Sunday, August 7, 2011

Chapter Eight

So I was planning on posting this tomorrow... however after all your enthusiasm and the fact that I got a few more chapters written yesterday, I couldn't NOT post. Plus, you can thank Miss RebelHeart for her dramatic persuasion in trying to get as many chapters of this posted as soon as possible... LOL

Sound-track for today... well... this would definitely be the track for Sam... was listening to it in my car the other day and thought of him right away!

My Next Girlfriend - The Black Keys





The following week was brutal.  Alex didn’t even look at me and truthfully, I couldn’t blame her.  John reminded me what I had said to her, but that didn’t come from him without some major begging and pleading.

“You obviously had no problem being rude to her, so why should I tell you?” John snapped at me Tuesday afternoon as we were shopping for food at the Natural Foods place.  Terry gave us a shopping list of items we needed to start incorporating into our everyday diet to help us optimize our training.  Personally, it was the worst part of being an athlete.  I hated eating all the crazy healthy shit, but I figured it was a small price to pay when I my job was to play hockey everyday for a living.

“I was drunk,” I hissed for the 100th time.

“That’s not my fault.”

“Ugh.  Well, you could be good and put in a decent word for me…”

“Oooorrr you could go tell her yourself,” John said in a way that made it sound like he had the most novel idea in the planet.

“She won’t even look at me!”

“Did Eden steal some of your brain cells or something?  I swear you were never this whiney or as much of a jerk-off like you’ve been the last week and a half,” John said in an annoyed tone that forced me to look at him to see if he was being serious.  He’s definitely serious and probably right.  Maybe my year with Eden did more to me than I ever thought.  My casual attitude about the relationship with her seemed to have rubbed off on all my other relationships, whether it was family or friends.

I sighed.  He was right.  I was being a jerk-off.  I wasn’t acting like myself and I never whined this much.  “So are you two seeing each other or what?” I asked, kind of changing the subject.

“She’s just a good friend.  There isn’t anything more between us,” John said, sounding neutral about it.  “I had a nice time on our date, but it definitely felt more like hanging out with my best friend, which is more than cool in my book.”

“You need to help me get on her good side…”  I blurted out.

“Why?  So you can just be mean to her again?”

“I’m not going to be mean to her!” I cried, a little louder than I should have in a public place.  “I need start over with her or something…” I whispered after garnering stares from nearby shoppers.

“You are on your own with that.  I am not getting involved.”

“Ugh. Fine.”





“So do you have a date for the wedding Saturday?!” Denise asked happily on Thursday night while we sat out back on my patio drinking some wine.  We were a pair of cripples, me in my wheelchair and her with her cast-clad foot, elevated on a chair with her crutches on the ground beside her.

“Nope.”

“I’m sure John would go with you…”

“He’s headed to Long Island tomorrow for some stuff with the team,” I said quietly.

“What about Sam?”

“What about him?”

“Well, I’m sure he’d go with you.  Sam is always down for a good party,” she giggled to herself like she was picturing some memories.

“I am not talking to Sam.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not going to go into this with you,” I said firmly.

“Whatever he did, I’m sure he didn’t mean.  Sam is sometimes an immature, stupid, boy.”

I snorted sarcastically and rolled my eyes.  “You obviously don’t own a pair of rose colored glasses…”

“You’ll see.  He’ll make it up to you somehow,” she grinned like she believed every word she spoke.  I on the other hand was not so eager to believe.

It had been a rough week.  I knew he had been drunk Friday night, but if he was anything like me, he was being as honest as anything with the alcohol on board.  I was hurt, despite the fact that his words confirmed my suspicions; along with mine thoughts that said I had no business crushing on any guys.  I had one thing to worry about right now and that was me.

Sam attempted to talk to me a few times during our morning work-outs, but I would either act like I didn’t hear him or just glare at him.  I didn’t want to hear his groveling.  Maybe I was being stubborn, but I didn’t care.

“You’re really doing great,” Dean complimented me on Friday morning after completing my last upper-body workout for the week.

