Melissa Read online

She smiled and said, “Maybe it won’t be so bad being here after all.”

  “If you were afraid it would be bad,” he asked curiously, “why did you come here?”

  “Dani persuaded me,” she admitted. “And maybe I was just being stubborn. But I hated to impose.” She leaned forward and whispered, “I have one of those free beds.”

  He leaned back and said, “Good. At least you’re smart enough to take what was offered.”

  She sat back, looked at him, and asked, “Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “We have multiples of those beds that we rotate all the time. Not everybody has full care or access. The navy should have given you full care, though they didn’t, did they?”

  “My injuries didn’t happen while I was in the navy,” she said. “I had finished a tour and had just left when I was hit by a vehicle. So technically, I was no longer on active service—one day after leaving the navy.”

  “So you were at the VA hospital when she offered you a bed here?”

  “I wasn’t showing any progress there. At least I didn’t think so.”

  “Good for her for bringing you here then,” he said. “And it doesn’t matter what bed you may have or whether the VA benefits come through for you or not because it’s all about your healing, not about how you got here. You are here, so let’s make the most of it.”

  She smiled, nodded. “You’re very much a cheerleader, aren’t you?”

  “Sometimes,” he said. “And then there’ll be times when you really don’t appreciate the heavy taskmaster version of me.”

  “How many days before that happens?”

  He gazed at her with a serious look. “Probably three.”

  She winced. “So enjoy my holiday while I have it?”

  “Enjoy it,” he said, “because then you’re on the most difficult and the most rewarding journey of your life. One that, without which, we can’t get you back to being normal.”

  “I thought you said normal doesn’t exist?” she asked in a challenging voice.

  “You’re right,” he said. “So let’s get you to the new normal, which I have seen time and time again. It’ll be very different than what you think is normal.”

  “Get me to walk and to sleep without pain, and I’ll be grateful,” she said. “Anything above that is sheer gravy.”

  He laughed and said, “Sure hope you like gravy with everything then,” he said, “because we have a lot of work to do.”

  Shane wasn’t kidding. He’d seen a lot of patients come with myriad attitudes; some felt that they wouldn’t succeed and proved themselves correct. Others were sure they could take over the world, and they aced this program in no time. But reality always set in as soon as the testing was over, and he started to work with them.

  In her case, it took an extra couple days because, by the time he had all the information he needed and had tested her, he was not impressed with her lack of mobility anywhere. Every movement seemed to cause her pain. Her whole structure, her skeleton, was off-kilter everywhere.

  By the time he sat down and explained it to her, she said, “So what you’re trying to say is,” her tone brave, “that you can’t help me.”

  He studied her, seeing the broken expression of hopelessness on her features. “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is, we’ll have to start with small movements and small challenges in order to make this work.”

  She took a slow, deep breath. “So you’re not giving up on me?”

  He stared at her. “No. I’m not giving up on you.” And he could sense a relaxation taking over her, as she slumped in place.

  “But do you think you can do something for me?”

  “I’m sure I can,” he said with calm certainty.

  He wasn’t sure where all this was coming from, but, somewhere along the line, Melissa had figured out that a lot of people couldn’t do anything for her, and either they had abandoned her or she’d walked away herself.

  “Let’s get something straight,” he said. “You’re here for the long haul. Whether you’re here an extra month or not, it doesn’t make a bit of difference. We’ll do what we need to do for your body, not just because you want it to happen. You’ll also see a shrink while you’re here, and you’ll deal with a lot of different emotions. Right now, all I’m telling you is that your program will start slow because an awful lot of misalignment is in your frame and because you have weak muscles where other muscles are doing twice the work. And, of course, they’re getting tired and fatigued. It’s hurting you.”

  She stared at him and shrugged. “If that was supposed to make any sense, it doesn’t really.”

  “As long as you’re okay to get started at the pace that I’m ready to start you at.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” she said honestly. “And I have to trust in somebody, so I might as well put my trust in you.”

  “Good choice,” Dani said from the door.

  Melissa looked up and smiled at her old friend. “You sure you want me here?” she asked. “According to Shane, it’ll be a lot of work and take longer.”

  “That’s fine,” Dani said instantly. “I told you a long time ago that it’s not about the money. It’s about the healing.”

  Melissa frowned at Dani. “People say that a lot, but learning to believe and learning to trust, that’s a different story.”

  “And so you must learn to trust,” Dani said firmly. She looked at Shane. “Melissa and I went to school together for several years. Then we lost touch.”

  “That’s because I went into the navy,” she said with a smile at Shane, but then she turned to Dani. “And you, I’m not even sure what you did.”

  “I ended up with a military father who was badly injured, and that’s how this place came to be,” she said with a wave of her arm, indicating the building.

  “How is the Major?”

  “He is doing wonderfully,” Dani said, with a bright smile. “You’ll see him in a few days, I think. He’s gone down south to visit a friend of his.”

  “Wonderful,” she said. “I was afraid to ask, in case he wasn’t around anymore.”

