Chapter 6
When it was decided that he had healed enough to start physical therapy, a nurse came into his room with a wheelchair.
“Morning Mr. Boyer. You ready to go to physical therapy?”
No, he wasn’t. He’d decided it wasn’t worth it when they’d tried yesterday to get him up and walking a bit. The pain was too much. Was much easier to just give up.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll help you into the chair.”
She came over and pulled back his blankets. He no longer had an IV, which was nice because he wasn’t tethered to anything, but also sucked because now he had to take pills for the pain and they took longer to work than the injections.
She brought the chair right next to his bed and reached down to turn his body so that his legs hung off the side. She was strong for her size. Stronger than he’d imagined she would be. With his legs over the edge, she put her arm around his back.
“On three.” She counted and helped support him as he shakily pushed against the floor to stand. He fell into the seat ungracefully, and she adjusted his feet onto the little footrests. “Here we go.”
She wheeled him off and took him to another floor, then into the therapy room. A man looked up when they entered and checked his clipboard. “Kenny Boyer?”
Kenny nodded and the nurse who had brought him down patted his shoulder before walking away.
“Ready to get started?” the man asked. “I’m Jeff. I’ll be your therapist while you’re here.”
Kenny nodded again.
“Okay then. Looks like they had you try to walk a bit yesterday. How’d that go?”
“Well, I didn’t walk down here, so you can probably guess.”
“Then we’ll do some seated stretches first and see where we get with that.”
Jeff walked to a wall full of bands and foam blocks and stools. He came back with a red stretchy band.
“You’ve already got compression socks on, so that’s good,” Jeff said. “You’ll wear those for a while. Maybe even a few years anytime you do anything to work the muscle. First, we’re going to do some calf stretching.”
Jeff demonstrated how Kenny was to stick out his leg and put the band at the bottom of his feet toward his toes, then pull on the band to stretch the muscle. Right. Like that was going to happen.
“Let’s get you on the table,” he said.
Kenny pushed up on his good leg and hopped over to the table, then swung his legs up. Jeff handed him the band.
“Okay, let’s get started.”
Kenny put the band to his toes and almost immediately, the pain shot up his leg. He didn’t pull on it, and after a second, he let it go.
“Need to hold it for at least a ten count to be effective.”
Kenny shook his head. “Hurts too much.”
“It’s going to hurt a bit. That muscle has faced a lot of damage. You have to work through the pain. If it’s severe or sharp pain, let me know. But you’re an athlete. You can tell the difference.”
“It hurts like a sharp pain.” He dropped the band and looked at Jeff with a blank face. This was stupid. He wasn’t going to torture himself like this.
“Okay, then let’s ice it for a bit.”
Jeff disappeared and came back with an ice pack. He positioned it under Kenny’s calf, but even the cold hurt. After a second, he had to move his leg off it.
“I can’t. It hurts too much.”
Jeff looked at him. “Kenny. I know you’re used to putting yourself through pain to play. And being a shifter, you’ve faced the pain of your early shifts. You can do this. You have to set your mind to get past the pain.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then there’s not much we can do here.” Jeff crossed his arms and waited, like Kenny was going to change his mind.
But instead, he slid off the table and back into the wheelchair. “I’ll just wheel myself up.”
“Kenny. You can’t just give up. I know it’s hard, but it’s worth it. You’ll be able to play again. Don’t you want that?”
Kenny shrugged. “Doesn’t much matter at this point.”
“Why is that?”
“I’ve already given up.”
“Would it be better if you did your therapy in bear form? We can accommodate that. Have you shifted since the injury?”
He shook his head. And no way was he going to. Shifting caused a lot of trauma to the bones and muscles. It was painful on a good day. But with this leg being how it was? No way. The pain would be too much.
“Shifting will help. We need to get you started on that,” Jeff said. “You have a huge advantage, you know. Shifting changes your muscles completely. You’ll heal faster, too. But that also means we have to work hard now. If it heals badly, it could affect you for years. Let’s go ahead and get you into the shifter room.”
Jeff walked over to a set of large doors and held one open. Kenny looked at him, looked through the open doorway into a large empty room, and wheeled himself in the opposite direction.
“Kenny!” Jeff caught up with him. “Why are you leaving?”
“It hurts too much and it’s hopeless. There’s no point. Move.”
Jeff stood in front of him, his arms crossed, unmoving. “I can’t let you go like this. It’s my job to make you better, to push you to be better.”
“Then I guess you should get a new job because I’m not doing it.” Kenny pushed down hard on the wheels and shot the chair forward, crashing into Jeff’s shins with the metal footrests. He jumped back, out of the way.
