I felt the blood in my veins heat. At least the veins from my neck up. “Why did my friends tell me no X-rays had been done yet then?” I didn’t say “girlfriend and friends” because the sooner I stopped thinking of Joze like that, the sooner I could embrace my bright future of being paralyzed.
“Maybe because the results were inconclusive and they guessed I’d be better at explaining that to you than they would.” Doc Payton was back to messing with his tablet. If I could have used my arms, I might have grabbed it and tossed it against the wall.
“Is my back broken or isn’t it, Doc?” I asked a bit more sharply than I’d intended.
“In the way you’re asking, no, it isn’t.” I was just thinking about exhaling a hell of a lot of relief when he continued. “But there is some serious trauma, or swelling, to the middle part of your spine, meaning there could be some serious nerve damage.”
I should have been relieved I hadn’t broken my back, but something about the nerve damage part and the uncertain note in the doctor’s voice gave me pause. “Well, does that mean I’ll walk again? Does it mean I’ll recover from this?”
He typed a few more things into his tablet before looking at me again. “It’s too early to say.”
I shook my head, wanting to shoot up in bed and punch something. Putting my fist through that beige wall I’d been staring at all night would have been a good start. “Will I walk again?”
The doctor was looking at me as though he was waiting for me to return the favor, but I couldn’t do it. Hearing him tell me my life might be over would be bad enough without seeing the same message in his eyes.
“Maybe,” he said at last. “Maybe not. Like I said, it’s too early to tell. After some more tests and your body has some time to heal, we’ll be able to answer that question, but for now, I don’t want to offer false hope. At the same time, I don’t want to offer no hope.”
“Aren’t you just a regular ray of sunshine,” I muttered.
“I’ve been accused of worse.”
The sun had risen high enough to stream through the window, bathing the whole room in light. I wished the curtains were drawn. I wished there wasn’t a window there to begin with. I didn’t want the light, because it reminded me of the dark . . . the place I was retreating into.
“When’s the soonest I can be discharged?” I asked. “It’s not like I packed anything and got comfortable, so it shouldn’t take long, right? Think you can find someone to wheel me down to the curb? I’ll hitch a ride home from there.”
The doc let out a sigh as long as it was loud. “If you want to guarantee you’ll never walk again, that sounds like the way to do it.”
I finally made myself look at the doctor. He wasn’t as old as I’d originally thought from just seeing his eyes. I guessed being in his line of work, seeing lives ruined, must have had a way of aging him in other ways. He stuck his hand in the air and waved when he noticed me looking at him.
“You and I both know I’m not going to walk again, don’t we, Doc?” I said, steeling my face. “You know the likelihood, probably down to the exact percentage, of a person ever walking again if they wake up paralyzed from the neck down. So why don’t we cut the ‘therapy and tests’ shit and get me out of this hellhole?”
To the doc’s credit, he didn’t flinch. He didn’t even blink. “I also know that percentage decreases every single day you stay paralyzed. Would you like me to give you those numbers as well?”
I blew out a sharp breath. “I don’t need to know the numbers to realize I’m fucked.”
Doctor Payton scooted closer to the bed and set his tablet in his lap. “You want to know how many people I’ve treated like you?”
“There’s only one ‘people’ like me,” I said under my breath.
“That’s the answer I get from everyone. You all think you’re invincible right up until you’re not. Then when you’re forced to confront your mortality, you throw in the towel and give up completely.” The doc’s voice filled the room in the same way the sunshine did—way too damn much. “You cross your arms, wave the white flag, and settle into the mentality of being ‘fucked.’” The doc huffed, shaking his head. “If you think your approach is unique, you’re deluding yourself.”
I shook my head when I wanted to rip the room apart, piece by piece. “Okay then, doc. If you can look me in the eye and tell me I’ve got a good chance of walking again, I’ll stay and do whatever tests and therapy you’ve got up your sleeve. You tell me that, then I’ll stay. But if you can’t, then I’m not going to lie to myself and the people I care about while I suffer through tests that tell me what I already know and therapy that won’t do anything but keep my muscles from atrophying.”
