Page 4 of Show Me How to Heal
“Hi. You must be Lukas Richter, right?” asked a deep voice that wafted over to me. I startled and turned my head back to the cabin just in time to see a man walking through my front door. He was huge, like… at least one meters ninety, and his shoulders were so wide I was surprised he fit through the door without having to turn sideways
“Yeah, I am,” I said, nodding my head. I walked, well I hobbled over toward him and extended my hand.
His handshake was firm but not painful, and his smile was incredibly warm and kind.
“Mason Erikson, your realtor.” He grinned, his eyes twinkling in amusement. “Did you have trouble finding the place?”
“Hä?”I blinked a couple of times before realizing he was asking because of me being late. “I’m sorry for being late. The place wasn’t hard to find, but I didn’t realize traffic here would be that different from what I am used to, and I spent the night in Denver, so…”
“Yeah.” The man — Mr. Erikson — chuckled. “Traffic in the city is a bitch. You’ll probably be fine here, though. There’s not much traffic and barely any accidents — if something happens it usually involves some kind of wild animal. Deer and the like.”
“Like bears?” My eyes grew impossibly wide. “I’m not in danger of being mauled by a bear, am I?”
“Bears usually don’t provoke car accidents to eat the drivers, no.” Mason chuckled again. “But you’re close to the forest, so you should probably take the usual precautions.”
“Sure.” I nodded, while my head was spinning.Usual precautions?What the fuck were usual precautions against bears? I didn’t know anything about bears. Hell, the only bears in Germany I knew about were kept in zoos. Oh, or the one bear who made the news for weeks before he’d eventually been shot.
“So… the house.Yourhouse.” Mr. Erikson took a step toward the house and beckoned me to follow him. “I’ll give you a tour if you want? I mean, you already bought it, but seeing it in person is probably different from looking at photos.” The smile he gave me was kind, but there was a layer hidden underneath. Curiosity? Suspicion?
“Sure, I’ll follow you.” At least I would if he’d slow down a bit. My leg throbbed after being cooped up in a plane all day yesterday and the drive today. The fact that I’d slacked on the exercises my PT had given me probably didn’t help, either. I’d have to get on top of things and start doing them again.Tomorrow.
“Are you alright, Mr. Richter?”
“Call me Luke,” I told him. Hearing him say my name was weird. It didn’t sound like my name at all. The pronunciation was all wrong — well thechwas — but I didn’t want to correct him. First of all, it’d be pretty hard for him to pronounce my name correctly and… part of me didn’t want him to. That part of me was glad my name sounded different. New town, new country, new fucking continent, and now a new name.
“Okay. I’m Mason. I’m not big on formalities, anyway.” He laughed. “Seriously, though, are you all right?” His eyes shifted down to my left leg, his brows knitting in question.
Of course he’d noticed the limp. I was hobbling rather than walking, so my limp was hard to miss, but I’d left my crutches in the car on purpose — I hated them. They drew even more attention to what I’d lost. My mobility, my career, my whole life.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking, though.” I didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t press for more information even though I saw the curiosity shimmering in his eyes.
“Okay. Anyway… as you probably know since you’re the one who bought it, your cabin has five bedrooms, three of which have en suite bathrooms…” Mason turned back towards the cabin, telling me all about the amenities my new house had, and though he said I probably knew all that, the truth was that I hadn’t exactly paid attention to how many rooms my place had. It’d been a spur-of-the-moment decision. I’d seen the cabin, and I’d fallen in love. There might also have been some desperation added to the mix.
So when I followed Mason and set my first step inside my new home, an excited shiver ran through me, and I inhaled deeply. Wood, a hint of fireplace, nature… it smelled completely different from my old place. New.Perfect.
Mason was a really nice guy, giving me a tour of my cabin and explaining all the technical amenities, but my brain was fried. Completely overloaded. It was too much input. His voice faded out until it was just a distant gurgling sound.
This, the USA, Colorado, Juniper Creek, was my new home. Sure, I’d known that when I’d entered the plane. I’d had to organize a lot of things in advance — the visa, my PT and doctor’s appointments, selling my old apartment — but it had still felt a little surreal as if I wasn’t really doing it for me but for somebody else.
Now the truth finally started settling in, crashing over me like a tidal wave.
This was the place I was going to live. My very own house all to myself.
“Luke, uhm, Mr. Richter?” Mason asked, putting a hand on my forearm.
I blinked a couple of times, trying to get my head back on track.
“Scheiße,” I cursed. “I mean, shit. I’m sorry. It’s been a long few months, and I think the flight and the jetlag are a little too much.” I chuckled, but the laugh sounded as hollow as I felt most of the time.
“Oh, yeah, I get that.” Mason nodded, though he really didn’t have a clue. How could he? Had he been on top of the world, in the prime of his career, getting his country to the fucking finale of theEuropean Championshiponly to lose everything in the blink of an eye while a whole fucking continent was watching? Did he have said continent trying to get every little piece of information about the state of his health? Every journalist, paparazzo, and blogger had been and was still trying to get pictures of me. Interviews, little snippets… anything.
Every time I’d left my house, there’d been photos taken or videos shot. I’d been trending on Twitter and Instagram so often during the past year I’d lost count. I’d tried avoiding the media and blocking all the attention out. All those pitying comments on how I still needed crutches. How I appeared to have lost weight. How I looked empty.
I fuckingwasempty!
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Mason said, raking a hand through his golden-blond hair, giving me a smile that was so warm I could feel it on my skin. Damn, he was likable. I was almost tempted to smile back, but then my knee throbbed again and I had to clench my teeth.
I probably should’ve been a bit more careful over the last couple of days, but it wasn’t as if I’d ever be able to play again. Fuck, it wasn’t even guaranteed that I’d be able to walk without a limp ever again.