“Okay,” Jeff said as Kenny wheeled toward the door to leave. “You get a pass today. Tomorrow you will come down here ready to work. Understand?”
Kenny held up his middle finger, then pushed the button to open the doors. He wheeled himself out, got into the elevator, and froze. He didn’t know what floor he was on. He hadn’t needed to know because he hadn’t been off the floor alone. He was on floor two right now. He hit the button for three.
When the doors opened, he looked through them and tried to decide if it was his floor or not. He didn’t really know what his floor looked like. He hit the button to go to four. Same thing. Five, six. They all looked the same. Well, he’d given up on everything else. He sat back and did nothing.
The doors closed and the elevator moved down. Someone got on, pressed the button for three, and got back off. He rode the elevator up and down for a while. Then a nurse got on.
She gave him a look and asked, “What floor are you going to?”
He shrugged.
She bent over to look at the security bracelet on his wrist, then hit the button for four. He looked down, too. Had it said where he belonged this whole time?
“Where are you coming from?” the nurse asked.
“Physical therapy.”
“No one escorted you?”
“Obviously not.”
She shook her head and wheeled him out of the elevator when the doors opened. She took him to the nurse’s station and Kenny saw Audrey get up and meet the nurse. They talked quietly, then Audrey nodded and the other nurse walked off. Audrey came over to him and put her hands on her hips.
“What are you doing to yourself?” she asked.
He let his gaze turn stoney and looked anywhere but at her. She pushed him into his room. Number 408 he saw. He needed to remember that. She positioned the chair beside the bed.
“Do you need help or can you do it yourself?” she asked.
“Doesn’t matter.” He didn’t make a move.
Audrey stood in front of him again and this time, leaned forward to wrap her arms around him. This was going to be good. She thought she could pick him up?
She had locked his footrests and when she pulled on him, his feet caught, and it sent him upward so that he was standing. He blinked in surprise, then scooted himself onto the bed.
“Have I managed to impress you?” she asked.
“Always,” he muttered flatly.
She moved the wheelchair out of the way and took her seat at his side. “Now. Tell me what in the world just happened.”
“You got me out of the chair.”
“Before that. At physical therapy. You were scheduled for an hour and left after fifteen minutes.”
“Couldn’t do it.”
“Bullshit.”
“Are nurses supposed to curse like that?”
“Does it look like I care? You’re giving up,” she accused.
“No.”
“Oh, you’re not?’
“I’m not giving up. I’ve already given up. It’s done. Over.”
“And what does that mean?”
He looked into her eyes and said, “My life is over.”
“You seem pretty alive to me.”
“Maybe on the outside.”
“Do you want to talk to someone? Get some help? Please? I hate to see you like this.”
“I’ll leave here and you’ll forget all about me.”
She shook her head. “No, I won’t. You’re not like my other patients.”
“Yeah. They’re nice. Compliant.”
She leaned forward and whispered, “And boring,” then winked at him. “So, come on. Tell me what I can do to help.”
“Make my leg better.”
“Perfect! You have physical therapy again tomorrow. You’ll go down there and do what Jeff says and you’ll make it all better. That was easy. What else?”
“You know, I don’t appreciate your patronizing tone. It’s not easy. Don’t act like you can just fix it by being cheerful. You’re so fake, I can’t stand it. When do you get mad? Don’t you ever just hate life and and want to die?”
She nodded. “There’s the Kenny I remember.”
“Fuck off.”
“I know it’s not easy. But I am trying to be cheerful and encouraging for your sake. You need that. It’s not fake. It’s practiced and there’s a difference. I get mad. I get sad. Just like anybody else. But I go on with my life, and it gets better. No matter how good or bad things are in life, they never stay that way for long. We all go from one thing to the next, hoping it’ll be better as we go.”
“You didn’t answer the last question.”
She let out a long sigh. “Yes, I’ve hated life and wanted to die. But I moved on and it got better. Now I enjoy my life and it’s not bad at all.”
“When?”
“When what?”
“When did you hate your life and want to die?”
She looked down at her hands for a long moment. Watching her expression change to one of somberness made him eager for her response. This was something serious, and she was about to tell him. His heart ached at the thought of her hurting like he was now. But whatever she went through couldn’t have been as bad as what was happening to him now. Even as hard as losing his dad was, it was nothing compared to this.
“It was about eight years ago. When I was 16.”
“Why?”
“It’s not really something I like to talk about. It was a difficult time and it’s taken a lot for me to move on. But I have. And you can, too.”
“Sixteen,” he said. What could be so bad in a sixteen-year-old’s life that would make her become suicidal? “Let me guess. Failed your driver license test, boyfriend broke up with you, people were bullying you.”