“Thanks,” I beamed up at him.  “I’m really feeling the difference in strength…”

He kneeled down next to me and handed me a bottle of water.  “So you interested in trying it out?” he asked coyly, nodding his head over at the parallel bars.

“Do you think I’m ready?” I whispered excitedly.

“We can at least see where we are at…”

I sucked in a breath and blew it out.  I looked around the gym and then back at him.  “No one is in here right?  I don’t want anyone to see me do this, at least not the first time.”

He looked around and smiled.  “The coast is clear.  The guys are outside with Terry doing shuttle runs.”

Before I knew it we were in front of the parallel bars and Dean was helping me out of the chair.  I leaned myself on the bars, and looked down at me feet.  I suddenly felt so tall.  I could feel the blood rushing down to my legs in an unobstructed fashion.  That in itself made me feel normal.  My paralysis didn’t include full loss of feeling.  I could still feel my legs, of course it was decreased, but I could still feel someone touching them.  So in clinical terms my sensory nerves were still functional but my motor nerves were not.  This fact was what gave clinicians and me hope in possibly walking again.  Dean believed fully in the mind-over-matter theory.  He had seen it work and hopefully it would work for me.

“How does it feel?” he asked in an excited, yet quiet tone.

“It feels good to put some weight on my legs and it also reminds me how much muscle I don’t have in them,” I frowned.

“We will get there.  Just see if you can move them…use the force,” he joked.

I laughed but then began focusing.  I began using my arms to pull myself across the bars, dragging my feet along with me.  I stopped halfway and looked over at Dean who was watching me curiously.  “This isn’t what I want to do,” I said quietly, a few tears escaping down my cheeks.

“We will get there, Fletch.  Just keep hope.  Get yourself to the other end and we’ll keep with our plan starting again on Monday.”

I nodded and continued to the end as more tears fell towards the floor.





I was just about ready to go barging into the gym when I noticed Dean helping Alex stand-up by the parallel bars.  I stopped abruptly, causing John to slam into me from behind.

“What’s your deal?” he grunted.

“She’s standing,” I breathed.

“Huh?” he asked and then looked around me and in through the glass door.  “Oh shit…she’s trying the bars…”

“Yeah.”

She looked nervous, excited and scared all at once.  Hell, who could blame her?  I was feeling all the same things while watching her.  It was strange seeing her stand to her full height.  I think John and I were both holding our breaths when she stopped in the middle of the bars.  It was obvious she wasn’t walking, but it definitely was a start.  We watched her finish and when she was back in her wheelchair, we walked through the doors, but didn’t say a word about anything we saw, especially when I noticed her tearstained face.

Later on that night…

“Denise.  I need you to find out what time I need to be there tomorrow and where it is…”

“Sam, why?”

“I need to start things over with Alex,” I said as patiently as possible.  I didn’t really want to go into details about thing, especially after she berated me late last night.  She called me after spending the evening over at Alex’s apartment.  Denise had this issue with being a hopeless romantic and insisted that everyone be happy and in love.  It didn’t help that Race was just as crazy about the same ideas.  They really were the sicken-ly, sweet couple that everyone swore they gave a toothache to whenever you spent more than an hour with them.  It was obvious they were in love and in some ways, it was something I wanted, but I was fairly sure that love like that didn’t happen everyday.

“You like her.”

“I never denied that.”  My patience is wearing thin.

“So you are going to be her date tomorrow for the wedding?!” she squeaked.

“Denise.  You cannot tell her a thing…”

“Well, she is going to need a ride to the church.  Race was going to drive her, but maybe you can now?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, let me find out what time he was supposed to pick her up at…” she faded off.  I cringed when I heard her yell out for Race but I knew Denise was right when she said last night, “What a better way to show her you care than to take her to a wedding?  It’s romantic, you will be dressed to kill and everyone is always happy at weddings.”

What am I getting myself into?!





