CHAPTER SEVEN

Jay

 

When I got back home, I felt a strange mix of ridiculously happy and ridiculously messed up. I had almost made up my mind to forget the whole thing, always assuming it was possible to forget.

My mind was locked in a landscape of my imagining, filled with thoughts of Margo. I remembered how her body looked, pale and sweet, in the gray light. The indescribable feeling of her breasts under my tongue. The wetness of her around my throbbing manhood.

I heard someone cough disapprovingly.

“Oh. Sorry.”

I realized I had come to a halt in the bus doorway, my mind elsewhere. I moved out of the way and let the impatient commuter get on first.

I took the bus to my parents’ neighborhood and walked, wincing each time the crutches jolted on the uneven sidewalk.

Damn leg.

Now, more than anything, it annoyed me. I reached home just as it was going truly dark. Carri let me in.

“Hey,” I murmured.

“Hey.” She looked at me intently.

I had the uncomfortable sensation that she could read my mind, that somehow, by semimagic means, she knew exactly where I’d been and what I’d been doing.

“Sorry if I’m late for dinner,” I murmured.

She shook her head. “Not at all. It’s just me around. Your parents are still out.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

I went upstairs, wincing as my slow, halting progress made me click and sigh my way up the stairs. I was so impatient with the thing, they might as well have cut it off.

I sat down on the bed and tried to ignore the useless appendage that lay across the bottom of the bed. Withered and bruised and insensate it made so many things impossible. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t stand.

And, since the time of the injury four years ago, I hadn’t wanted to risk being intimate with someone. This—what just happened—was something I would never have dreamed.

Okay, I’d been with one or two girls, but they were fleeting one-night stands, and I had tried to blot out the expression in their eyes when they came into contact with the leg. I’d mostly been too drunk to notice.

Now I couldn’t stop thinking about intimacy. Everywhere I went it seemed like there was some delicious reminder. I remembered her long, slim legs wrapping my waist. The curve of her breasts, pressing into me. The slippery warmth as I played with her, my fingers stroking in between her thighs and how she would cry out and groan with longing.

I laid down and closed my eyes, and I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, someone was tapping on the door.

“Jay?”

I sat bolt upright. It was dark and my belly clenched, reminding me it was late and I had not eaten yet.

“Hey?” I called.

“Jay. Are you coming down for dinner?”

I sighed. “Yes, Mom.”

I went to join them all downstairs.

“How was your day?” my mom asked.

“Fine,” I murmured. I looked at my plate.

“Mm, that’s good,” she replied. “It was good weather. Was it still so nice when you went out?”

“It was,” I said.

“You went to the park?” My dad asked.

My cheeks burned. Dammit! I didn’t know what to say. I was confused enough on my own, thank you. I didn’t need to tell anyone about what had just happened to me.

“I was near there,” I said.

“It was a good day to be out.” My mom nodded. “We had a lovely time in the countryside, didn’t we?” She smiled at my father.

“Mm.” He nodded. “I had no idea you could run like that.”

Mom chuckled and told the story of chasing her hat across the field.

I smiled, enjoying their closeness. All the same, it made me feel a bit wistful. I reckoned such a thing was closed to me now. With this leg, the one woman I really felt like that about was sure to be put off.

Well, she didn’t seem too put off this afternoon. But, then again, she didn’t see it. Not exactly.

I felt happy, but I was also confused and sad.

I tried to keep it to myself, but I guess it’s very hard to hide your feelings from your mom. Whatever she had deduced from my silence, it was clear she’d noticed. And she was worried.

“Jay,” she asked as I made coffee and took it through to the darkened study after dinner. “What’s up?”

I sighed. “Nothing, Mom. Look…”

“No, don’t say that,” she said gently. “I know what that means. You’ve been saying ‘Nothing, Mom,’ since you were four years old…”

“Mom,” I laughed, somewhat self-conscious, interrupting her. “I’m not four now…”

“No, you’re not,” she said with an air that meant that I wasn’t four and I was behaving as if I was.

