“Quit being a pussy.”

I press the stop button on the treadmill and bow my head to take a deep breath. I’m this close to telling Jimmy to fuck off. And that’s not going to help the situation. The nurse frets over me and asks me if I need some more water. I stare right through her and hope that she’ll go away.

There are too many people crammed into this tiny room watching me at my worst. The therapist, a nurse, another doctor who I’m reasonably certain is only here to watch the game on TV, and Grazi and Jimmy too.

It’s been four weeks of this, and physical therapy is no fucking joke. I’m tired and irritable, and I have the attention span of a toddler right now as well as the emotional capacity of one too.

“This is what you wanted,” Jimmy says. “If you’re hell-bent on keeping that leg, then you need to work for it.”

Again, I’d like to tell him to fuck off. But Grazi would probably put a hex on me for using that kind of language in front of her.

“It’s easy for you to say.”

My leg was in bad shape before, but I guess the screws that held it together were no match for a speeding car. The events of that night are still mostly fuzzy. There are fragments I can recall. Like my decision to buy a bottle of Jack instead of facing Lola. But she found me anyway, and by that time I was already three sheets to the wind. She yelled, and I mostly listened. And then she left.

That’s the part where everything else just disappeared. Jimmy told me I walked right out into the middle of traffic. Naturally, the good doctors here at the hospital where they’ve held me hostage for the last two month assumed I was suicidal. So, my initial time here was spent undergoing fun tests in which they tried to determine the root cause of my issues.

After countless hours of therapy, I finally had a diagnosis.

I was an asshole.

And yes, that is what the head doctor told me. I was pleased as punch that I wasn’t certifiable, but they still didn’t give me the green light to leave. In order to do that, I had to be functional, apparently.

But today is my last day in the joint and it would seem I’m the only one who’s happy about it. Grazi hasn’t stopped pacing all morning, and Jimmy just keeps giving me motivational pep talks. Find your balls, kid. Did you grow a vagina while you were in here? My eighty-year-old father can move faster than you.

Needless to say, it’s been swell, and while I’m grateful for the support they’ve provided over the last month, I’m also painfully aware of those who haven’t visited me. Most notably, Lola.

I would have thought that getting hit by a car might have earned me some sympathy and at the very least a sponge bath, but no such luck. It isn’t like her to be so cold. Which leaves me with one conclusion. She really does hate my guts.

I marinate on that while the therapist helps me perform some guided stretches. Ideally, I’d still be on the treadmill working on my endurance, but my motivation seems to have flown out the window, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“I don’t think he’s ready to go home,” Grazi whispers to the doctor.

“I’m right here, Grazi. And amazingly enough, my hearing is still intact.”

Jimmy flicks the back of my head. “What about your brain?”

The doctor drags his eyes away from the television long enough to give me my walking papers. I sign them while Graziela mumbles her disagreement in Portuguese.

They walk me out of the hospital in a wheelchair, and I’m holding a vase of yellow flowers that are designed to make me forget that I’m a pathetic cripple. People who never spared me a second glance before fawn all over me when we get to my building. There are cookies and casseroles and more flowers- also yellow- and I hate this.

But Grazi is happy because this was all her doing and she thinks it will help me forget that I’m a fuck up who did this to myself.

For the entirety of the next three weeks, they take up residence in my apartment. Jimmy watches TV and eats sandwiches all day, and Grazi cooks and freezes enough meals to feed me and the entire nation for the next seven years.

The therapist comes every day and tortures me for an hour and Jimmy drags me back to my regularly scheduled doctor’s appointments. I eat and lounge around and fall out of my chair when I try to get up, and I can’t even shower by myself, and I’m fucking over it.

My mood only sours with time, and by week four every little thing they do is annoying me. When I wheel my way to the cabinet in the kitchen, I discover that Jimmy has cleaned out my liquor supply. And it isn’t what I went there for, but that’s not the point.

“You have to go,” I tell him. “You’ve both been good to me, and you’ve done too much, and I’m grateful beyond measure. But you have to fucking go.”

He nods, and Grazi has a meltdown.

“I get it, kid,” Jimmy says. “But we can’t leave you alone here. You can’t take care of yourself.”

“Let’s just call it motivational therapy,” I say. “When you have no other choice, you make due.”

“No.” Grazi crosses her arms and glares. “You will not stay here by yourself, Adrian. I will not allow it.”

I sigh, and I knew it would come to this. “Fine. I’ll hire a nurse then. A hot one.”

My joke is lost on them because it’s as dry as a piece of toast. Whatever semblance of manhood I had left died in the middle of the street that night. And I’m still uncertain whether it was the car or Lola who stole it away.

Grazi tries to argue again, but Jimmy cuts her off. “Get a nurse. A real, live, breathing one. And then we’ll be happy to go.”

“Fine,” I agree. “Done.”

“Fine,” Jimmy echoes.

“Fine.” Grazi throws her hands in the air and storms out of the room.