Page 105 of How to Walk Away

I was a better liar than I thought. Though that kind of was what he’d said.

“Is he right?” Kit asked.

“No!” I said. “Nobody can take these problems away. Unless this toe thing turns out to be a surprise miracle.”

“He didn’t return your feelings at all? Nothing?”

“Nothing,” I said. “He basically told me that I have all his best wishes as a healthcare professional, but to shut the fuck up and go to bed. Then he tried to make me do just that, tripped on a rag rug, and got crushed under my dead weight. Insult to injury.”

“He’s lying,” Kit said. “I see the way he looks at you.”

I couldn’t help it. “How does he look at me?”

“Like you’re a waterfall in a desert.”

Did he?The idea of it made my stomach flip. But I had to keep obfuscating. “Guess what else? He knew how I felt before I even told him because I’ve been mooning at him for weeks, and he didn’t discourage me because he thought it might help my recovery.”

“Narcissist!” Kit shouted.

“Yeah,” I said. “But the thing is, he wasn’t wrong. You know you always work harder for teachers you have crushes on.”

Kit nodded, and just from knowing her face almost as many years as I’d known my own, I knew I was in the clear. She’d bought it.

“I guess now,” she said, “you’ll just have to work hard for yourself.”

“I guess I will,” I said.

And that was true—whether I was lying or not.

***

THE BIG-TOE MIRACLEturned me into quite the celebrity. Doctors who had lost interest were suddenly popping by several times a day. Other patients on the floor wanted to get the story firsthand. Kit even drew me a homemade card that read, “Toe-tally excited about your big breakthrough!!”

It was such a busy flurry that the shenanigans with Ian seemed distant very quickly. I had bigger fish to fry, I let myself think. I’d get walking again, and then I’d grow my hair out, and then I’d pop by the hospital one day, pretending to look for—what? A lost earring? A book I’d lent out?—and he’d behold me in the hallway, tall and fierce and perfect and invincible. He’d say a sad hello because he’d know he’d missed his chance, and I’d give him a little wow-we-really-could-have-been-something smile, and then I’d flip my hair, walk away, and let him choke on the dust of his own regret.

I will never, ever divulge how many times I partook of that particular fantasy. But I will confess that for some reason, in it, I was wearing the exact same shiny hot pants and high-heeled Dr. Scholl’s that Olivia Newton-John is wearing in the grand finale ofGrease. And I had her fantastic butt, too.

All to say, when I saw Ian again in the therapy gym for the first time since our trip to the lake, the sight of him took me by surprise. He was back in his usual blue scrubs, with his hair in its usual slightly spiky configuration, but what caught me off guard was his new demeanor. He wasn’t the hostile, sullen Ian I’d first met, but he sure as hell wasn’t the warm, goofy Ian I’d allowed myself to swoon over.

This new Ian wasjust not there. I couldn’t quite find the word for it,but he was just gone. His posture was blank. His shoulders were blank. His eyes were blank. He was like a pod person.

He still did everything he was supposed to. He still walked me through all my paces. He showed up on time. He even went the extra mile to bring in experts to consult and make sure we were doing everything possible. But he never smiled. He never relaxed.

And not once after we came back from the lake did he call me Maggie again.

***

BY THURSDAY, WITHexactly a week to go until my insurance ran out and I had to go back to live with my parents, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

We’d all been on Toe Watch for days now, waiting for some new development—that hadn’t come. If anything, that one superstar big toe had become less reliable. Was my improvement stalled because Ian was being weird? Either way, it couldn’t be helping. Time was running out. I didn’t want a robot for a PT.

That night, when Ian came to tutor, I told him I wanted someone new.

I’d hoped for some kind of reaction—a flash of disappointment across his face, some human curiosity about why, even irritation would have sufficed. But nothing.

“Okay,” Ian said, with all the emotion of a glass of milk. “If you think that’s best.”

“I should probably change trainers in the gym, as well,” I added.

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