  “He’s around, and he’s doing well,” she said. “And he remembers you. So if you think you’ll get away from him, you’d be wrong.”

  “Ah,” she said. “So all those questions again?”

  “Any questions and all questions. You know him. When he wants to know something, he’ll ask, and it won’t really matter if you feel like answering or not.”

  “I never was very good at dodging his questions anyway,” she said with an affectionate smile. “But I always knew that he was more about keeping you and me happy than anything.”

  “Those days were a long time ago, weren’t they?” Dani said, her voice soft.

  “Indeed, indeed. Now it’s all so different.” Melissa motioned at the body she had.

  “That car accident really did you in, didn’t it?”

  “Not to mention it was on the base, and it wasn’t my fault,” she said. “And I was done with my tour. I was one day past active service.”

  “This shouldn’t have been an argument,” Dani said crossly. “You’re still allowed VA benefits.”

  “Well, whether there is or not doesn’t matter at this point because I am where I am.”

  “That’s true. And where you are is the best place for you to be,” Dani said in a positive no-arguing tone. “Shane is the best guy to deal with too.”

  “Did you sic him on me?” Melissa teased. “Because he might not appreciate that.”

  “She seems to think that she’s getting special treatment because she’s your friend,” Shane said. “I told her flat-out that’s not how we operate here.”

  “No, we sure don’t. Besides, that would be insulting to the rest of my team. They’re all good,” Dani said. “And Shane will do everything he can to get you back on your feet.”

  “Well, I can walk,” she said.

  “Nope,” Shane
said. “That’s not walking. That’s doing a hunchback sidestep.”

  “It’s still vertical and still moving forward.”

  “It is,” he said, “but it’s nothing to what you’ll be doing hereafter. And, in any case, we’ll take a video of you to document your improvement.”

  “Video?” She stared at him. “That would not be a cool idea.”

  “No, but it’s what we do,” he said cheerfully. “You have lots to learn yet.”

  She shook her head, looked back at Dani, and said, “You sure I shouldn’t be working with somebody else?”

  “You’re exactly where you need to be at this moment in time,” Dani said with an assurance that left no for doubt. “Now you have to let go and to let the process happen.”

  “So says you,” she muttered, as Dani walked away. Instead of being upset though, Melissa felt pretty weepy around the edges. Nice, if nothing else, to know that she still had a friend here.

  “Were you guys close in school?”

  “Very,” she said. “I’d had a rough time back then. Dani and I were already friends. So was the Major for that matter.”

  “Ah, we don’t know a whole lot about those early years of the family,” he said, “so it’s good that you can relate to her that way.”

  “Dani and I never had a problem relating,” she said. “I’ve been the one who’s probably had the most difficulty.”

  “You want to share?”

  She smiled and shrugged. “Maybe not right now.”

  “Good enough.” And he left it at that.

  She was surprised that he did. She wasn’t upset but a little curious as to how he could walk away from it so easily. “It doesn’t bother you that I don’t want to share?”

  “Oh no,” he said. “When you’re ready, you’ll share.”

  “It’s nothing major,” she said. “I just had a loss back then that made it very difficult. I ended up joining the navy, so that I could get away and could have some identity.”

  “A common story,” he said.

  She nodded. “In many ways, it is, isn’t it?”

  “And remember,” he said, “you’re still different. You’re still unique. And nobody’ll lump you in with the rest of them.”

  She chuckled. “Makes me sound like I’m a mess.”

  “Everybody is a mess when they have to deal with reality checks,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything.” She just smiled, as he got up and said, “Now I want to take some videos.”

  “You were serious?”

  “Absolutely. I’m serious about the work,” he said.

  She groaned and said, “Where and when?”

  “Down in my corner of this world,” he said, smiling. “So come on. Let’s go.” He waited for her to push her wheelchair to the doorway. He knew that she wondered why he wasn’t pushing her wheelchair now, but independence was important here. He watched how she handled the wheels, could see her movement, the stiffness in her shoulder and her side. By the time they got to his big gym, he motioned her to the center of the gym. Then he brought out his cell phone. “Now I want you to get up out of that chair and walk to the wall. Then I want you to slowly lower yourself down, so you’re sitting on the floor.”

  She just glared at him.

  “We’re recording this, so you can see how different it will be in a few months.”

  “Sure,” she said. “I should move better in a few months.”

  The last surgery wasn’t all that long ago, but still she got up and hobbled her way across to the wall. He could see the relief on her face when she hit it. She turned and slowly slid in an uncontrolled movement down until her butt hit and bounced. She winced at that. “I have less padding on my butt than I thought.”

  He laughed. “That’s all right. Dennis will work on that part.”

  She chuckled. “Well, that’s good news then,” she said. “I hadn’t realized how lacking in that area I am now.”

  “It’s not about beauty here. It’s not about fitness,” he said. “It’s about health and managing whatever you have to deal with, whatever challenge that is, so you can be the best you can be.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I’ve heard it all before.”

