Hunter Hill University: Reaching Rose Part 6

That'd be so d.a.m.n cool.

When her therapist walks around to place the tray in front of Rose, I notice the tag on her scrubs says Nina. Nina the therapist. At least I know what her name is now. Nina tells Rose to feel free to walk around the room after lunch and she'll be back for her in an hour.

"d.a.m.n, girl, you look good on two legs," Johnny tells her in a non-flirtatious way.

I, on the other hand, attempt to flirt by leaning into her ear and whispering, "I think you're beautiful no matter what."

Her eyes get as big as Johnny's did a minute ago, and then her face turns a brighter peach and she looks down at her lap. I mentally kick myself, because maybe that was being too forward. With Rose, I need to take it slow. I know this. She's been through a traumatic event. I need to rein it in a bit, but d.a.m.n, I couldn't help myself. She's beyond beautiful.

Rose's eyes dart around the table, but she hardly raises her head, and she never touches her food.

"Girl, I'm gonna sic Marti on you if you don't start eating."

Marti just laughs but doesn't respond to Johnny's comment.

Rose tries to ignore him, but her hands are fumbling over each other on her lap, and I'm pretty sure she's embarra.s.sed right now.

"Hey, Rose," I say to distract her, "Johnny and I are watching a movie in here tonight." She turns her head to look at me. "You're welcome to join us...It gets boring sitting in our room night after night," I say as an afterthought.

She looks me in the eyes, and I may be wrong, but I think she wants to say yes.

To get her to seal the deal, I say, "There'll be chocolate pudding."

Her lips tuck in, but a small smile escapes. I made her smile, and if I'm not mistaken, the little rise of her chest tells me she's stifling a chuckle too.

"How 'bout seven?" I ask Johnny. "I have a thirty-minute session with Katrina at six thirty. Is that good for you?"

"Sure. They usually put me in my bed about six, because I work out like Schwarzenegger and I'm beat by then, but tonight, for you guys, I'll stay up."

"Good for you too, Rose?"

She nods. Just twice, but she nods. Yes.

Obviously Rose remains quiet while Johnny and I talk, but we do include her in the conversation. Once in a while I'll get a nod or a barely-there smile, but she does respond, and this puts a smile on my face so huge that it's pretty hard to keep it hidden.

"What's so funny?" Johnny asks.

"Nothing. Just...a joke I remember."

"Care to share?"

"Not really."

He shrugs and drops it.

Throughout lunch, I try really hard not to let on that I'm watching Rose, but because she's become somewhat of an interest to me, I can't help myself. I notice, though, that today...she eats. It's not a lot, and she even tries to hide that she's eating, but it's more than I've seen her eat on other days. Well, anything's more than nothing.

After Johnny's nurse wheels him away, and we've confirmed our plans for tonight, I ask Rose to take a walk with me around the room.

"Come on." I nudge her after she doesn't respond. "I heard Nina telling you you should. Besides, the room emptied out. It's practically just the two of us in here."

She looks down at her legs for such a long time that I think she's ignoring me, but then her hands cup the edge of the table and she pushes her chair away. My impulse is to take her by the arm, but I don't want her to think I think she needs my help.

Her small pale hand grips her cane and she steps to my side. I take the first step, and we walk together around the edges of the large room. I'm guessing the room is set up for walking, since the tables are set in the center of the room and the lounge area is off to the far corner, leaving adequate s.p.a.ce for wheelchairs and recovering walkers to roam about the room. A month ago, I think I'd have laughed if someone asked me to walk around a room for recreation. I'm just saying, the room may be large, but it's no baseball field. None of that matters at the moment, though, because I'm walking with the most beautiful girl I've ever had the honor of walking with. So, yeah, I'm good.

11.

ROSE.

This is so awkward.

And embarra.s.sing.

I don't even know what to think right now. My yoga pants are covering this fake leg, but it's not like Ben doesn't know. Besides, even if he didn't know, all he'd have to do is look down at the big plastic foot that sticks out from the bottom of my pants.

