Just Physical (36 page)

“Yay! We made it!” Crash pumped her fist. She hadn't even broken a sweat, but she still looked proud of herself.

Or maybe proud of me,
Jill thought.

Then she stopped thinking, because Crash pulled her into a jubilant hug.

She sank against Crash's body, all of her defenses instantly gone. After the injection incident two weeks ago, she had told herself to keep her distance, but that resolution melted away as she wrapped her arms around Crash and ducked her head to inhale her scent. Incredible how good Crash's body felt against hers. It wasn't just a sexual reaction. Having Crash be proud of her made her feel as if she'd just been crowned queen of America.

Pats on her back made her open her eyes, which had closed without her noticing.

The entire
Shaken
team surrounded her, celebrating as if they had just won some major sports event.

Jill's cheeks heated. She let go of Crash and stepped back to accept hugs from Grace and Lauren and some of the cast members.

When the last hug ended, everyone looked at her expectantly.

She had to say something.

Crash gave her an encouraging nod.

After taking a deep breath, Jill looked at the dozens of people surrounding her and smiled at them, albeit a little shakily. “Thank you, guys, for turning out on your only day off to walk with me. I really appreciate it.” It was the truth, she realized. Walking with them had been empowering instead of making her feel weak, as she had feared.

Many shouted something back, but their voices all mingled, thankfully relieving Jill of the need to reply.

More participants crossed the finish line behind them, so they moved away to make space. Benches and tables had been set up in one of the parking lots, where food was being sold.

Crash stuck her nose in the air, reminding Jill of Tramp. “Do you smell that?”

“Smell what?”

“Hot dogs!” Crash said with an eager gleam in her eyes.

Jill laughed, her tension nearly forgotten for the moment. “It seems someone missed breakfast.” Truth be told, she had skipped breakfast too. She had been too nervous to get anything down.

Hooking her arm through Jill's, Crash steered them toward one of the tables. “There's someone I want you to meet. Are you feeling up to it?”

God, would it be like this all day? How many more people with MS did Crash know? Jill wasn't sure she was ready for this. But clearly, this was important to Crash, so she nodded.

Crash stopped at a table where a middle-aged couple sat, eating hot dogs. The sturdily built woman hugged Crash as if she were a long-lost friend, and the man, who was in a wheelchair, beamed up at her. “Jill, these are Sally and George. George, Sally, this is my…friend, Jill.”

Jill tried not to stare at the wheelchair-bound man. “Uh, hi. Nice to meet you.” She didn't dare hold out her hand, not knowing if his arms were paralyzed too.

“Jill?” Sally's brows bunched together. “I thought her name was Lucy?”

A blush crept into Crash's cheeks, and she fingered the neck of her T-shirt. “Uh, I… It's not that I don't trust you, but I didn't want to violate Jill's privacy.”

Her consideration touched Jill deeply. She reached out and squeezed Crash's arm.

“Why don't you sit with them,” Crash said. “I'll get us our hot dogs.”

Oh, no, no, no. Don't leave me alone with them!
But her pleading look didn't help.

Crash strode away, her long steps eating the ground toward the hot-dog vendor.

Jill's gaze followed her. “No mustard for me,” she called after her.

“I know,” Crash called back.

Jill stood there for a moment, a bit overwhelmed by the entire event going on around her.

“We don't bite,” Sally said.

“Other than hot dogs,” her husband added with a grin.

Jill gave herself a mental kick and sat at the table across from them.

True to his word, George wolfed down his hot dog. Sally fed him bite by bite with her right hand while holdings hers in the other.

Jill swallowed. She wanted to avert her gaze but couldn't stop watching them.

To her surprise, both of them were laughing as she fed him another bite of hot dog and his graying mustache came away covered in mustard. Sally looked around for a napkin, but she had already used the ones that had come with their hot dogs.

Jill reached out and handed her a stack of napkins from the empty table next to theirs.

Sally smiled warmly. “Thank you. I shouldn't have ignored rule number one when eating out with my dear husband.” She waited a beat, and then she and George grinned at each other and said in unison, “You can never have enough napkins.”

“You're a lifesaver,” George said. “Well, a mustache-saver.”

His sense of humor was impressive, considering the circumstances.

She looked back and forth between them. Were they always like this, or were they putting on a show for the benefit of the people nearby? Surely Sally had weak moments when she regretted ever meeting him. Taking care of a wheelchair-bound husband couldn't be as easy as Sally made it seem.

“You can ask, you know?” Sally said.

Jill blinked at her. She couldn't possibly mean…?

“Crash didn't tell us a lot about you, but I'm guessing you might have a lot of questions, and how will you get any answers if you don't ask?”

True. But she couldn't ask what she wanted to know, especially not in front of George.

“Go ahead,” George said as if guessing her thoughts. “You won't hurt my feelings.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her forehead, hiding her heated face for a moment. “Is it…? I mean, do you…?” So many things were going through her mind that she couldn't articulate even one of them.

“It's okay,” Sally said with a light touch to Jill's arm. “It hasn't been very long since you've been diagnosed, has it?”

On the one hand, it felt like yesterday that her doctor had tilted her world on its axis with his words,
I'm pretty sure it's MS.
On the other hand, she could barely remember life without MS. “Actually, it's been almost two years.”

Sally looked surprised for a moment before shrugging. “We all deal with it in our own time.”

What was that supposed to mean? She had dealt with it already, hadn't she? Squaring her chin, she stared at Sally, who only gave her a mild smile in return.