I laughed. “Well, maybe there is something up…” I left the sentence hanging, feeling unsure what to say next. I didn’t know if she’d understand.

“You don’t have to tell me,” my mom said cautiously. “But if you want to, you know I’d like to hear.”

“Well,” I said slowly. “I want to tell someone, for sure.”

She laughed. “Good.”

I sat quietly for a while. I wasn’t sure what to tell Mom. She had known about me dating Margo, though I hadn’t actually introduced them to each other. I thought Mom wouldn’t understand my predicament if I told her now.

“Well,” I said. “I met a girl.”

“Oh?” She looked interested at once and I laughed.

“Hell, Mom, you needn’t look so surprised.”

“I’m not surprised,” she said, self-conscious. “I mean…that’s great.”

I grinned. “You mean, for a guy with one leg, that’s something impressive?”

“No! You know I didn’t.” She looked appalled. “Stop it, Jay.”

“Stop what?” I asked with a lazy smile. A part of me enjoyed the discomfort on her face. I couldn’t quite say why. Maybe it was just seeing someone else feeling a tiny bit of the pain I felt. Or maybe it was a sort of self-torture for me, like pouring acid on my own wounded pride.

“You know there’s nothing wrong with you,” she said tightly.

“No, I don’t.”

My voice must have been more cutting than I intended because Mom looked like she was about to cry. I instantly felt bad.

“Mom. I’m sorry. Mom…please…”

Dammit, now I wanted to cry too, seeing her all choked up like that. This was just brilliant.

Well done, Jay. Your people skills are improving. How many people have you upset today?

“Sorry, Jay,” she said, blinking hard. “I understand.”

“Mom, you didn’t do anything,” I said tightly. “I…this is hard.”

She sighed. “I know, Jay. I understand.”

She didn’t, but I knew she was trying to say she loved me and cared about me. And I valued that. I really did. Everyone needs love and care.

“It’s just…” I paused. “This is the first time since, well…since that happened…that I’m thinking seriously about someone.”

“Oh?”

This time, she tried not to sound too interested.

I smiled and reached over for her hand. “It’s okay, Mom. I understand your surprise. I am too.”

She smiled. Her bony fingers squeezed my muscled palm. “I guess you are,” she said gently. “But really, I don’t know why you would be.”

I chuckled. “Well, not many girls want disabled guys.”

She shot me a look. “How would you know?”

That made me smile. “Well, I guess I wouldn’t. I’m not a girl, am I?”

“Well, quite!”

We both laughed. It had been too long since I spent time with Mom. In many ways, we were very alike. She always seemed to have this weird ability to read my mind, and I could do the same with her. After a long moment, she asked me something.

“What’s worrying you?”

“Well…” I considered it. “The thing is…I don’t want a woman to feel sorry for me. And I hate the pitying looks, the whole thing. You know that.”

“You said so,” she said quietly. “But…you know, have you considered you might sometimes imagine it?”

I blinked. “No. I don’t. It’s there.”

She sighed. “I can’t argue with you, Jay. I don’t want to. But I’m just suggesting that sometimes you expect people to pity you when they don’t.”

“You don’t know what it feels like,” I said hotly. “I used to be recognized everywhere. Now, even if someone does know who I…who I was…it’s different.”

Mom reached for my hand again. I flinched but didn’t withdraw. She touched it gently. Her skin was papery and soft. I felt myself relax. There’s something very special about a mother’s touch sometimes.

“This is hard for you,” she said levelly. “I think it’s hard for anyone. I can’t imagine how it feels to wake up one day in a body that’s different. Especially when your body was so much a part of who you are. But Jay…only you think it lessens you as a person.”

I snorted. “Me, and my teammates and manager. And thousands of fans.”

“No,” she said softly. “You think they think that. Did you ask?”

“No.”

“Well, then,” she said. “My point exactly.”