She narrowed her eyes slightly at him. “All those things did happen, actually, but that wasn’t what made me depressed. Those things just made it worse.”
He pulled his eyebrows together. Not the answer he was expecting. He’d figured it was some teen drama that seemed petty once you hit adulthood. Now his heart was racing. This sounded like something a lot more serious.
“Tell me,” he pleaded. He made his expression softer and held her stare intently.
She shook her head and smiled. “Like I said, it’s over now and I’ve moved on. What we need to do is make a plan for how to get you better. Maybe it’s time you think about taking an anti-depressant until you work through some of the negative emotions and get into your healing. They help a lot of people, and so does talking to someone.”
“Is that what you did? Took pills and talked to someone?”
“I did, yes.” Her right hand trailed to her left wrist and she absently traced it with her fingertips.
He reached over and grabbed her wrist, turning it so that he could see the scars. She wore a bracelet there. Always a thin rubber bracelet that covered the scars mostly. But he could see the faded pink line peaking out from under it. He moved to slide the bracelet down, but she yanked her hand back first.
“That’s not the way to move on. Trust me.” Her words were cold and hard.
“So, you tried to kill yourself.”
“And almost succeeded. If it weren’t for the nurses and hospital personnel…”
“That’s why you’re a nurse?”
“Probably.” She let out a heavy sigh. “It changed my life. Obviously. And I’m so grateful that they saved me. I wanted to give it back, I suppose. Help others. Like you.”
“Except you won’t tell me why you were so depressed.”
“It doesn’t matter why. What matters is that I was able to recover, and now it’s your turn to do the same.”
He reached over and took her hand. His fingertips traced the lines of her scar, much like she had a few moments ago. “Please tell me.”
She pressed her lips together. “It was a lot of things. It was all around a really hard time.”
“So, you know everything about me. You expect me to talk to you, but you won’t share this one thing? This thing that might help me?”
“I don’t see how it would help you to know.”
“Because if I know how hard it was for you, maybe it’ll give me hope.”
He could see her jaw muscles working, and she looked away from him to think. Finally, she took in another long breath and met his gaze. “You really want to know?”
“I do,” he said softly. “Please.”
“When I was sixteen, my dad left. It was a really hard time for me and my mom and that alone had us both sad. I was angry, too, and started drinking and doing drugs. I had this boyfriend, and we’d been together a while. He’d been wanting to have sex. All his friends had and he was the last virgin, so he kept begging me. I was vulnerable enough that I agreed. I thought maybe it would take my mind off things, and I knew it would make him happy. So we planned this special night, except when we started taking off our clothes, I panicked and changed my mind. I told him I didn’t want to. He didn’t like that answer, so he raped me.”
Kenny sucked in a sharp breath and his hand tightened into a fist.
“It gets worse,” she said. “He broke up with me after that. But when he was having sex with me, he also took a photo. Then he showed everyone at school and they all started calling me names and saying I was a slut. Guys were hitting on me all the time because they thought I was easy. I did fail my driver’s test somewhere in there because I just couldn’t focus, but that was the least of my worries. Because then I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t want to have an abortion. I thought that would just be one more awful thing on top of everything else, but my mother refused to let me keep it and still live with her. I didn’t really have a choice, so I had an abortion.”
He squeezed her hand and the ache in his heart increased. He wanted to comfort her and make everything okay again.
“If all that wasn’t enough, I got some sort of infection. They told me I won’t be able to have kids. So, after dealing with all of that for about a month, on my seventeenth birthday, I got drunk and slit my wrist. Woke up in the ICU two days later.”
He swallowed hard. So much had happened to her in one short period of time. It was worse than what he faced now. So much worse. As much as he ached for her, he also felt like a huge asshole. She’d gone through all of that and was still here, and more than that, was living a happy life. And his big problem was it might be painful for him to heal enough to play ball again?
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “That’s an awful year.”
“It was.”
“And I’m sorry, too, for the way I acted. I feel like what I’ve gone through…”
She squeezed his hand. “What you’ve gone through has been very difficult. But you can get through it.”
“Yeah. Maybe. I mean, if you made it through all of that.”
“Exactly. And look at me now.”
“You’re so strong, Audrey.” He looked intently into her eyes and wished he could lean forward enough to kiss her. But even if he could reach her, it probably wasn’t appropriate. “I really admire you.”
“Thanks.” She gave him a big smile. “Does that mean you’ll go to physical therapy tomorrow?”
“Maybe. If you’ll be the one to take me down.”
“I think that can be arranged.” She stood. “I have to see my other patients. Thanks for talking with me.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
She walked to the door.
“Audrey,” he called after her.
She stuck her head back around the wall to see him. “Yeah?”
“Thank you. Really.”
She smiled and left the room.