Knowing what back injuries did to people was a blessing and a curse. I’d been around the bull riding circuit long enough to hear the stories and watch former competitors turn into vegetables, breathing into wheelchairs to get them to move. Like the doc had said, I’d never thought it would happen to me. I waited for the doctor to look me in the eye, and when he finally did, I knew what he was going to say.
“My job isn’t to lie to you, Garth. My job is to be straightforward with you and work on a treatment plan to help. You’re right—it’s more likely you’ll never walk again than you will, but that doesn’t mean you won’t walk again. It isn’t a guarantee.”
My gaze drifted back to the ceiling before my eyes closed. Reality? Fuck off. “Then if you don’t mind showing me the door, I’ll be on my merry quadriplegic way.”
The doc stood, shaking his head the entire way to the door. “Sure, I’ll get right on it. Let me see if I can find a taxi to drive you all the way home to Montana.”
The doctor had barely left the room before a couple other people surged through it.
“Where’s Joze?” I asked before I caught myself.
“Nice to see you too, cupcake. Thanks for the warm welcome.” Rowen clomped into the room looking like she was prepared to wrestle a bear. She plopped into the same chair the doc had just been in, and Jesse came in behind her, waving at me as he came around the side of my bed.
“Shit, Jess, and I thought I was in bad shape.” I looked at my friend, trying not to resent him for being able to stand and rest his hands on the shoulders of the woman he loved. It wasn’t him I was mad it—it was my spine and the bull who should have known when he was beat and the circumstance I was neck-deep in. Literally.
Jesse rubbed his face, where the stubble was long enough to be noticeable. But it wasn’t just his lack of shaving that stood out. He had dark rings below his bloodshot eyes and rumpled clothing. From the look of it, he’d slept in those clothes. During the whole ten minutes it looked like he’d slept.
“I didn’t sleep well last night,” he said with a shrug, looking away. “Hotel beds suck.”
I knew the real reason he hadn’t slept, and it wasn’t because the bed at whatever hotel they’d stayed in had been a little too soft or hard. Jess was like me—we could sleep anywhere, anytime, even on a slab of granite if it was the only flat surface around. Cowboys slept when they could, where they could, and they sure as hell didn’t whine about some plush hotel bed.
“Yeah, hospital beds suck too,” I replied, not begrudging my friend for lying to me. Had our roles been reversed, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep either. “So where’s Joze?” Apparently I couldn’t catch myself the second time either.
Rowen was in the middle of chugging a monster-sized cup of coffee, but she stopped mid-gulp to answer my question. “Josie is talking with someone about wheelchairs—”
My head whipping her direction paired with the look in my eyes was somehow enough to get someone I’d thought un-shut-up-able to shut up. Mid-sentence. At least I hadn’t underestimated my ability to be intimidating.
“And moving on . . .” She glanced at Jesse with a raised brow before looking back at me. “How’s the food? Five-star-worthy?”
I blinked. “Gee, I don’t know. Since I can’t lift a fork or
a spoon or a damn French fry, unless they position a trough two inches in front of my face, I won’t be eating.” Rowen’s face fell, and I felt like a prick for making her feel bad, but I couldn’t shut my mouth. All of my anger and frustration was boiling out in the form of cruel words. “Ought to be a great way to lose weight, don’t you think? I think I’ll patent it and market it as the ‘Paralyzed from the Neck Down’ diet.”
“Garth,” Jesse interjected, warning in his voice, “we’re not your enemies. We’re your friends. I know you’re pissed off at the world and what happened and what it might mean, but don’t take it out on us.” He moved closer so he was looking down at me. He’d always been a couple inches taller than me, but he’d never towered over me the way he did now. “At least don’t take it all out on us.”
I was searching for either a comeback or an apology when I heard hurried steps thundering down the hall, each one growing louder than the last. Someone was coming to my room . . . and not in a good mood.
