Page 10 of Love me, Maddie Mendoza

“Don’t you have a boyfriend to tend to?”

“I don’t tend to men, Z.” She snorted, bringing my leg straight again and then started once more.

The physiotherapy room of Statham Hospital became our new hang out since my surgery. With my ALC torn, my basketball days were behind me. In the last six months, those white walls, stupid weights, and friendly nurses were my life. I hated it.

I knew I was in a bad mood. I just wasn’t sure how to stop it. Maddie was the only one who could stand to be around me. Her perky mood never wavered. Her kind words distracted me from the pain. Maddie was my string of sanity during those days. She picked me up at my house and dragged me to physiotherapy, never caring how much of an asshole I was.

She brought me food, watched films. She was everywhere. I couldn’t understand how she was keeping a boyfriend when doing my biding had become her whole life.

Guilt pierced through my heart.

I was sad and confused. I was a mess, but Maddie…she didn’t deserve this shit. She had just met this dude Peter on the same day of my injury, and since then I’d been a needy fucker. I was cock-blocking their romance.

I wanted her to be happy with Peter. I always wanted her to smile. But I also never needed her this much. And in the war of my heart, selfishness won.

“Pete is fine, though.” She repeated the exercise. “I think you two are going to be good friends.”

Maddie beamed at me, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be anyone’s friend. Perhaps she knew it on some level, because Peter was never around.

“Tell me about your classes.” I changed the subject.

“I know what I want to do,” she said, her eyes still cast down, fixed on my knee like her eyes could magically cure it.

“Tell me.”

She bit her lower lip.

“What?” I asked and couldn’t stop the smile.

“You tell me first.” She pushed around.

“Me?”

“Yes, you told me you were thinking of a major.”

I didn’t want to be a cliché and tell her how many things changed since I found out I couldn’t play anymore. But I was a cliché. I was the definition of cliché.

I sighed. “I was thinking about Exercise Physiology.”

“Because you keep notebooks about how much of each workout your body can take?” she asked, laughing.

I took notes of what my body benefited from, but yes, it was true. I also took many biology classes just because the human body interested me, even though I never wanted to be a doctor or a nurse.

“Is it dumb?” I asked carefully, grimacing.

“Hurts?” She mistook my shame for pain. I shake my head, and she keeps going, helping my leg to bend in the right position. “I think it’s great, Z. That’s perfect for you.”

I nod, not telling her about the rehabilitation specialist who I’d been talking to at the center and how his help sparked my interest.

“You can tell me yours now,” I say.

“No, because yours wasn’t dumb.” She was looking down at my knee again.

I stopped her hand and my leg rested on the floor. “Come on, spill it.”

Maddie lowered down to a sitting position. Her legs stretched in front of her, she mused without taking in my face.

“Latin? Egyptology?”

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