The gym seemed to get quiet around me, although I knew it probably hadn’t. Claire didn’t tell me to calm down. She didn’t say I was blessed. She only kept one hand close to the belt around my waist and waited.
My right knee shook harder. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.” She assured me being extremely patient.
“No, I can’t.”
“You’re already doing it.”
I looked down at the empty space beside my right foot. My vision blurred. “I don’t want to do it like this.”
Nobody answered Claire’s encouragement because the voice came from behind me.
“You ain’t gotta want to. Just do it anyway.”
I turned my head and Lev stood near the entrance to the therapy gym. He wore a black suit with a black shirt beneath it with the first buttons left open at his throat. The jacket fit across his shoulders too perfectly like it was tailored, and the gold watch at his wrist caught the overhead light when he slipped one hand into his pocket. His expression looked hurt although he tried to hide it behind the calm way he carried himself. He was just leaving Marv’s funeral.
I had forgotten it was that morning. Lev crossed the room slowly, ignoring the women who looked up as he passed. He stopped near the end of the parallel bars and looked at me like nobody else was there. “You came.” I tried to smile.
He kissed me on the cheek. “Where else I’m supposed to be?”
The words reminded me of what he told me the same day I lost my leg. My arms trembled against the bars and Lev noticed.
“Look at me,” he said.
“I need to sit down.”
“You can sit when she tells you.”
“I’m tired Lev and I’m hurting.” I wiped my eyes.
“I know that too.” His voice didn’t carry pity and that was what I needed most.
Everyone else looked at me like I might break if they said the wrong thing. Lev looked at me like I was still myself, even when I didn’t feel like her. “Keep your eyes up,” he told me. “You staring at the floor like it did something to you.”
A weak laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “Whatever.”
Claire smiled. “That’s better, now shift a little more weight into the right leg.”
“I hate both of you right now.”
Lev came closer. “You can hate me after you finish.”
My right knee threatened to fold, and my grip tightened again. “I can’t.”
His expression changed, and not softening exactly, but opening enough for me to see what he was holding back. “You ran out that apartment after a grown ass man attacked you. You survived Rome hitting you with a car. You survived surgery, and now you telling me some metal bars and one shaky leg got more fight than you?”
The tears burned when they rolled down my face. “That’s not fair.”
“I ain’t trying to be fair baby. I’m trying to remind you who the fuck you are.”
I met his eyes and held his gaze. The shaking didn’t stop, but the panic inside me eased enough to breathe around it. Claire counted ten more seconds before allowing me to lower myself into the chair. My arms gave out the moment I reached it, and I sat there breathing hard while Lev crouched in front of me.
“See?” he said. “Still standing.”
“For barely two minutes.” I sighed.
“That’s two minutes more than you wanted to do though.”