“Garth Black, you and I have to talk.” Josie’s voice streamed into the room before she’d rounded into it. “Now.”
When she did show up in the doorway, her expression was more harrowing than her footsteps had sounded. Like Jesse and Rowen, she was in the same clothes she’d been in last night, but her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, and her hair was pulled into a couple of side braids. She knew that was my favorite way for her to wear her hair because the bad guy in me couldn’t help but think dirty thoughts when I saw those braids bobbing down her shoulders. I liked to grab one in each hand and give them a tug . . .
I’d liked to do that. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to tug those braids or comb my knuckles through her hair or rinse the conditioner out of her hair when we took a shower together after . . .
Fuck me. Forget about tugging her braids. If the doc’s percentages didn’t lie, I wouldn’t be doing anything to her again. I had to squeeze my eyes closed to keep what felt like tears from forming. I couldn’t let her see me cry. If she saw me cry, she’d never let me push her away for good. Instead, she’d go all martyr on me, and I couldn’t let her do that.
“I’m right here. Not going anywhere.” I kept my eyes shut, trying to shove the images of her and me in my bed . . . or her bed . . . or the bed of my truck . . . or wherever the opportunity arose from my head. “So talk.” I heard her footsteps move closer.
“Why did Doctor Payton just tell me you’re checking yourself out of the hospital today? As soon as possible today?” she added in a voice that implied I’d committed the worst kind of crime against humanity.
“Because I am checking myself out of here ASAP.”
My reply was immediately followed by three sighs from three people—one quiet, one annoyed, and one outraged.
“And just where do you think you’re going once you check yourself out?” Josie’s voice boomed loudly enough that she’d probably woken anyone who had been trying to sleep in the nearby rooms.
“Home.” I kept my eyes on the ceiling so I wouldn’t have to witness three pairs of eyes gaping at me like I’d busted something in my brain now too.
“Home?” Josie practically spit the word. “How exactly are you planning on getting there? And once you’re there, how are you going to get around, heal yourself, and receive the medical care you need, Garth? Mind telling me what your big plan is? Because I’m not seeing it.” From the corner of my eye, I saw her head shake, sending her pigtails whipping around. “You’re hurt. Badly. This isn’t one of those times you can fix yourself with a bag of frozen peas and gritting your jaw. I know that’s your favorite way of dealing with injuries, but this isn’t a cracked rib. This is you not being able to move from your neck down.”
She wasn’t crying, yet, but I knew she was close. Josie cried when she got angry as often as she did when she was sad.
“Yeah, I’m really aware of the fact that I can’t move. Thanks for the recap.”
“Are you?”
Josie’s head lowered so it was above mine, but I continued to focus on the ceiling. She was right, to a degree, but I also knew I couldn’t stay in the hospital another day without losing my mind. I’d already likely lost my body—I couldn’t lose my mind too. It was all I had left.
“Because how is checking yourself out going to help this situation at all?” she asked.
I smelled her favorite cherry lip balm on her lips. I wanted to kiss her, like I always did when I caught the scent of it, but I couldn’t. Sure, I might have been able to lift my head off the pillow a few inches, but I couldn’t kiss her and expect her to walk away. Kissing her while I wanted her to go live her life kind of sent a mixed message.
“There’s nothing that’s going to help, Joze. Staying in this hospital sure as shit won’t. I need to get home.” My voice stayed strong, but it seemed to be the last part of me that possessed strength.
“You need to get better,” she argued. She looked across the bed at Jesse and Rowen, probably searching for one or both of them to back her up.
Rowen opened her mouth first, Jess still seeming at a loss, but I cut them all off. I had to force my jaw to untighten before I could say the words all of them were in denial over. “I’m not going to get better.” Each word came out louder than the last until the final word seemed to echo around us. “There isn’t a medicine that can be prescribed that will cure me, no amount of rest and rehab can heal me, and there sure as shit aren’t any tests they can run that will tell us something different from what we all already know.” I’d spent so long glaring at the ceiling tile above me I wondered if by the time I was out of there, it would crumble apart. “I’m not moving again. I’m . . .” I had to swallow and roll the word around in my mouth a few times before I could get it out. “Paralyzed. The sooner we all accept it, the better off we’ll be.”
