Hunter Hill University: Reaching Rose Part 35

"The chemo's to keep it from coming back."

"Oh...so...what about...what about what's there now?"

He sighs. Shrugs. "That's...that's the kicker, because they didn't catch this earlier, I didn't have time for chemotherapy before, so...."

I wait.

He takes his left hand away and reaches over to place it on my left leg. Her runs his hand slowly up and down my thigh. "I have two options."

He stops talking again. His hand still grazes my leg while he looks at it.

I wait.

He kinda nods before he says, "I have to choose between an operation that will cause complications and infection the rest of my life..." His hand doesn't stop moving along my thigh, his gaze never leaves my leg. "Or...losing the whole thing," he whispers.

I think I hear what he's saying, but I ask, "The whole knee?"

He looks up at me and shakes his head. "The whole leg."

Oh. What do I say to that? I'm sorry doesn't seem enough. Because not only may he lose his leg, he's probably lost the chance to make the Majors. "Oh, Ben. I'm really sorry." Because though it's not the right thing to say, nothing else comes to mind.

He takes his hand from my leg, turns to face me, but keeps hold of my other hand. "Why'd you stop talking? In rehab. Why didn't you talk at first?"

I hesitate to answer, because it's hard for me to talk about. I haven't talked about the accident since the mental hospital.

"Rose...I just told you more today than you've told me ever. I've waited patiently for you to be ready to talk. But...I'm out of time. I don't know how to handle this. It would help if I could hear...well, your story."

I pull my hand out from his. "Why?"

"Why?" he asks, his forehead furrowed.

"Yeah. I don't..."

"I need to know. To help me. Is that an a.s.shole thing to ask? It looks like I've upset you."

I shrug. "I can't help you decide, Ben."

"Why'd you stop talking? Is it that hard? To deal with? I'm confused as h.e.l.l these days. Did Johnny give up 'cause his dreams were shattered? Because the plans he made for the future ended up pointless?" Ben clasps his hands between his legs and leans on his elbows. He looks down at the ground. "Either decision I make, I'm done. There's no chance for me. My plans, all that time I spent practicing...hour after hour on the mound." He looks up at me, but his elbows are still resting on his thighs. "Pointless."

I close my eyes. I know exactly what he's talking about. "I don't know why Johnny gave up," I say after a long pause.

Ben sits up and looks at me for a long time. "I'm thinking of going with option one."

I have to replay our conversation to remember what option one was. "The surgery that will cause complications and infection?"

He nods. Doesn't take his eyes off me.

"Why?" His eyes bore into mine still. He wants my reaction? I'm not sure what he wants. "You don't want to lose your leg." It's not a question. I know he doesn't want to lose his leg. Who would?

"No."

That's when I figure out why he's staring into my eyes like that - he's afraid his decision would hurt my feelings. Well...it doesn't. At first. But as I sit there, looking at him, running our conversation through my head, I realize, maybe he really isn't okay with my missing leg. Maybe he does find it unappealing. Maybe...I was right all along and I can't have a relations.h.i.+p with Ben. He'd never see past it. "What are the complications with losing it?" I have to know what's driving his decision.

Both of our eyes are diverted now. His are cast down, mine are looking at all the baseb.a.l.l.s gathered near home plate.

"Pretty much none, once the initial healing process is over."

Yes, I know this. Keeping my eyes on the b.a.l.l.s, I say, "So you'd rather deal with a lifetime of problems than lose your leg."

He doesn't respond.

"So what do you really think about me, Ben?" I ask, this time looking directly at him.

He whips his head up. "I really like you, Rose. It has nothing to do with how I feel about you. This is totally separate. I just..."

"Don't want to be a gimp like me."

"No. You're not a gimp. Stop. This isn't about you. It's about me...and how I'm gonna deal with it."

"But it's about me sorta, because you asked why I stopped talking."

"So I could know what to expect, I guess. I don't know, Rose." He stands and paces. "You gotta admit, though, your life isn't the same anymore, is it?" He stops, looks at me, and waits for my response.

I don't give him one.

"You don't dance anymore."

"You said no matter what decision you make you can't make it to the Majors, so what's your point?"

