Tex keeps laughing. The best sound in the world right now.
“Alright,” he says. “Anyway, let me know when you figure out what’s going on with Benji. We’re all dying to know. It’s the talk of the bar. By the bar I mean me, Sheila and Stormy. Talk to you later.”
Click.
Tex hangs up because he doesn’t do goodbyes. Never has. He just says the last thing that matters and the line goes dead and you’re left holding a phone like a dumbass.
I didn’t dare tell Tex how much I’m looking forward to Benji coming today. He’d never let me hear the end of it. Besides there’s nothing I need to explain or justify. The hours in this room are long and the highlight of my day so far has been a physical therapy session that left me lightheaded.
When Benji comes to visit, the whole room changes. He doesn’t look at me like anything’s missing. He plops down in the chair, gives me food, and tells me about weddings while I watch his hands. I don’t mean to. But every person who has touched me since the shooting has done it wearing gloves. Nobody has touched me like a person.
Benji hasn’t touched me either. He sits in the chair and keeps a respectful distance. But his hands are everywhere. Pizza box, napkins, coffee lid, my blanket, the window blinds, the air in front of him when he’s making a point. He uses them without thinking, the way people do when their body still doeseverything they ask it to. I wonder what they’d feel like. On my arm. On my shoulder. Somewhere above the waist where I could actually feel them. But, that’s not a road I need to be going down right now.
For an hour when Benji is here, I’m not a patient. I’m just a guy eating pizza with someone who makes me laugh, even though the laugh hurts my back. But at this point, I don’t care.
I close my eyes and send the signal to my legs one more time.
Move. Goddammit. Please.
Something’s got to answer back eventually.
Chapter 10: Benji
I’m on the phone with the florist when I realize I haven’t eaten today.
It’s two in the afternoon. I’ve been awake since five-thirty because the caterer had a question about the gluten-free options that could not wait until business hours. I answered that call in my underwear in the bathroom with my eyes closed. Then I answered three emails from Callie’s mother about the napkin situation, which has escalated from a preference to a crisis in the span of forty-eight hours.
Then I drove to meet with the rental company about the chairs, which are wrong. They’re the wrong shade of the right color. The difference between ivory and cream is approximately nothing to anyone on earth except Callie’s mother, who can detect the distinction a hundred yards away.
The chairs will be replaced. The napkins will be folded into bishop’s hats and the florist will deliver the wildflower centerpieces in clay pots and they will look effortless and unproduced. It will cost thousands to achieve the appearance of having spent nothing.
The wedding is coming up fast and I’m barely holding it together. My ribs still ache when I take a deep breath. The bruise on my cheek has faded from purple to a sickly yellow-green that no amount of concealer fully covers. I’m sleeping maybe four hours a night, and those four hours are interrupted by nightmares.
I hang up with the florist and sit in my car. I need to drive to Tallahassee to see Mickey tonight. To bring him coffeeand walk into that room with high energy and entertaining stories. To make him laugh. The problem is, I don’t know if I have that version in me today.
My phone rings. Dante.
“Hey.”
“You sound dead,” he says.
“I’m not dead, I’m still dying slowly and painfully. I’m sitting in a parking lot trying to remember if I ate breakfast this morning.”
“Did you?” Dante asks.
“I had coffee.”
“Coffee is not breakfast, Benji,” Dante says. “Coffee is a liquid. Breakfast is food. They’re different categories. I’ve explained this to you.”
“Maybe I had a banana. It might have been yesterday though. The days are blurring together.”
“Benji, listen to me. I’m coming up there.”
I sit up straighter. “What?”
“I’m flying into Panama City. I’ll rent a car and drive to you. I’m staying through the wedding.”
“Dante, you don’t have to...”
