Offside

  “Anytime,” I said, and I meant it. I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat.

  “I knew it, you know,” she said.

  “Knew what?”

  “That you didn't…say what you said because you wanted to say it. I knew it was him.”

  I looked away, focusing on the IV needle puncturing my skin. I was glad she knew but upset about it at the same time.

  “What did you say to him?” I asked.

  She let out a short, sharp laugh.

  “Which time?”

  My eyes turned back to her, and I shook my head a little.

  “You shouldn't do that,” I told her.

  “Well, sometimes shit just comes out of my mouth,” she told me, “and I don't control it.”

  I chuckled a little.

  “So what did you say?” I asked again.

  “The first time?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, it was about three days afterwards,” she said. “I was in the hospital the first night—just for observation—but I had been coming back every day to sit with you in the ICU. You had already been through…um…three surgeries, I think. They were still keeping you in the coma on purpose then, and I read somewhere that people in a coma might still be able to hear you if you talked to them. So…I talked to you.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Um…” She blushed again. “I told you I was here and that I was thinking about you. I think I thanked you for saving my life about four hundred times, kind of alternating that with being pissed off that you did it because you were hurt so bad. I told you I needed you…and that I loved you.”

  She said the last part very quietly.

  “I love you, too,” I told her.

  She smiled and bit her lip.

  “I know.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Well, he had been in there, mostly looking over your chart and whatever between his rounds,” she continued. “He told me there was no point in talking to you—that the whole idea you might be able to hear me was ridiculous, and I should just go home.”

  Yeah, that sounded like him.

  “I told him I'd leave when you left, and he apparently didn't like that idea. He started telling me that if it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't be here in the first place, and maybe you would wake up sooner if I wasn't there.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her fingers played with mine.

  “I kept it together that time and just told him I was sorry you were hurt but that I wasn't going anywhere until I could thank you properly. He told me I should be apologizing to you instead and walked out of the room.”

  “That was the first time?”

  “Yeah,” she confirmed, “the second was a lot worse.”

  “Go on.”

  She sighed again.

  “He was talking to the doctor…um…Winchester?”

  I nodded.

  “They were talking about your injuries and about your back, especially. That's when Doctor Winchester told your dad you, um…might not walk again. Your dad was really, really upset about that and called for a second opinion. When the other doctor said it was too early to tell, but that you'd definitely be going through a lot of rehab, your Dad kind of blew a gasket.”

  That surprised me. Dad never made mistakes like that—getting upset in front of other people and showing his temper. He was always cool in public.

  “He yelled at the doctors for a bit. Then when they left, he turned on me.” She gripped my hand a little tighter. “You should have come out of the coma by then. They weren't keeping you sedated anymore, and you should have woken back up, but you hadn't. When he started blaming me again, I snapped.”

  She went quiet for a minute. I could feel her dread in the pit of my stomach.

  “What did you say?” I finally asked her.

  “That maybe if he wasn't smacking you around all the time, you'd heal faster. Something like that, anyway.”

  “Holy shit,” I murmured. I swallowed hard and wished I could run my hand through my hair.

  “Yeah, he threw me out then,” she said. “Called hospital security and said I wasn't allowed to visit you again. Once you were out of ICU, I managed to sneak in with Jeremy and Rachel for a few minutes, but we were caught when the nurse came in.”

  “You shouldn't have done that,” I told her.

  “He needed to know,” she said. “He can't keep everything a secret.”

  “He has a lot of secrets to tell, too,” I whispered. When she kept asking, I finally told her he had the pictures, and that's why I had to break up with her.

  “You should have told me,” she said when I was done. “We could have worked it out together.”

  “I didn't want to take the chance,” I admitted. “If he found out, Nicole, he wouldn't hesitate to ruin you. I couldn't let that happen.”

  “Is that why you said all that shit on the phone?”

  “Yeah.” I cringed. “I'm sorry—I didn't mean any of it.”

  “He was there with you, wasn't he?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought so.”

  I looked back at her and just stared at her face for a while, trying to figure out how I could have been so stupid. At the time, it seemed like the best idea, but now I wasn't so sure.

  “I'm sorry,” I said again and then yawned.

  “Me too,” she replied. “I think you need to rest.”

  I could only nod, and I turned my head so it rested against the pillow, but it was still fucking uncomfortable.

  “I hate this pillow,” I grumbled, and Nicole snickered.

  “I don't think hospitals spend a lot of extra cash on down,” she replied.

  I wanted to respond. I wanted to tell her that despite all the shit we were going to have to go through, this was going to be a new beginning for us.

  I fell asleep instead.

  “I want Nicole Skye to be able to visit me,” I said to Doctor Winchester as he checked over the various tubes inserted into me.

  “Hrmph,” he replied. “I heard she was here yesterday.”

  “I want her to be able to come back without taking shit for it,” I told him. “I’m eighteen—I should be able to say who can see me, right?”

  “Theoretically, yes,” he said, “though I don’t think your father would agree.”