The room got quiet. Real quiet. Other than the sound of the second hand moving on the wall clock across from my bed, silence filled the room. It didn’t last though. It couldn’t with what I’d said and who I’d said it to.
Leaning over me even farther, Josie lowered her face so close to mine I could see each and every fleck of bronze in her eyes. I would have been content to spend the rest of my life counting each of them too.
“Fine. You want to give up and roll over after a day and a half? That’s your choice. Be beaten. Give up. Accept you’re doomed. That’s your prerogative.” Her voice wasn’t quaking as it had been earlier—it was so strong and seamless it was like she’d been rehearsing this speech for weeks. “You go right on ahead and play the victim and tell yourself you’re never going to walk again. But don’t you dare, Garth Black, for one fricking minute, try to order me or any of us”—she jabbed her pointer finger toward Rowen and Jesse—“that we have to accept the same thing. You don’t want to hold on to hope, big surprise, but don’t try to take a shit on all of ours.”
After that, she waited. For me to say something or argue or for what she’d said to settle in, I didn’t know, but I knew the way I felt. Nothing she could say and no amount of time she could wait would get me to change my mind.
Jesse was just clearing his throat and stepping closer, probably to say something that would solve all our problems along with world hunger, when I heard another set of footsteps enter the room. They didn’t travel far before the newcomer stopped and cleared his throat . . . saved by the doc.
“The ambulance will be here in a half hour to escort you home if that’s still want you want.” I heard the edge in his voice—he wasn’t quite, but almost, as pissed as Josie that all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there. “As your doctor, it is my duty to strongly advise you not to leave until we’ve had some time to more accurately diagnose you and give you a chance to recover—”
“But this isn’t a jail, and you can’t hold me against my will, now can you?” I said, trying not to laugh at the word recover. Last I’d heard, “recover” meant someone would get better.
“No, it isn’t a jail. Though in your case, I
wish it were.”
Josie’s mouth dropped as she gaped at the doctor as if he were as batshit crazy as I was.
“Well, thanks for everything, doc. I feel like a new man,” I said dryly. I didn’t miss Rowen leaning into Jesse and hissing something into his ear that I couldn’t quite make out, though I picked up enough to decipher she thought I should be declared insane or have my ass kicked.
“I’m going to send you off with discharge orders, some prescriptions, and a couple of referrals for doctors in your area who specialize in back injuries. I know you seem to hate taking it, but I strongly suggest you take my advice of making an appointment to go to see one of them immediately.”
Josie approached the doc and took the handful of paperwork from him. She clutched it against her chest as if she were afraid someone would rip it away from her. “You can’t just let him check out, Doctor Payton,” she whispered in a tone that suggested she was begging. “Can’t you talk to him again? Try to make him stay?”
I’d only heard Josie come close to begging a few times in my life—she was too prideful a person to beg—and hearing her do it because of me made me feel about as low as I’d ever felt, and I’d been in so many low places so many times I was a contender for the record.
“I can’t force him to stay. I’m a doctor—I help the people I can who want to be helped.” The doctor’s gaze drifted to where I was laid out, immobile and stubborn. He was a good man. I could tell that from the few words we’d shared, but he knew no amount of talk or debate would get me to see his point of view. “Even if I could force him to stay, it doesn’t take a psychiatric evaluation to see that he doesn’t want to be helped. Good luck to you, Miss Gibson.” The good doc exited the room, moving on to whom I guessed was the next patient on his list, one who actually wanted his help.
Josie stood frozen for a minute, clutching the paperwork close to her. Every breath she took seemed to get longer and louder until it sounded as though she was gasping for air. “I need to get some fresh air.” She rushed for the door like she couldn’t get outside quickly enough.