I'm trying. Really. There's nothing I want more than to be home with my mother, but...

Well, that's a lie.

There is one more thing I want more than to be home, and that's for this stupid accident to never have taken place so that I could still dance. But that dream was wrenched away from me, and that makes me sad. Yet I don't want to stay here forever, so I need to find it in myself to willingly cooperate and show some kind of semblance to my old self.

"So, I know you don't talk much," Ben says slowly, his hands stuck in the front pocket of his sweats.h.i.+rt, "so you can just nod or shake your head...if you're comfortable with that, of course."

He pauses in his speech and his step. I force myself to look up at him but only for an instant. Then he continues to walk as he asks, "Do you like funny movies?"

I nod.

"Do you like horror movies?"

I shrug, because they're not bad, but I don't necessarily love them.

He seems to understand my shrug, since the next thing he says is, "Soooo, not reeeeaaaally a fan, but you'll watch it...if forced."

The way he draws out some of the words, I can't help but smile.

"Okay. What about action films...like...Need for Speed or Fast and Furious?"

I scrunch up my face and shake my head.

"What about...Hunger Games, Twilight, that kind of thing?"

I nod.

"Okay, okay, what about love stories? Like Nicholas Sparks and..."

I nod before he's even finished asking the question.

"Noooo." He throws his head back as we walk. "Okay, okay, I had a feeling, but...just wanted to be sure. I guess I'll see what DVDs we have to choose from, and I'll pick a love story or something funny.

He looks at me again and then says, "Probably something funny. I have a feeling Johnny needs to laugh."

Yeah. I'm sure he does.

Look at me, feeling sorry for myself having only one leg, when poor Johnny can't even move. I sigh, and a painful-sounding noise escapes my gut. Quickly, I cover my mouth, but not quick enough to hide the noise from Ben.

"Are you all right?"

I nod, but I'm terribly embarra.s.sed, and I feel myself start to cry. In an attempt to be normal, I force the tears back. Though, in doing so, I'm sure I look like a complete idiot.

"Hey. Johnny's gonna be okay." He pulls a hand out of his pocket and takes my elbow. "And so will you," he whispers.

Did you ever really not want to cry in front of someone so badly that you try really hard to hold back your tears? Your throat hurts, your face freezes, your eyes go wide because if you close them you'll just release them faster. That's me right now. And I'm sure I'm looking all kinds of foolish. But I can't help it. I'm not strong enough to barricade the tears, so I turn away from Ben and slowly hobble out of the room.

I don't have to turn around to know that Ben isn't following me. He's too polite for that. I've figured that much out about him already.

The hallway is a blurry mess in front of me, so I move to the side and lean against the wall, attempting to wipe away the tears that are causing it.

"Rose?"

I look up to see Nina in front of me.

"I was just coming to get you. What happened?"

The tears don't stop. Not at all. They rush out of my eyes like Niagara Falls.

Nina wraps her arms around me, but I push her away and slink to the ground. If I could run, I would, but I can't, so I sit.

"I'm gonna go get Dr. Rappaport."

A couple minutes later, Nina is back with Dr. Rappaport and they're both struggling to lift me off the ground. Not because I'm too heavy; I've probably dropped down to ninety pounds by now. No, they're struggling because I am fighting them with every deconditioned muscle in my mutilated body. Soon, there are two male aides, and I'm being hoisted up and onto a stretcher. But I fight that too, and before they can strap me down, I roll off and fall flat on my face, my hands and arms too weak to keep my nose from hitting the ground. Now I'm in physical pain on top of everything else.

That's when I do it.

That's when I let out all the emotions I'd been keeping in for the last two and a half months.

That's when I am finally able to speak.

And it's not just normal speaking.

I let out sounds so deep and so loud, that I can't believe they come out of my mouth.