I looked down at my baby blue dress and bit my lip.  It had been a long time since I had worn something so frilly and girly, but Sarah insisted that it looked perfect.  It was an empire waist dress made of a gauze material that came to just above my knees and was held up with spaghetti straps.  The bust had little delicate flowers embroidered into it with silver floss, giving it a subtle pattern.  My tanned skin made it look like an even brighter blue.  I thought my silver ballet slippers made the outfit complete.  Denise came over earlier and curled my hair, which she pinned back some pieces so that they weren’t in my face and left the rest down, resting on my shoulders.  I did my own make-up, which didn’t come out too terrible considering I hadn’t messed around with much make-up since I joined the army.

“Damn, I look good today.  Too bad I don’t have a date,” I talked to myself in the mirror.  At that the doorbell rang.  I looked over at the clock.  Race was 20 minutes early, which shocked me because he was always just on time, never early or never late.  I needed to reapply my lip gloss, so I just yelled down the hall for him to come in.  I heard the door open and then his footsteps hit my hardwood floor, but they seemed to stop just within the door.  “You’re early!” I called out.  “Did your watch break or something?!”

No Answer.

I furrowed my brow in the mirror, smacked my lips and then shrugged at my image before moving out into the hallway.  When I looked down the hall, I left out a gasp.  Standing by the door was not Race.  Instead it was a man in a black, expensive looking suit with a baby-blue tie.  His hair was actually combed and trimmed so that only a few curls caressed the collar of his white shirt.  His hands were tucked in his pockets and when he looked up from the floor he was biting his lip before smiling nervously.

“Hey Alex.”

5 comments:

  1. that's it...i just died and went to heaven...*sigh*

    thank you for the update..can't wait for the next one.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Can I say that each chapter just keeps getting better and better... I am so loving this story Kim! Please please please keep posting regularly! I don't beg or whine as well as Rebelheart but I can try! lol

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  3. How adorable, their outfits are matching!

    Okay,I'm sad that John was written off so quickly, not that I didn't know it was coming. He's been the most understanding person so far, and now he has to help out romantically!!?? Can he get some kind of reward for his niceness?

    I had to go back to read what exactly Sam's insult was, and I have to say I think he was more honest than insulting. Alex is overly-sensitive, not that I blame her, but I'd rather have a guy say that he was uncomfortable with the wheelchair than pretend it didn't exist. Still with her physio advances, maybe the wheelchair will become less necessary. I'll wait and see, and yes, daily updating is awesome!

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  4. *sigh*
    This is gonna be one hell of an interessting next chapter! I wonder what is going to happen!
    Thank you thank you thank you RebelHeart! This made my day!

    Ahhh! I'm psyched for the next update!

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  5. Do you know what I took away from this chapter?
    This story is almost like a romantic comedy, but there's that extra drop of angst that turns it more toward a drama. But think about it...
    1. Alex & Sam are the couple that isn't a couple yet. And the point of this story is to get them together*
    2. John is a the friend who is there for both of them, but wants to stay out of it... but who will be sucked into it no matter what, and will probably have to take sides at one point.
    3. Denise is the peppy one who only believes in true love and wants everyone to be happy because she's found that love already.
    4. Dean is the coach. He's the one who is there to help push them through the sucky/confusing times when life just seems like it's going to be too much.

    I liked John telling Alex that, in a sense, he wasn't going to help him work things out with Alex and that he needed to quit being a bitch and just man up.
    Also, the part where Alex was dragging herself across the bars. I teared up, not gonna lie. That would be so painful and I'm sure in the beginning it's extremely frustrating and humiliating. Because she knows where she wants to be, but she doesn't quite know how to get there.
    And Sam wants her, he just doesn't want to fully admit it, becuase he has some warped idea that people in wheelchairs are inferior.
    Which is complete bull.

    And awww, his tie matched her dress. I think we all know that Denise had something to do with that!
    Oh, and when she said to just come in, I knew it was going to be him, from the way you wrote... but I was literally holding my breath until it came up in the text that it was him!

    HAHAHA! Look what you do to me, making me all crazy over fictional characters!
    Now, go finish up your crazy work schedule and then get ready to post the next chapter so that I can read the amusement of the wedding! Hopefully there isn't too big of a fiasco*

    ReplyDelete