Page 60 of How to Walk Away

Finally, I tried this: “Did you know you can drink your own pee?”

His head popped up, and he was all surprise, and he flashed a shocked smile for half a second before dropping his head back down. “I didn’t know that, no,” he said, getting back to work.

But now I knew that smile existed. I wanted another one.

“Some tweed coats are dyed with it.”

Nothing.

“Romans used to brush their teeth with it to whiten them.”

When that didn’t get a response, I peeked around at the side of his face to see if he was stifling a smile. He was.

He was hooking giant rubber bands around my ankles now, for resistance. Then he rolled me over onto my stomach and told me pull against them until I could touch my heels to my butt. Apparently, it would strengthen my hamstrings, which were still working.

“You want me to touch my heels to my butt?”

“Just try.”

“Do I have to actually touch?”

“No.”

“Are you saying trying is more important than succeeding?”

“Always.”

Another long silence while I tried, and failed, to touch my butt with my feet.

“Not a big talker, are you?” I said.

“Not when I’m working.”

“Other people seem to be able to do both.”

“I’m not other people.”

“Apparently not.”

“We’re here to get you stronger. Not joke around.”

Just then, a group of other PTs burst out laughing at something one of the patients had said.

I met his eyes. “Okay.”

But I couldn’t leave it alone. I have never, ever, been comfortable with silence. I can’t get a massage, or a manicure, or even a pelvic without making constant chitchat the entire time. I cannot be in the presence of another human being, especially one I don’t know very well, and nottalk—whether they want to or not. I surveyed the other PTs, chatting away so solicitously with their patients. If I’d had one of them, I might’ve stayed more passive and let the conversation come and go—but being stuck with the king of quiet stirred up all the compulsive-need-to-talk chemicals in my body, and I just started yammering on like a nut-job.

Anything, I had apparently decided, was better than nothing.

Hence this monologue, delivered on my back, to the ceiling, as Ian made me push against various objects with my legs:

“Did you know I got engaged on the same day this injury happened? You probably do. Everybody seems to. The nurses keep talking about it. I hear them in the hallway. They feel very sorry for me. They can’t imagine what it must be like to be me. Which is funny, because I can’t either. The best day of your life and the worst day are the same day. How does that bode for a marriage? If it even happens. If your once-charming prince doesn’t turn into a seedy alcoholic and die in some gutter somewhere. And now I’m wearing this ring—and I don’t even want to. Or maybe I do. I don’t know who I am. I used to be a runner. I ran three different marathons. I didn’t place or anything, but I knew how to push myself, and I knew how to be dedicated. When things got tough, I went for a run. I ran in the rain. I ran at night sometimes—or at four in the morning. What am I going to do now? Go fora roll? I can’t move. I can barely breathe. But then I think, who am I to complain? There are girls who’ve been sold into slavery. There are children being beaten. Half the world is worse off than me—probably more. Half the time I feel petulant and whiny, and the other half, I think I’ve suffered something beyond human imagining. And I can’t find an in-between. All I know is that my life as I knew it is gone. Nothing is the same. Food doesn’t even taste the same. Voices don’t sound the same. Things I used to love, I hate. Things I used to hate, I hate. I don’t want to see anyone, I don’t want to talk to anyone. My cell phone has like fifty messages. I hate myself, and I hate everybody else. I think about dying. It seems like it would be easier. But then I don’t want to die. I just don’t want to live either. My mom says the only way I can get better is to believe I will get better—to be such a determined maniac that even the laws of nature can’t stop me—butthen I look at these noodles I have for legs and I can’t believe it. It’s like asking me to believe the sky is green. The sky is just not green—you know?—and I can’t pretend that it is. All I know is, I don’t feel anything at all—not even hope.”

Somewhere in my soliloquy, I’d closed my eyes. By the time I ran out of words and fell quiet, I noticed Ian had set my legs down and was no longer touching me. Had he walked away? Gone for a coffee? Left for the day? I knew he wasn’t listening, but something about the idea that he wasn’t even there stung a little bit.

I opened my eyes, and that’s when I saw that he’d stood up and was leaning in to take my hands. “Sit up,” he said, not looking at me, in a way that gave the distinct impression I was just another annoying obligation in his day.

I took his hands, but he did not pull me up. He just held them while I worked my way to a sitting position.

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