From somewhere deep in my gut, I scream, "G.o.d, why? Why did you do this to me? Why? Oh, G.o.d, nooooooooooo, nooooooooo, not me! Oh my G.o.d, no, no, no, no."

The words go on forever, and they echo throughout the hallway.

By the time I am done screaming, only Dr. Rappaport is left. And he is sitting by my side, rubbing my back. Someone brings a pillow and places it under my head. I don't know how long I was screaming, but at the end of my meltdown, I am exhausted. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally.

I am sitting in Dr. Rappaport's office sometime after, and instead of not speaking, like is usually the case, I've been yelling. In my old life, I never yelled. Never found the need for it. Now. Now, I'm this person I don't even recognize. Half a person. Who screams at the top of her lungs. Now. Is this who I'm going to be for the rest of my life?

"This is not who you are going to be for the rest of your life, Rose," Dr. Rappaport says in response to my question, which evidently I said out loud. "You're going through the second stage of grief. It took you a while to get there, but you're there now. And it's good."

"Second stage?" I ask, screaming the words at him, digging my fingernails into my folded arms.

"Anger. The first one is denial. The second, anger. You're making progress."

I shake my head. "I don't want to make progress!" I touch my neck. My throat is awfully dry. I'm on my third gla.s.s of water since I've been sitting in here. "I want this to never have happened," I yell, pleading for time to rewind.

"But it did happen, Rose, and now you have to make a decision."

A decision? I just glare at the doctor.

"You have to make the decision to either take control of this situation, or let it control you."

I stand up, and let me tell you, it isn't easy, since I still don't know how to use this metal leg attached to me, and the new bruises I incurred from my fall are raw and aching. "G.o.d decided already," I scream. "He decided I should walk around life on one leg and never dance again. It isn't fair. It isn't fair." I sit back down, because I hurt and I'm exhausted. "It isn't fair," I whisper, punching both my thighs.

"It isn't fair, Rose. Not at all."

"And that's supposed to help me?" G.o.d, I'm being so fresh, but what am I supposed to do? This isn't the life I wanted. This isn't me. This isn't me. This isn't me. My tears find their way back, and I just want to go to sleep.

"Rose. You're beat. If you want to stay here and talk things out, then stay. If you want to rest, I'll have one of the nurses bring you back to your room. Besides, you really need to ice your face some more. I think that pack isn't cutting it anymore."

No, it isn't, since it's been lying on the chair next to me, keeping the chair nice and cold.

Nina helps me to my room and takes off my metal paper towel tube. Then I almost vomit when she takes off my protective socks and dressings. Usually Lou or Katrina does it, and I never watch. Gone are the days I can just mind-travel back to sunnier days and ignore the present. So when I see the mutilation that is my left leg, my stomach lurches, and I think I'm going to puke for real.

"I know today was rough," Nina says, looking up at me while she's tending to my missing leg, "but you should have been taught how to do this already, Rose. It was infected for a long time, so your incision is still healing. Don't think it can't get infected again, because it can. And then that will just prolong getting your permanent prosthetic. You need to care for your own stump."

That's when I hurl. All over my lap and Nina. I can't stand that word. Stump. It's an ugly word. It makes me feel ugly.

"Oh my G.o.d, Rose. Really?" Nina says, standing up, her arms held out, her face disgusted by the vomit spewed all over her s...o...b..-Doo scrubs.

Now we both have puke on ourselves, but only Nina can clean herself up. I'm stuck on the bed with no chair, no cane, no nothing to help me get up.

So, like the baby that I'm being, because I don't know how to act grown up with this deformity, I kick the side panel of the bed with my heel, and grunt something incoherent, even to myself.

Nina comes back in my room with Lou, and both of them tend to cleaning the vomit off of me. Afterward, I'm asked whether I want to be put in my chair, but I shake my head and pull the covers over my legs. The only thing I want to do is sleep. Even watching a funny movie with Ben tonight holds no appeal.