Epilogue
Ten months later
It’s a warm August night on the Boulder campus, a soft breeze blowing as we settle onto the stone benches in the beautiful outdoor theater. Our semester just started, and CU’s improv group is about to begin their first show of the season. My belly flutters with anticipation. Auditions are next week, and this could be my new improv group someday soon. Correction: it could be our new improv group—Jason decided to go to CU, too. There are the mountains I’ve been waiting for on my right, and the boy I’ve always wanted on my left.
Perfect.
Jason kisses me sweetly on the lips and takes my crutches, tucking them behind our legs on the ground. Yes, ten months clomping around on these metal flanks. So, not everything is perfect. But I try not to complain. Mostly I just feel lucky, and I only have two more months to go before I’m crutch-free.
I had my nine-month follow-up appointment with Dr. Ray before Jason and I packed up our stuff and caravanned from Illinois to Colorado with our parents to move into both our dorms. Quinn is off traveling the world, but Hana and Craig are both living in New York City now and were with me at the appointment. Dr. Ray looked impressed when he asked me to lie on my stomach, reach back for my ankle, and pull my heel toward my butt to see how much rotation I’d regained in my knee. I was only three inches away from touching—way above their estimate of what I’d ever get back—and I’m determined to get to 100 percent.
Using the exercises Mrs. Lahiri and my physical therapist taught me, I get up every morning without fail to lie on my stomach on the floor with an icepack tucked under my lower thigh, just above my knee. I reach back and pull my ankle in as far as I can, to the threshold of pain, and hold it there, trying to breath instead of grimace. I push it a centimeter further for as many seconds as I can tolerate, and then flip over to do my quad isometrics, which are as boring as they sound.
As the show starts, Jason leans over and whispers, “I can’t wait to do improv with you up there someday.”
“I wish I didn’t have to audition with crutches. They make all my characters, you know, so crutchy all the time.”
“Just remember the second Mash-Up. If you perform like that, they’ll want to switch their form to crutch-prov.”
I kiss him on the cheek, and he puts his arm around me, pulling me even closer to him. Everything in me is warm and glowy. I still can’t believe he chose Boulder over all his other choices. He promised it was because of their experimental film program. But also, when I argued with him about his choice, he said, “Plus, Mom told me to always follow my heart. To follow love.”
What gets me even more was he made that choice during the most grueling, early months of my recovery, when I was stuck in bed, foggy from painkillers, with my leg in a passive motion machine for sixteen hours a day. I still don’t think my pushing him away and giving him a chance to get out while he could was wrong, but I’m grateful every day that he chose to stay. Because my miracle doctor lived up to his title, and now we’re here on the other side of cancer, on one of the most idyllic campuses in the country, about to watch what is sure to be some awesome improv.
Except…
As we crutch/walk from the theater after the show, across the quad and away from the crowd, Jason breaks our stunned silence by saying, “Wow. That was really, really…”
“Terrible,” I finish for him.
“Awful.” He throws his arms up.
We start cracking up so hard I stop and brace myself with my crutches so I don’t fall over. When I get enough control over my breathing, I squeak out through waves of laughter, “They were just talking heads up there.”
Jason clutches his stomach and says between snorts, “No characters…no movement…I think they were trying to get by on witty banter?”
“But they forgot the witty part.”
“It just went nowhere.” He starts imitating the mumbliest actor with his hands in his pockets, throwing out big words that don’t have a point.
I stiffen and make robot noises, “Boo-bee-bop-boop,” because that’s what they sounded like to me. After going back and forth with our mumbler and robot impressions, we lose it in another fit.
When the second fit fades, I start crutching back toward our dorms. “Are we being too mean? Were our expectations too high?”
“Probably. But we’ve also seen a lot of improv, so we know. And I know that right now I don’t want to be part of that group.”
“Maybe they had an off night,” I offer.
“Maybe.”
I stop on a little bridge over a pond to watch the moonlight reflecting on the water. “Maybe we start our own group.”
Jason puts his hands gently on my shoulders and kisses the nape of my neck. “Definitely.”
“We could incorporate video into our form somehow, like you were talking about.”
“I love that idea. Your brain is my favorite,” he says, getting back to kissing my neck and making my limbs so weak I’m close to losing my grip on the crutch handles.
My voice gets crackly as I try to persist with my inspiration. “We could name our group The Harrietts,” I say, thinking of my new pet goldfish. Harriett is smaller and spottier than Harold, but just as helpful. I promised her we’d all have great adventures together—though Harriett’s will be strictly from the safety of her bowl.
I turn to face Jason, and he lifts me onto the broad rail of the bridge. “Yes, let’s,” he says, as my crutches clatter to the ground.
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