of it. Even with the support of Reid’s hand, it had obviously been tough for him to hold it up that long.
Reid smiled to himself. He’d studied there, and although Gabriel was a little over a year younger than him, it was cool to think that they might have been there at the same time.
