Dying For A Chance (10 page)

My heart made a painful flutter. What would I have done? I know what I would do now, the me of right now would say yes in an instant...wheelchair, no wheelchair....19 or not. But, a month ago? Had I been the kind of person that would look at a guy in a wheelchair and look past him? I had to admit that, yes I was. Or, at least I had been that kind of person. I definitely felt that I had been changed by meeting him. I felt more confident and more mature, even if we did sometimes sneak a ketchup packet onto the chairs of unsuspecting nurses. I rolled my entire body over and sat up to face him. He patiently waited for my answer.

“No,” I saw him wince and I quickly continued, “I would have said no and it would have been a mistake, a huge one.” his wince turned into a small grin.

“Nahh, you’re just trying to make me feel better.” he slid to the side of the bed and I held his muscular arm so he couldn’t retreat.

“I mean it Nic, before I met you I was....I made so many mistakes. I dated guys who were jerks because I thought they were “deep”, I dated guys who were needy because I thought they were “caring”. If it was left entirely up to me I would choose the wrong guy every time.” he seemed to perk up and leaned in to hear more.

“Now ask me this, if I saw you in a cafe tomorrow what would my answer be?” The cold
of his
muscle was freezing  my hand and I had to let go. “I would say yes.”

Nic leaned in close to me and I could see the deep brown of his eyes clearly, they were a little misty.

“Thanks,” his voice was soft and quiet, it made the hair on my arms stand up. He tugged on a strand of my bangs that had fallen into my eyes. “I never had much of a chance with girls. The ones I liked never seemed to see me.”

He put a hand on my cheek and stared into my face, looking at every detail like I might vanish the next minute. “Now, the girl I like can see me...finally, and I’m dead.”  He threw his hands down and scattered a couple of plastic drink cups. I didn’t know what to say. If I told him how I felt then it would be even worse on him. I wanted to push him away, to tell him that it wasn’t a big deal and he’d meet someone...but I knew that was a lie. I had his every feature memorized, the way his grin made him look like a little boy and that cowboy tune he always whistled when he thought it would annoy me. His chuckle and his pout were all etched into my mind and if...when... he left me, I knew that I would still see him in everything I did. How could I lie about all that?

I pulled his arm up until it was wrapped around my waist, an icy circle snugged around my middle. He looked surprised and smiled. I had thought I would just tell him what I was feeling. That I enjoyed being around him and he was the one person who had stuck with me and how he made me laugh and feel stronger and a million other things. Instead, I leaned down and kissed him. My lips felt frozen and tingly. It was like kissing an ice cube. He held my face and returned my kiss with forceful passion which curled my toes and a thousand steamy thoughts raced through my mind.

            We didn’t stop kissing and each tender meeting of our lips took my breath away. I held onto his neck while me heart raced away. I didn’t care if it was insane, I didn’t care if someone walked in and saw me smooching empty space...I was free. I felt totally and completely happy. Suddenly my hands pulled through him and I tipped nearly off of the bed.

            “What?” I looked over at Nic and found that he was barely a shadow. He had disappeared almost entirely. His hands still reached out to my face but I couldn’t feel his touch. His voice was like a whisper.

            “I can’t do this.” his eyes were misty again. “You need someone who’s going to be there for you, someone who can really be there with you....I’m sorry. If I could go back and change things, give us a chance to meet...in the real word, I would do anything to make that happen. But I won’t take your future from you so you’re trapped with me.”

He retreated to the window and called back over his shoulder before disappearing entirely, “I promised to help you get better and I’m going to do that but I can’t...I can’t be more for you than that. I’m sorry.”