  And he knew where she had trouble. She had almost heard too much of it and didn’t believe it anymore. But he knew that they could add a ton of improvement for her. But it had to be with her active participation; otherwise all this would be for naught. And that wasn’t something he was prepared to let happen.

  Chapter 3

  By the time Shane had done whatever tests he had to do, Melissa was shaking inside and struggling to hide the tremors. She’d been trying to cover it up for at least twenty minutes, but his sharp eagle eyes had noticed, and either he’d ignored it or he had wanted to push through to get something completed on his side. When he finally stopped, he said to her, “Will you ever tell me?”

  She glared at him. “You mean that you’ve been watching me suffer, waiting for me to speak up?”

  “I told you not to let me push you past six on a scale of one to ten for pain or exhaustion,” he said. “Remember that?”

  She frowned because she did but only vaguely. “That was at least an hour ago,” she said with a wave of her hand, a mannerism she started to realize she did almost automatically. “Since then, I feel like a whole lifetime has happened.”

  He chuckled. “Well, the lifetime is the fact that you let it get this far. Yes, I’ve been watching and waiting to see if you would say stop or tell me that you’d had enough.”

  “If you tell me that I’m supposed to do more, I’ll do more,” she said readily. “And I honestly forgot about you telling me not to push it past a certain point because I passed that point. Now I’m exhausted.”

  He nodded, walked over to where her wheelchair sat, and brought it to her. “And that’s what I need you to learn,” he said. “It’s up to you to get to know your own body, what it can do, what it can’t do, to what point it needs to stop, to what point you need to stop so you don’t hurt yourself more.”

  “I didn’t think about it,” she said, groaning as she sank into the wheelchair. But now her body visibly shook.

  He gave a muttered exclamation and said, “Come on. Let’s get you back to your bed.”

  “I feel really rough right now,” she whispered.

  “And what would make you feel better?”

  She shook her head. “If I was at home, I’d have a hot bath. But there’s no bathtub in my room.”

  “No, everything’s equipped with sit-in showers,” he said. “But I have a hot tub, if you think that would help.”

  She thought about it a few moments and then said, “I won’t make it there,” she said. “I’ll just go to bed.” She couldn’t see his face but could hear that he didn’t like her answer.

  At her doorway, he said, “Quickly get changed, and I’ll take you down to the hot tub.”

  She looked up at him and knew that her face was almost white from the day’s efforts. “I don’t have the strength,” she whispered.

  He frowned and stared at her. “I don’t want to leave you like this because, when you sank, you sank really far and deep.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” she said. She slowly pushed herself to the bed. “I’ll be fine. I just need to recuperate.” As she struggled to stand from the wheelchair, she started to slip because she hadn’t put the brakes on.

  Immediately he was there. He lifted her in a smooth movement, pulled the blankets back, and gently laid her down on the mattress. “I’m coming back with a green shake for you. It’s full of vitamins and nutrients.”

  She looked up at him in horror. “You mean those nasty slimy things that look like they’re good for you but taste like dirt?”

  He burst out laughing at that. “Yes,” he said. “But you’re obviously more depleted in other areas too. Have they run a bunch of blood tests on you?”

  “They did one,” she said, “but I haven’t seen
any results.”

  “Well, you’re obviously extremely deficient, lacking in strength. We’ll have to build that up slowly.”

  “You mean, slower than today?”

  “That was only testing,” he let her know.

  She wasn’t sure how she managed to keep joking, but she was more concerned about him feeling terrible because it’s obvious he did. She’d hit this wall many times before. “I’ve been here before,” she said. “I’ll just lie here and rest, probably sleep for a bit. Then I’ll be much better.”

  He tucked her up with the blanket, and she snuggled in, trying to find that same spot that allowed the pain to slip away. As soon as she found it, the shaking and tremors eased a bit. “If you could pull that blanket up to my chin, I’ll just lie here for a bit.”

  He did as she asked; then he quickly backed away.

  She’d almost say he was running, but, if he was, it wasn’t away from her. It was toward something; she just wasn’t too sure what. As she lay here, feeling her aches and pain easing, she had to wonder if she would ever find a point in time where she could be on her own again.

  She hadn’t expected to hit the wall so fast, but some movements that he’d asked of her, that she’d asked of her body, were some which she hadn’t done in such a long time. She wasn’t sure if it was shock or serious emotional fatigue or physical exhaustion, but she was done for. She was still trying to relax and to calm down a little bit more, when she figured he’d left at least fifteen minutes ago.

  It might be safe to take a few deep breaths.

  Cautiously she took a little bit deeper of a breath, well aware that her ribs could seize up if she did that too fast. And that was the worst feeling of all, having a steel rib cage that wouldn’t move and made her feel desperate for oxygen. But cramps always happened. Muscle knots that crept through the tendons and the muscles around her ribs and stopped them from expanding. She took another slow breath, a little bit deeper, then another one, feeling the oxygen seep in through her lungs.

  Realizing that she wouldn’t have a cramp, she took yet another, slightly deeper breath, and relaxed into her bedding. “At least it’s not too bad now.”