I shake the bottle. Less than half full. Maybe a third. Benji uses it like he never expects things to run out. If I start using it on my arms like he told me to, I’ve got maybe two weeks left. Three if I’m careful.
After that, it’s gone.And he’s gone with it.
I look at the hospital lotion bolted to the wall beside the sink. My arms would survive that just fine. I cap the bottle and set it back beside my phone. I tell myself it’s because I’m tired.
It’s not.
The truth is, I’m rationing him.
The phone screen glows when I pick it up. His name is right there at the top of my messages — the last conversation,the way it always is now. I type before I can talk myself out of it.
Mickey:Made it. The bed is smaller but the silence is bigger. No monitors. It’s weird. How’s the arch?
The phone doesn’t buzz back. He’s busy, and he should be busy. The wedding is tomorrow.
The phone buzzes much later at ten-thirty.
Benji:You’re there! The arch is beautiful. Dante is making Cuban coffee and bossing the caterer in Spanish. The rehearsal went fine. Callie’s mother only cried twice which is a personal best. I’m exhausted and running on fumes. Wish I was sitting in a chair in your room instead of here. Goodnight, Mickey.
Mickey:Goodnight, Benji.
Morning comes with an early knock. The door opens and a different nurse enters, though she has the same tone. She checks my vitals and meds. Then she looks at me with the steady eyes of a woman who is about to make my day harder.
“Let’s get you sitting up,” she says.
It takes longer than it should. They raise the head of the bed and my body shifts, creating pressure in places I don’t fully feel but still register somewhere distant, like a radio playing two rooms over.
They swing my legs toward the edge. I watch them move and feel nothing; the disconnect between seeing my legs change position and feeling absolutely nothing below my hips is so familiar now that it’s almost boring.
They sit me up and the room tilts. My hands grip the mattress, and my core shakes as the muscles try to remember what they forgot while I was lying flat for two weeks. I lock my jaw and hold it because I’ve been through the police academy, and the academy taught me that your body quits before it needs to. I held a plank for six minutes with an instructor standing on my back. I can sit on the edge of a bed without passing out. There’s a knock, and then two more people step in.
“Morning, Mickey. I’m Jason from physical therapy.”
“And I’m Leah from occupational therapy.”
Jason is built like a safety, compact and quick, someone who played a sport and transferred the discipline into healthcare. Leah is calm as if she’s seen everything and nothing surprises her anymore. I like them both immediately because they don’t look at me with pity. They look at me like I’m a job.
“We’re going to start with some basics,” Jason says, crouching so we’re eye level. “Sitting balance. Transfers. See where you’re at. Nothing crazy. Goal today is to get you from the bed to that chair.”
The chair is five feet away. Five feet that might as well be five miles. Except I’m not going to think that way because that is how you lose.
“You’ve done a transfer before?” he asks.
“In Tallahassee. Took two people. About forty-five seconds. Longest forty-five seconds of my life.”
“This one might be faster. Ready?”
No.
“Yeah,” I say.
They move me. Jason on one side, Leah on the other, my body pivoting between them in a motion that depends entirely on their strength, not mine. For a second I’m suspended, weight hanging wrong, my legs dangling like they were attached as an afterthought, and then the vinyl creaks under me and I’m sitting in the chair breathing harder than a man should breathe for traveling five feet.
“Don’t brace through your shoulders,” Jason says. “You’re locking your arms. Your traps are doing all the work. Your core still has function above the injury. Use it.”
I try it. Pulling in, tightening what I can, holding myself upright without locking everything else down. It works for about two seconds before I drift right and catch it with my hand on the armrest.
“That’s a micro-adjustment,” Jason says. “You’re going to be making those constantly. Every second you’re in this chair, your body is working to stay centered. It’ll get more automatic over time but right now it’s going to feel like you’re constantly fighting to stay upright in ways nobody else can see.”
