Page 53 of Firefly Embers

“Yes, ma’am.”

The previous day, I’d been able to miss out on my therapy sessions as I spent the day at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. I’d been poked, prodded, imaged, stretched, bent, and studied all day.

Coming back to the treatment center had been a relief after all the testing I had endured, and I’d flopped down in my bed, dead on my feet.

When I’d first arrived, and the intake coordinator noted that I never received a second opinion on my injury, the focus became making sure the doctors hadn’t been wrong in keeping me from riding.

It had taken almost two weeks to get an appointment with each of the specialists, and the center gave me a day pass to be able to attend all of my appointments.

On a general basis, once you checked in at ERRC, you didn’t get to leave until the end of your allotted thirty days.

I’d been accompanied by the intake coordinator, Lydia, whom I’d met on my first day, to each of my appointments. I didn’t feel like a prisoner, but the reminder of having a babysitter kept things more clinical.

Throughout the day, I met with a neurosurgeon, a musculoskeletal specialist, an orthopedic surgeon, and a physical therapist.

Each one had run different versions of the same tests, and they would sit down and discuss their findings as a panel once the results were in. I was on pins and needles waiting for answers, but I hadn’t allowed myself the opportunity to hope for a different outcome than the one I’d already been given.

Hope was too dangerous a feeling to allow myself the luxury of entertaining.

“How are you feeling about all of that?” the therapist asked, uncapping her pen and opening her notebook to a blank page.

“Nervous,” I stated simply; no use in beating around the bush. I learned very early on that the sooner I cut to the chase in individual therapy, the sooner I was able to get out to the stables where I truly wanted to be.

“What has you nervous?” she asked gently, probing me for more information.

“What if they say I still can’t ride?”

“What will that change about the way things are right now?”

I thought about that for a moment. Realistically, it wouldn’t change the way things were currently; she was right. Things could only get better or stay the same.

There was a high probability that they would tell me what I already knew—that I wouldn’t be able to ride again. But the tiny spark of hope that bloomed inside of me, no matter how hard I’d fought it, at the prospect of the original diagnosis being wrong was a hard thing to ignore.

“I guess it doesn’t really change the way things are right now, but I don’t want to get my hopes up to have them crushed again.”

“I can see how that would be devastating, especially since a lot of your sense of self is wrapped up in the notion that riding is your one true love.”

I nodded and relaxed, leaning back on the sofa and crossing my arms. Talking about my inability to ride was still a sore subject, and thinking about it always made me tense.

“Let’s change gears a bit. I wanna talk about Ray.” She shifted, flipping back through her notebook to a previous session’s notes.

My heart started pounding‌ at the mere mention of her name. This had been one of the longest stints I’d gone without being able to talk to her, and both my body and mind were remembering how much I needed her in my life.

“What about her?”

“It seems like she’s someone extremely important in your life. We asked at the beginning of your therapy to write down each person in your life waiting for the healthy version of you to come home. Besides your immediate family, she was at the top of your list. We haven’t really had a chance to talk about her, and I’m curious to know more.”

“What do you want to know?” I did my best to hide the defensive tone of my voice, but Dr. Langford was perceptive and caught on to the tightness in my posture and edge to my words.

“What do you want to share?” she asked, crossing her legs at the ankles and sitting back in her seat, mirroring my defensive posture.

“She’s my best friend.”

“I see.” She hummed noncommittally, seeing through my bullshit with ease.

An exasperated sigh puffed past my lips. I knew that if I didn’t give her a little more than just “she’s my best friend,” she would sit here and wait until I gave something up. It was better to get it out of the way and open up.

“Ray and I have been best friends since we were kids. She was the only girl I met who didn’t look at me like I had something they wanted. It wasn’t a secret that my brother and I were hot commodities with the girls in school. Even though she was younger than me, Ray didn’t act like it. She is wise beyond her years and one of the best people I know.”