  “I don’t care.” I hoped I sounded more sure of myself than I felt.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said with a smile.

  Dad did not agree.

  “That bitch is the reason you are here in the first place!” he said after the room cleared out. “She isn’t coming in here again!”

  “I want her to,” I said again. I didn’t look at him, just kept staring at my hands lying on my stomach.

  “She’ll just get in the way of your recovery,” he told me. “I don’t need her distracting you!”

  “She’s not,” I retorted.

  We went back and forth until he got so mad, I finally just stopped responding. I didn’t really think he would go so far as to do anything here in the hospital where I was being so closely monitored, but I didn’t feel like taking the chance, either. I couldn’t move much at all. Even though my hands and arms were a little stronger, the feeling of being trapped when my dad was in the room continued to gnaw at me. The doctors kept saying I was already showing improvement, but this was the first day I had even been given anything solid to eat—if Jell-o and popsicles counted as solid. Not being able to get out of the damn bed to pee was annoying.

  After Dad left in a huff, Doctor Winchester came in with a woman I hadn’t seen before. He said her name was Danielle Richmond, and she was apparently my physical therapist.

  For about an hour, she just lifted my legs up and down, telling me she had been doing this the whole time I was comatose. Though I could feel everything in my legs except for the area around the scar on my right thigh, I couldn’t control the movements at all.

  It was pissing me off.
/>
  “This sucks!” I nearly growled at her. “I’m not even doing anything!”

  “Just think about how you would make your leg move along with what I’m doing,” she said. “Focus on how your mind would control the muscles. Letting your brain re-learn along with your muscles is the first step.”

  “First step,” I snorted. “Nice.”

  “Just an expression,” she said with a smile. “It’s good you had a lot of muscle tone before the accident. It should make your recovery more successful.”

  More successful. Like maybe someday I could make my legs move again without help.

  She switched legs and started rolling my ankle around. It was the first time I had really seen my legs since I woke up, and they looked scrawny to me.

  I must have fallen asleep before she left because the next thing I knew, I was surrounded by Nicole’s scent.

  “Can you get the other side?” I heard her whispered voice near my face. I opened my eyes and saw a nurse first, who had my pillow tucked under one arm while the other one was behind my head. Nicole was on my other side, holding my head up a little as she slid a different pillow beneath me.

  “Rumple?”

  “Oh, baby,” she said, still whispering. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “It’s okay,” I slurred, still half asleep. “You smell good.”

  She giggled and lowered my head onto a soft, cool pillow.

  It smelled like her.

  “I was going to wash the pillowcase first,” she said, “but I figured you’d like it better this way.”

  I smiled and closed my eyes again as my head sank further into my Nicole-scented pillow. I still couldn’t roll over, but this was pretty damn good anyway. Her hand twirled through my hair, and I drifted off to sleep.

  Shakespeare said, “The soul of this man is his clothes.” Somehow, I thought maybe Nicole’s soul was in her pillow.

  Now I could really rest.

  CHAPTER 27

  COUNTERATTACK

  If anyone else were to tell me recovery takes time and I had to just work hard and be patient, I was going to find the strength to punt that idiot across the fucking room.

  Four days after I came out of the coma, I could sit up for an hour before I had to lie down again. I could feed myself about three bites of something before my arms gave out, and I could move my toes if I concentrated really fucking hard. Everyone told me what great progress I was making, but I knew bullshit when I smelled it. I was a fucking invalid, as my father put it, and only Nicole’s regular visits were keeping me from throwing myself out the damn window.

  Well, that and not being able to get out of the fucking bed.

  In other words, rehab sucked.

  “You have to be able to do this if you’re going to be able to get out of here,” Danielle said as I dropped back down on the bed.

  I took another deep breath and tried to use my arms to transfer myself from the bed to the wheelchair. My arms had improved, but holding up my own diminished body weight was still just a bit much for me. With a grunt, I strained my muscles as hard as I could and actually managed to drop into the chair. It wasn’t the least bit graceful, and I probably would have tipped the damn thing over if Danielle hadn’t been holding on to it, but I did it.

  I glanced over at Nicole in the easy chair in the corner of the room. She had her hands over her mouth—probably to keep from squealing, which drove me fucking nuts when she did it—and her eyes were shining. I knew she was smiling under there.

  “Just fucking say it!” I snapped.

  “I knew you could do it!” She shrieked and then put her hands over her mouth again.

  “Next thing you know, I’ll be able to take a shit by myself,” I grumbled.

  “One thing at a time,” Danielle said for the four hundred and seventy millionth time. “It’s not going to happen all at once.”

  Nicole came over to the wheelchair and leaned down to kiss me on the forehead.

  “You’re doing wonderfully,” she told me.

  Whatever.

  I sighed and looked up at her, all my pissiness gone along with my energy. Danielle helped me get back into bed—damn that chick was strong—and Nicole sat down on the edge. Danielle filled out her little charts and then left me for the day.