Something quivered inside of Jill. God, was Sally right? Admittedly, she felt pretty out of her depth lately. Had she just deluded herself into thinking she had coped with her condition when in reality she'd been in denial all this time?

Jill had a feeling that the answer to that question was a resounding
yes
. She hadn't come to grips with many of the aspects of MS, and that included her stance on relationships. Instead of carefully examining her options, she had closed that door once and for all.

“How long did it take you?” she finally found the courage to ask, looking from Sally to George.

A quiet sigh escaped George. He and Sally exchanged wry smiles. “It's an ongoing process,” George said. “We pretty much spent the last twenty years dealing with one change after another. Having to give up my job. Going from using a cane to a walker and then a wheelchair. No longer being able to drive myself. Losing some of our friends who couldn't deal with the helplessness.”

Jill's stomach bunched itself up into a massive knot. She remembered the YouTube video she had watched right after being diagnosed. That woman's boyfriend had left her because he couldn't deal with her condition. She peeked over at Crash, who waited in line at the hot-dog stand. What if she couldn't deal with it either, despite what she said? She shook off the painful thought and returned her attention to Sally. “Do you ever…?”

“Regret marrying him?” Sally finished for her.

Unable to look her in the eyes or look at George, Jill nodded.

Despite the grief that had been apparent in her eyes when her husband had listed his losses, Sally sounded strong and determined as she said, “Not even for a second.” She put her hand on top of his limp one. “We met after George was diagnosed, so I entered into this relationship with my eyes wide open. Some days are harder than others and a few are hell, but just having him in my life makes it all worthwhile.”

They looked at each other with a gaze so loving that it almost hurt Jill to watch.

“Ditto,” George said, more to Sally than to Jill. Then he looked over at her. “Sometimes I worry about leaning on Sally too much. This,” he nodded down at his paralyzed body, “is a lot to take on. I didn't want her to live like this. I still don't. But what am I to do? This stubborn woman won't leave me, so I might as well accept her love.”

Could it really be that easy? Jill's world seemed to tilt beneath her. She clutched the edge of the table. Little electric shocks stabbed her left leg, a poignant reminder of her own illness, but they were nothing in comparison to the pain in her heart.

“And from what I know of your girlfriend, she's just as stubborn,” George added.

“Oh, no, we're not… She's not…”

“It's okay,” Sally said and touched her arm in a motherly gesture. “We already know the two of you are gay.”

“That's not… We're really not… I mean, we are gay, but—”

Crash returned to the table with two bottles of water and two hot dogs. She settled down next to Jill and handed over one of each. “Did I miss anything?”

“No,” Jill, George, and Sally said in unison.

Jill started eating, glad for the distraction, but while the others talked, she was still thinking about George's words.

When George tired and they prepared to leave, Sally pressed a card into Jill's hand.

Confused, Jill stared down at it. “What…?”

“It's the web address for the support group George is running,” Sally said.

George was running a support group? She hadn't thought that possible.

“It's an online group, since some of us can no longer drive,” George said. “The chat room we're using is compatible with my dictation software, so I can do this on my own. Why don't you drop by one evening and give it a try?”

“Self-help groups aren't my thing.” She tried to hand back the card, which seemed to burn in her hand, but Sally refused to take it.

“That's what I said in the beginning, but the meetings really help,” George said. “Now I'm even running my own group, and it's great to be able to give back some of the help I received.”

Sighing, Jill pocketed the card. “I'll think about it.”

The parking lot was almost empty, and all of their colleagues were long gone, but neither Crash nor Jill were in a hurry to leave. Crash had enjoyed spending the last few hours with Jill, playfully arguing about who got to pay for the hot dogs and talking about everything under the sun. Once they left here, she wasn't sure what to expect—would Jill shut her out again, overwhelmed with everything she had experienced today?

She watched Jill, who was nibbling her bottom lip as if she needed to digest something. Crash had a pretty good idea what it was, but she wanted to hear it from Jill and help her deal with it. “Penny for your thoughts.”

“I don't think they're worth that much.”

“They are worth much more than that. At least to me,” Crash said, gazing into Jill's eyes.

Emotions were swirling through the green depths. For a moment, Crash thought Jill would refuse to answer or would make some kind of joke, but then Jill cleared her throat. “Sally and George.” She shook her head with puzzlement. “Weren't they amazing?”

Crash nodded. “There were a lot of amazing people doing the walkathon. I know how hard it was for you to come here today.”

Jill was silent for several seconds. Just when Crash thought she might not answer, she said, “It was the hardest thing I've ever done. Well, other than dissecting a frog in biology class. I still don't know how I managed not to puke.”

Of course Jill would add a joke to that emotional confession. It was so typically Jill that Crash had to smile. “Well, you conquered this frog.” She indicated the Rose Bowl loop.

“You've been a big part of it,” Jill said. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” Crash squeezed her hand, and then neither of them let go.

They leaned against Jill's Beetle holding hands, watching other participants leave.

Anna and her husband waved as they passed them with their little girl.

“Having three kids while suffering from fatigue,” Jill murmured. “I don't know how she does it. I get tired just thinking about it.”

Crash studied her, taking in the shifting emotions on her expressive features. “You haven't spent much time around other people with MS, have you?”

“I didn't know that was required,” Jill said, a bit tersely. Then she pressed her lips together and squeezed Crash's hand. “Sorry. I didn't mean to be so bitchy. It's just… I feel a bit…raw today.”