I sighed. This wasn’t getting me any closer to understanding the situation with Margo. I was fairly certain she’d take my injury pretty hard. Admittedly, she hadn’t asked about it. If I hadn’t known, it was completely impossible not to notice it. In fact, I’d think she hadn’t.

“Mom, I don’t know what to do.”

“You mean, this girl?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“What bothers you about her?” she asked. “Is she strange about it? Your leg, I mean?”

I laughed. “That’s pretty direct, Mom.”

She blushed. “I’m sorry, son. I just asked.”

Oddly, her refusal to inch around the point made me feel like it was more acceptable, somehow.

“Well, not exactly, no. In fact, she seems not to have noticed.”

Mom blinked. “Well, that’s not so bad.”

I sighed. “It’s just…I’ve changed so much and….well…I worry that she’s attached to the old me.”

Mom frowned.

I guess that, since she didn’t know the history that wouldn’t make sense.

“Would it make a difference to her?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think,” she said slowly, “that you should give this thing time. I mean, instead of assuming that she’s going to be put off by your injury, why not give her a chance to show you what she thinks?”

“Well, it might be painful,” I acknowledged.

“It might be,” Mom agreed levelly.

I laughed. “Thanks, Mom. You’re really compassionate.”

She grinned brightly. “You know what I mean, son,” she said. “I mean, at the end of the day, isn’t it better to receive an honest wounding than to live your life expecting one that might never really happen?”

I blinked. “I guess so.”

She said nothing, just reached across and put her hand on mine. “Well, then. I think that makes sense.”

“Me too.”

We sat quietly for a while and then she stood heavily.

“I guess I should go see if the dishes are washed yet,” she said.

I stretched, feeling the knots in my back ease out. One of the things about crutches was they gave you a hell of a backache sometimes. “I’ll help.”

She put a hand gently on my shoulder. “You don’t have to.”

“I know,” I said, covering her hand with my own. “But I want to.”

She smiled. “It’s good to have you back.”

“I can unpack things,” I said with a chuckle.

She pulled a face. “Son, you know that’s not the point.”

“I know.”

We were both still laughing when we went down to the kitchen.

Later, I sat upstairs and thought over what she had said. I guess I did tend to assume that people cared about what I looked like and what I could do. It never really occurred to me to wonder if they liked me for who I was.

Maybe Margo never fell in love with just my body. Maybe she liked me.

It was a revolutionary idea.

I chuckled to myself as I reached for my laptop. You’d think I would have thought about something like that before now. But I hadn’t.

Everything, from my college acceptance to my friends—it all seemed to come through my ability to play pro football.

Now, with a paralysis of the leg, I had thought I’d lost everything. This conversation with Mom was the first time in almost four years that I’d thought about the good things in my life as arising from anything other than my ability to walk, jog and tackle.

But maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t so.

I opened my email and started writing.

Hi Margo, I wrote. I paused. How to say what I wanted to say without letting on how highly attracted I was? How much I couldn’t stop thinking about earlier? How much I wanted more of that?

Hi Margo. It was great to see you. I was wondering if you’d like to join me for dinner tomorrow night? It’d be good to catch up some more.

I closed my eyes and sent it.

Whew.

When it was gone, I found my mind following another track. I thought about how seeing Margo had made me feel. She was so, so sexy. Those red lips had made my loins ache. I wanted to push my tongue between them and explore the wet cave of her mouth like I remembered doing.

I knew she’d probably be shocked. She had a right to know about my leg. About my story. I would have to go slowly.

All the same, I was excited about tomorrow. There were so many things I wanted to say to Margo, so many things I wanted to tell her and ask her and show her.

So many things I wished I could do—hold her hand, kiss those red lips, feel that soft, cool skin under my warm hands. But I should stop thinking about things like that. I couldn’t expect that Margo would want to have anything to do with me anymore, not as I was now.

All the same, there was nothing wrong with hoping.