            I knew what he was doing and I loved him even more for it. He knew what our future looked like and I respected him so much more for trying to save me but he was still young and didn’t know how love worked. I nodded my head, I accepted his decision to keep a friendly distance between us but I never planned to keep that promise.

~~~

 Nic approached our next two weeks of therapy with renewed vigor. It felt like he was going to pull me through entirely on his own.

            “Come on Samantha, you’re doing great.” my ghostly coach said while the burly man who was my physical therapist had one hand behind my back, lifting up on a support belt and the other waving encouragingly ahead of me. “Don’t look down, you’re almost there.”

            My knees felt like they were going to buckle and my left leg still hung back but it was coming along. I was actually shuffling along the mini track in some sort of weird three legged race. They had given me a walker to use during my first week but I had discarded it in favor of a silver cane. I felt it looked less old lady-ish. Besides, it made me work harder and that was something I had gotten used to as well. With all of Nic’s badgering and the therapists going on about trying my best the strangest thing had started to happen. I began to actually try harder.

            Nic raced around the track and taunted me, “Come on Sam, I’m beating you....you know what that means.” he skidded to a halt several feet in front of me. “I get to pick the movie tonight, and you’ll never guess what’s playing on Turner Classic...A Fistful of Dollars!” he was seriously happy. “If you beat me, you get to choose a different movie....let’s race.” He revved up pretend engines and we were off.

            I made it further than I had the previous week before collapsing from exhaustion. The therapist was really proud and it felt silly to admit but that made me happy.

By the end of the day  my therapist said it was time to start considering what I was going to do once I got out of the hospital. It was only a matter of days. That shocked me. I hadn’t really considered what I was going to do, where I was going to live. I sat on a chair in the gym, sipping water and trying to think about it while Nic continued to careen around the track. A deep familiar voice surprised me out of my thoughts.

“Samantha, it’s good to see you.” I turned around and Dr. Swaresh stood a few feet from me, wearing normal people clothes, no lab coat. He looked even more charming than I had remembered. I wanted to give him a hug, or a handshake...something.

“No, no please sit down.” he said as he pulled up a chair across from me and his warm smile spread across his handsome face. “ I had heard how well you were doing here and I wanted to come by and see for myself. Now that I am not your full time doctor I don’t get to see how you are doing so often.”

For an insane moment I panicked and thought that maybe Dr. Gannushkin had told him about my visions. I couldn’t imagine how I would feel if Dr. Swaresh thought I was nuts. I calmed down as quickly as I had tensed when I realized she still had her professional oath and she wasn’t likely to break that. Just to be safe, I decided not to bring her up anyway.

“I’m doing really good, they keep me so busy here I don’t have time to complain.” we both laughed and eased back into familiar conversation. He told me about his life and how he was getting along in Tulsa and I told him all the details about my therapy. After several long minutes it occurred to me that Nic hadn’t once interrupted us. He was usually right there to mock me when I flirted with Dr. Swaresh and tell me I was being silly. I looked around the gym and caught sight of him. He was leaning half out of his chair, pretending to take a great interest in some wall ropes. I understood immediately, he was trying to let me go. This was his way of giving me space so that I could fall in love with a normal guy.

“So, what do you think?” I startled. Dr. Swaresh had been going on about something and I missed it entirely. I felt so bad but I had to ask him to repeat what he had said. “Well, now that I’m not your primary physician I would like to take you out to dinner, once you are released from here of course.”

I hesitated but not because he was undesirable, he was smart and good looking, sweet and caring....literally everything I should be looking for in a man. But, he wasn’t Nic. I couldn’t see myself having the goofy kind of fun we enjoyed, like the card games where we dared the loser to spit paper balls across the hallway. Nic was my lifeline in this crazy situation and I wasn’t going to let him go just because he’d gotten all noble and tried to give me space. Then again, how long would it be until Nic would be gone? I thought of my future without him and it scared me, did we have weeks, months or only just hours? I had no way of knowing how much time we would have together. It was incredibly confusing.

“Yes, I would love to have dinner with you,  Dr. Swaresh” I sounded much more confident than I felt.

            Dr. Swaresh sat with me for a time and we talked more about the weather, the economy and other things that were all very adult and boring. The Dr. was an amazing man, smart and attractive but when it came to spontaneous fun and goofy humor...he was missing something. When he left I waved goodbye and promised to get well soon so we could go on our date.

            “A date? wooo woo.” Nic’s tone was only half hearted mocking. He gazed down at his lap and rolled the wheelchair back and forth. “What’s the plan...an intellectual evening at the opera and then some quick calculus before donating your leftovers to the starving children of Buttstankistan?”

            “Be fair,” I slapped the side of his arm. “He is a really smart man, we have intellectual conversations...”

            “So, you kids are going to be MENSA members, got it.” he mimicked a nose in the air, snooty attitude and gave the royal wave to therapists as they walked by.

            “Don’t do that.”

            “Do what?” he continued to wave until I hit him harder on the arm.

            “That... the being a jerk thing. I thought you were more mature than that. I thought you wanted me to find someone I could see myself with?”

            “Can you?”

            “Can I what?” This conversation was getting tiresome, it looked like we were going to have our first fight.

            “Can you seriously see yourself with him? I get it, he’s smart and you want people to think you’re smart....you are, don’t give me that look. What I’m saying is, I know you and I don’t think he is the kind of guy who would make you happy.” Nic pushed off and headed for another spin around the track before I could form a decent argument.

            I was going to tell him how kind the Dr. was, how gentle and caring. I would have listed all his attractive features, the deep set eyes and well groomed face. As I watched Nic race around the track, disappearing through other patients as they made their slow way around, I realized that this was Nic being jealous. He wanted me to find someone who was more like him. Well, he couldn’t have it all. I struggled to stand and a therapist helped me back to my room.

I waited for a long time before Nic came back to the room we shared. I was in the middle of watching A Fistful of Dollars and Clint Eastwood was knee deep in bullets and bad guys when he rolled in.

            “I see why you like this one, it’s really got a great soundtrack and everything.” I was becoming something of an expert on Italian westerns. Nic slowly moved to the side of the couch where I had my dinner tray all set up and a deck of cards pre-shuffled for our nightly game and movie. He hadn’t said a word since he’d come in and I thought he was still mad about my date and our fight. He looked so serious.

            “Sam,” he clenched his fists. “Do something for me, close your eyes?”

            His voice sounded full of emotion and I was compelled to follow his instructions. I had no idea what he’d planned but I knew he was hurting and I wanted to help him if I could. My eyes closed and in my mind I saw him as he would have been before the accident. His voice was smooth and sexy, my image of him wandered back and forth in front of me.

            “I’m sorry about what I said. I know that I was the one who told you to find someone,” he paused. “I shouldn’t be angry with you for choosing him, he really is a great guy and you two would have an amazing life.”