Page 55 of Tacos & Toboggans
“Maybe not, but Dr. Russel would say the same thing.”
“Tomorrow is Sunday, it can wait until Monday,” she insisted, but I shook my head.
“Or you could take advantage of knowing a doctor who has access 24/7.” I hoped she’d read between the lines and hear the warning that she should be happy I wasn’t dragging her in there tonight to fix it.
“Fine,” she said with a long-suffering sigh. Then she pointed at the liner. “Can you take that off?”
“I do, at night before bed,” I said with a nod.
“Obviously, but I meant right now. Would you take it off right now?”
Instinctively, my hand came down on top of the liner to hold it in place. That was the last thing I wanted to do, but the look in her eye told me this was a pivotal moment between us.She wanted—no, she needed—to know if I trusted her with all my vulnerabilities. Her eyes told me if I made the wrong move here, her trust in me would be irrevocably broken.
Slowly, I rolled the silicone liner down my thigh and rested it on the edge of the couch. She traced her finger along the scar at the bottom of the thigh where my knee used to be.
“This is the only scar?” she asked, the warmth in her eyes telling me I’d made the right decision to let her in.
A shiver went through me that buried itself in my belly and sat there as a quivering ball of anticipation and fear. “The damage to my leg was below the knee, but it was too catastrophic to do anything but go above.”
Rather than ask more questions, she put her arms around me and buried her nose in my neck, her breath warm, comforting, grounding as I pretended the memories of that day weren’t going to wreak havoc on my dreams tonight. The temptation was too great to ignore, so I wrapped my arms around her, holding her warm, soft body to mine in a way that didn’t require words. It wasn’t shared empathy but rather shared gratitude. Hers for what I gave to protect the country, and mine for her understanding that going through it had been a living hell. Some days it still was.
“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner,” I whispered, kissing the soft skin below her ear as though I had a right to.
“You don't owe me an apology,” she said, pulling away, much to my disappointment. “I owe you one for making you feel like you couldn’t tell me. That’s on me.”
“It’s interesting how two people look at the same situation,” I said, rubbing my hands on my shorts. “You think I felt like I couldn’t tell you because of some fault of yours, when the truth is, I couldn’t tell you because of a fault of my own. There’s nothing harder than sharing the broken parts of you with someone when you don’t want to lose them from your life. Probably because you know that if you weren’t broken, they would stay.”
“Something tells me that life has been the one to teach you that,” she whispered, tracing the scar again and raising goosebumps on my skin.
“A few times in the last nine years,” I agreed. “Though, in hindsight, none of those women was the right one.”
“How do you know?” she asked, her head tipped to the side.
“They weren’t you.” She smiled, but I could see the distrust in her eyes, so I cleared my throat. “That sounds like a line, but I assure you, it’s not. It’s the truth that I’ve learned since coming to Bells Pass. Everyone we encounter in life leaves an impression, but not all are meant to stay.”
“Am I meant to stay?”
If the room hadn’t been silent, I might not have heard her question.
“I hope so,” I promised, sliding my hand up her face to cup her cheek. “But I also understand that what I bring to the table isn’t what every woman wants, and I wouldn’t fault you for deciding you want something else.”
Her silence was difficult to wait out, but out of respect for her, I had to be patient and let her decide what she wanted from our time together. I prayed friendship was still on the table.
“How did it happen?” she asked, rather than answer the burning question in my mind.
Then again, maybe she needed to see all my ugliness to decide if being with me was something she could do long-term. Life wasn’t only about passionate kisses at a tree farm during a magical season. Life was often much uglier than that.
“I joined the army when I graduated from med school to get most of my student loans paid off. I went to a high school where, when you graduate, you have a bachelor’s degree,” I explained, to which her eyes widened.
“That’s not intimidating or anything.”
Turning to her, I smiled, taking her hand in mine. “Don’t be. It was an opportunity, and I took it. I wanted to be a doctor, but didn’t have the means to make that dream a reality if I had to pay for the entire program. I had some scholarships, but the rest were student loans, so when I graduated from medical school at twenty-two, I joined the army. It was a way to pay off my loans and receive the best training in the world for residency. I worked with some fantastic surgeons who taughtme everything they knew about orthopedics, and I was fast-tracked to becoming a surgeon overseas. I’d been over there for years when this happened,” I explained, motioning at my leg. “We were out for a night on the town when a car bomb went off unexpectedly. It shouldn’t have happened where we were, but if we learned one thing, it was to expect the unexpected. Three of my friends were hit by shrapnel, but we were all able to help those far more wounded than we were. It was at least an hour before I realized how damaged my lower left leg was. I knew that something wasn’t right, as all I could do was crawl, but just how bad it was had come as a surprise. The bones were dust from the knee down. After a discussion with the trauma surgeons, I convinced them not to leave the knee to give me a fighting chance for the best-fitting prosthesis. That was the day my career with the U.S. Army came to an end.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, squeezing my hand. “You didn’t want to go back after you healed? I’ve heard of a lot of people who do that.”
“In my job, I could have,” I agreed. “But I’d lost my taste for that kind of life, and the PTSD, well, that was another battle that would be hard to overcome if I kept putting myself in the same position. At least according to the therapists.”
“That’s a fair point,” she whispered.