  “I’m fucking useless,” I mumbled, and Nicole shushed me.

  “You’re my hero,” she told me. She leaned closer, and her lips touched mine softly. “I love you.”

  Her hands went into my hair, and her tongue reached into my mouth. I groaned against her, wanting to wrap my arms around her and hold her tight against me, but I just couldn’t. It was easy enough to hate myself for it, but if I was going to be helpless, at least it was Nicole holding me up. Her hands slid down my arms and chest, then down to my stomach. Certain parts of my body were reminded of her touch and begged for more attention.

  “At least I know my dick still works,” I said with a grin. I tried to reach up and grope her tits, but my hand only managed to brush against them before it dropped back to the bed.

  Nicole gave me a sly smile, grasped my hand, and held it up against one of her breasts as she kissed me again.

  Yeah—my dick definitely still worked.

  “I’ve got to go babysit,” Nicole said as she broke away and laid my hand back on my stomach. “Jeremy said he was going to come by later, and I think a couple other guys were coming with him.”

  “Yeah,” I said with a nod, “Paul and Klosav.”

  “Clint still hasn’t come by?” Nicole asked quietly.

  I shook my head.

  “I told Jeremy to tell him not to be such a pussy,” I said. “He’s not listening, I guess.”

  “He offered to take me to prom,” Nicole said with a laugh. “To make up for all of it, you know?”

  This was not news I liked.

  “If he fucking touches you, I will get out of this bed and fuck him up.”

  “Hmm…” Nicole tapped her finger against her chin. “Are you trying to give me incentive?”

  “Don’t fucking think about it!”

  She smiled and shook her head before kissing me again.

  “Never,” she promised.

  “Damn straight!”

  “I’ll see you after school tomorrow, okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Love you.”

  I reached out and tried to grab her hand. She placed it in my palm.

  “I love you too, Rumple.” I took a big breath and huffed it out. “Sorry I’m such a jackass.”

  “I know how hard it is,” she told me. “I can see it. You are doing so much better. I know you don’t think so, but you are. Danielle said you’d be out of the hospital and into the rehab center by the end of the week at the rate you’re going.”

  “And how long there before I can even think about leaving? A month? Three? More?”

  Her hand smoothed my hair.

  “Fucking sucks.”

  “I know, baby.”

  We kissed a few more times, but I was too tired to beg her to stay any longer, and I didn’t want Sophie to be late to work or something. Nicole walked out, and I was left on my own to think too much.

  The main thing I was thinking about was something I had just noticed the previous night.

  Usually I dropped right off, too tired or medicated to think about much of anything, but last night had been different. I was tired, but I didn’t drop off right away. I was anxious, like I was waiting for something, but I didn’t know what it was.

  Then it hit me.

  I knew what was missing.

  What I was waiting for.

  I was waiting for the day to pass by again—detailing the activities and carving them into my brain for safekeeping. I was waiting for my overactive mind to replay my life from the morning to the night in exquisite detail.

  But it didn’t happen.

  I looked up at the new flowers Nicole had brought into the room—despite my insistence that boys didn’t g
et fucking flowers—and tried to remember what had been there before. Whatever they were, they had been yellow, and the new ones were kind of orangey-red, but I couldn’t remember exactly how they were different or what kind of flowers they had been.

  My mind had no image for me to recall.

  Shakespeare coined the phrase: “Make not your thoughts your prison.” Somehow, even though the phrase fit me perfectly right now, not remembering everything was definitely a blessing.

  Now maybe my mind could rest, too.

  “Hello, Thomas.”

  I looked up from my new bed in the rehabilitation clinic and saw a tall, lanky guy with blond hair and a soft, kind of effeminate voice despite the slight southern drawl.

  “Hey,” I said. I narrowed my eyes a little.

  “I’m Justin,” he said as he pulled up a chair to sit beside me. “I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know we’d be talking a bit while you’re here.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “Well, the accident,” he said, “and how you feel about the situation you are in now.”

  “Oh fucking hell,” I grumbled as insight struck me. “You’re a shrink?”

  He laughed softly.

  “Something like that,” he replied.

  “I don’t need a fucking shrink.”

  “Well, let’s talk a bit, and I’ll make that call, okay?”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Thomas, you’ve been through a significant amount of trauma,” Justin said. “You’ve been an extremely active individual with the potential to play soccer professionally. That changed drastically in a very short amount of time. You’re going to have to talk about how it’s affected you.”

  “How it’s affected me?” I shouted. I set my sarcasm to annihilate. “How it’s affected me? Really? Um, let’s see: I can’t walk; I’ve only been able to get myself to the john since yesterday; I can’t grope my girlfriend, and my Dad thinks I’m a fucking failure! That’s how it’s affected me. Good enough?”

  He just looked at me for a moment before nodding his head.

  “Yes, I do think we’ll be talking a bit more,” he said before he stood up and headed for the door. He called back over his shoulder. “We’ll have sessions for an hour every other day. I’ll have the nurse add it to your schedule.”