"Holly said you're not the same. You lost confidence."

"I was in a major accident. It scarred my entire body. That's gonna take a knock on anyone's self-esteem."

"You won't even go back to school."

"I am back in school."

He sits back down next to me. "You are?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

We sit there quietly for a while. I want to walk away, but something's keeping me glued to the bench.

"Why don't you want to consider amputation?" I whisper. I really need to know.

After a minute or so, he answers me. "I'm afraid." He looks straight ahead, then at me. His knee is bouncing a mile a minute. "Making the decision to...cut it off...I can't. I almost wish they'd make the decision for me."

I nod. I get it.

"It doesn't mean I look at you any less than if you had two full legs. I promise."

"Don't. Promises. I don't believe them."

"What? You think I'd lie?"

"No. No. But...we were promised a future...it was taken away...from all of us. It's not fair."

"No." He shakes his head. "But...I wouldn't give up on promises. I would never break a promise to you."

"You didn't show up on Christmas Eve."

"That was not a promise, Rose. That's not fair," he tells me, sounding a little annoyed. "I never promised."

"I realize that...but my point is, something horrible came up...and you had to change your plans. I'm not sure what I can count on anymore. Not you, I'm not talking about that, just...you wanna know why I stopped talking?"

He quirks his lip and nods.

"Because once I uttered a word, it'd make it all real. If I didn't talk, I rationalized that it was all a dream...a nightmare. Most of the time I spent inside my own head...somewhere in the past. There were times I don't think I was even in the present. My mind blocked it all." I take a deep breath and exhale. "Until it couldn't anymore. I guess it was my version of denial - just ignore it and it'll go away. Only...it didn't. And I'm still living this nightmare." I stop to see if he needs to say anything.

He doesn't.

"Only now, I've accepted it."

"You have?"

"I've accepted that my life has changed. And I'll never dance again. I've accepted that I have to figure out something else to do. I've accepted to not even count on my new plans, because I can get hit by a truck all over again."

"That's a sad way to live, though, isn't it?"

"Yes. But I'm sad anyway, so what does it matter?"

"So...like Johnny, you're just gonna give up." He doesn't ask this, because he knows it's true. Kinda.

"I'm still here...so...I'm not giving up my existence...just...what I want to do with it."

"I can't live like that. I can't accept it."

"So what do you plan to do?" My leg's starting to hurt from sitting so long, so I stand. "G.o.d has the final say, so what's the point?"

"G.o.d? What's He have to do with this?"

"Everything."

"So...you think no matter what you plan, it doesn't matter, because G.o.d will just stamp a null and void stamp across it and say, 'No, Rose, this is your fate.'"

"Pretty much."

"What if He's giving us these...challenges to overcome...to learn something from?"

"What am I learning? What did Johnny learn? That his life was supposed to be better spent in a wheelchair, unable to feed himself? I'm better off limping through life? For what reason?"

Ben stands and leans against the side wall while I walk off the pain in my knee. "I don't know. I'm not G.o.d. But I do know that I've worked too hard for it to be for nothing."

"Then why opt for option one? I would think a lifetime of complications wouldn't land you a spot in the Majors...but maybe life with a prosthetic would."

"Yeah. Like it's allowed you to continue to dance?"

Now I'm mad. "You don't pitch with your freaking leg."

"And you don't know if you can't dance until you've tried."

I narrow my eyes at him. Who the h.e.l.l does he think he is?

"Worry about your own problems, Ben, and I'll worry about mine."

I turn around and limp off the field.

He doesn't call for me to come back. And he doesn't follow me either. But I do feel his eyes on me as I walk away.

34.

BEN.

"What the f.u.c.k have I done?"

"f.u.c.k. f.u.c.k. f.u.c.k." I kick the side wall of the dugout.

"f.u.c.k." I kick it again.

Then I sit down on the bench, rest my elbows on my legs, and cry.

I didn't cry when I found out I had cancer and that I may lose a leg.

I didn't cry when I found out that Johnny lost his will to live.

These things made me angry and sad, but I didn't cry.

Watching Rose walk off this field...