Page 72 of How to Walk Away

I turned my head. There he was. Starting a conversation. Of all things. “Will he? Seriously?”

He was gazing up, an arm behind his head, and the pose was so casual, so unguarded, sofriendly,it was shocking. “Maybe not. He didn’t see it with his own eyes, after all. The nurses might not rat us out.”

“But don’t the PTs take patients out all the time?”

“Sure. On educational excursions. In groups. Not up to the roof alone.”

“What does he think you’re going to do to me?”

A classic Ian-style silence followed that question—but rather than feeling uncomfortable I suddenly started thinking of all the things that Ian could potentially have been doing to me, right that very moment. The longer the silence lasted, the more vivid my thinking became. He was just inches away. He could so easily roll onto his side and put his face down alongside mine. He could so easily take one of those big hands and run it along my side. The thought took hold of my thinking. I could almost feel it happening—the weight of his hands, the roughness of the stubble on his jaw, the warmth of his mouth.

I drifted off into the fantasy of being kissed by Ian, but then his voice pulled me back out. “There are all kinds of ungentlemanly things I could do to you on this roof,” he declared at last. “And I’m sure Myles would accuse me of them all.”

It’s a little odd—and a bit embarrassing—to confess that I had a vivid, unrequited, thirty-second, highly sexy, totally unauthorized fantasy about my physical therapist not an hour after I’d thrown my engagement ring at my ex-fiancé. But it’s important to mention. Because in those seconds,something happened. I felt a swell of some very potent, very enthusiastic, veryphysicalfeelings in response to that kissing fantasy.

Which meant—and this was big news—I could feel those feelings.

Suffice it to say, my time in the hospital had not been the most erotic experience of my life. On my scale of worries that month, my future sex life rated comically low. Probably, if I’d had a choice between a future with walking and a future with sex, I’d have picked walking. But I wasn’t given that choice. That said, since all my sensation down there was, as I’d been told over and over, “spotty,” I’d known there was a good chance that I’d lost that part of my life forever. Though, even if I’d been thinking about it enough to check, I likely would have been afraid to check. Part of me didn’t want to know.Don’t go looking for trouble.

But now, suddenly, thanks to this roof, I knew.

My body could feel things. Enthusiastically.

True, my body had just felt those things about a man who—most days, anyway—didn’t even want to be in the same room with me, but I wasn’t going to quibble over details. This was great news, dammit, no matter how foolishly I’d come across it! I couldfeel the feelings! One of life’s greatest pleasures was still on my menu!

Did I feel joyful about it? No. “Joy” didn’t seem to be an option anymore. I wasn’t really sure I could access “happy,” either. The best I could do right then was “pleasant.” I feltpleasantabout it. And—maybe more than that: relief. Relief I didn’t even know I’d been waiting for.

The sunset was completely gone now, replaced by a deep blue night sky full of stars. I tried to sit up then, but lost my balance partway, and Ian lost no time helping. He sat up, too, and cradled me into a sitting position. “You okay?” he asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“You look a little nauseous.”

Reading that so wrong.“I’m fine.”

“Do you want to go back?”

I turned and met his eyes. “Ineverwant to go back.”

He gave a little shrug and then said, “Okay.”

“Tell me about your nebbishy boss,” I said then, as we watched the lights of the city skyline. “What’s going on there?”

“Only if you put on my sweatshirt.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Put it on.”

“Bossy,” I said. But I put it on, and as I did, I got a great waft of that delicious Ian smell. It was so overpowering in that moment, it was all I could do not to press my face into it and gulp down a big breath. But I covered well. I pretended like the zipper was stuck. Then I looked at Ian to prove that I was waiting for him to start talking.

When he didn’t, I prompted: “So? You think Myles would fire you for taking me up here.”

“Myles would definitely fire me for taking you up here.”

“Even though you don’t like me like that.” It was the kind of statement girls sometimes make in honor of the one percent chance that the guy might contradict it.

Ian did not contradict it. He kept his gaze straight out on the horizon. “No. I don’t like you like that.”

---