“Josie! You’re not just going to walk away, are you?”
Yes. Because she’d never had him, any more than she’d had any boy band members in her teen fantasies.
“We can work this out,” he insisted.
Her hand hesitated on the doorknob, then she steeled her resolve. No. This was it. She deserved better. The whole enchilada, and the extra hot sauce.
“Good-bye, Dr. Hayes.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Houston tried not to be annoyed by the physical therapist’s small talk, but he wasn’t having much luck.
They’d been doing this therapy for four weeks, and he’d struggled through every session. It had been five weeks since Josie had walked out of his office, and it had been a long, miserable autumn, every single lonely second his own damn fault.
He had screwed up and there was nothing he could do to fix it.
Nothing.
It felt like he was walking a tightrope and was about to pitch off and hit the ground with a resounding smack. He wasn’t even sure what had gone wrong and when. It just all had and here he was, stuck in this chair listening to Frank, the PT, tell him about the wonderful cookout he and his wife had thrown over the weekend.
Houston had spent the weekend brooding inside his condo with thoughts that never strayed far from a certain pixie-sized doctor. The same doctor who had painfully avoided him her last few days at the hospital at all costs and who he’d only seen four times in four weeks, each time more difficult because it meant she truly wasn’t going to forgive him. She wasn’t coming back to him.
It was over.
“So, are you having a good fall, Dr. Hayes?” Frank asked, as he packed ice on Houston’s hand. “Geez, I can’t believe it’s almost Thanksgiving.”
No, actually he was having the most hellish fall of his entire life and Thanksgiving loomed ahead of him as a reminder that everyone else had someone. His mom and Larry. Christian and Kori. He had no one.
“It’s been okay.”
Frank started massaging his index finger and thumb and Houston tried to ignore the fact that he barely felt it. Outside of his daily therapy sessions, he had been ignoring his injured hand, relying on his left hand the way he had been for the past seven weeks.
He couldn’t move his thumb and index finger. They wouldn’t move. He knew that. He didn’t have much sensation either. And that was something he wasn’t ready to deal with just yet. Except that he couldn’t ignore it. It followed him everywhere. He had adjusted, learning to drive with one and a half hands and scratching out shaky words with his left hand, but he sure in the hell couldn’t do his job. He’d been doing office appointments, but referring all his surgeries to the other orthopedists.
“Okay, let’s try and give it a bend and see how you do.” Frank pushed back on his wheeled chair to give him more space.
Houston glanced around the room to make sure none of the other occupants were paying attention to him. There were only two other patients in the room with therapists and they were both preoccupied with their own bodies and their failings, so Houston stared at his hand and tried to bend his index finger. He willed it to bend. He squeezed as hard as he could.
The lower half jerked half an inch, and the tip didn’t move at all.
“Okay, that’s good. Very good.” Frank handed him a soft ball. “Now see if you can squeeze the ball.”
Houston took the ball, sweat forming on his forehead. He couldn’t squeeze the ball and he knew it. They had been trying this every day for a week, with no results at all.
He couldn’t take it today. One more failure and he wasn’t going to be able to ignore the problem anymore. “Can we just skip this one for now?”
“You’re not going to be doing yourself any favors if you do. You know you’ve got to work it if you want to regain some mobility.”
Frank was right, of course. But his cheerfulness drove Houston nuts. Gripping the ball tightly, he tried to squeeze. Nothing happened. He tried again.
Nothing.
“Give it another try,” Frank urged, leaning forward to offer assistance.
Houston stood up from his seat. He was sick to death of people having to help him, of being helpless. He couldn’t take it another second, this burning and building frustration.
Transferring the ball to his left hand, he kicked the chair out of his way. “I can’t do it! I can’t squeeze the goddamn ball and you know it.”