Physical Therapy (24 page)

I followed Mark until we reached the boardwalk, watching as he rather dramatically slipped along next to the Nacho"s building in its shadow. When we got to the edge of the bar, he crouched low and crept to the sea wall, hiding behind it.

I followed silently, as did Katy, doing just as he did. The first thing I noticed was what I thought might be a mound of sand on the beach in the distance by the water"s edge. As I watched, it shifted and hunched, and I realized there was a person lying there. I started to say something, but Mark put his hand out to stop me and hissed.

“Shh,” he said barely above a whisper. “Sound carries in fog.” That it did. What I could now clearly see was a man, groaning as he lifted himself first to all fours, and then, staggering, upright. He took one step, agonizing and awkward, and then another. He got about four or five yards down the beach and fell again to begin the whole process over. I looked at Mark.

“He leaves the canes over by his car with his coat,” he mouthed. “He just walks down there for hours. Every night.”

“Jeez.”

“He"s trying to get stronger, working himself until almost dawn,” Mark said under his breath. “He"s pushing himself so hard—”

“Shh.” Katy put a reassuring hand on his arm. She looked at me. “Can you help?” I turned and sat down on my ass with my back to the sea wall. “I don"t know.” Mark"s hair was blowing in the breeze, and his resemblance to Ken was haunting. “I"m not sure. He obviously doesn"t want us to know he does this.” I looked back over the wall behind me to see that Ken had fallen again. He rose, dragging himself upright by sheer force of will, I thought, and moved forward again. It was breaking my heart to watch him. I not only felt for him, but I was aware that this was like peering into and speculating about the most intimate details of his life. He wouldn"t thank any of us for seeing this.

“You have to do something. It"s killing him. Watch.” Mark jerked his head, and I looked on as Ken once again struggled to his feet. He did this several more times, each time more gut-wrenching than the one before it, and finally, I could see, even hear, that he lay facedown on the sand shaking with sobs.

“Every night?” I asked.

“Every. Single. Fucking. Night.” Mark bit off each word as though he were yanking the pin from a grenade. He looked at me. “Somebody has to stop this. I think…

I believe
it has to be
you
. I think he loves you.” If it were possible, I felt myself shrink just a little more.
He told me he would get
strong enough for both of us. Is this what he meant?

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“You need to go talk to him. You need to stop him from hurting himself.” Mark"s eyes were wide in his face. I knew he was right. Somebody had to stop Ken. What he was doing wasn"t only ill-advised, but by not sleeping he was using up resources that he needed to heal. That was common sense.

“Go home,” I told Mark and Katy. “Call my mom and tell her I had to leave to help a friend. She"ll be worried when she wakes up if I"m not there, and I didn"t leave a note.”

Mark nodded. He and Katy started to crawl back to the shadows of Nacho"s Bar, but he turned back to me. “Look. I"m sorry I got so—”

“Go home,” I told him again. “We"ll talk more later.” I watched as they disappeared around the back of the building heading for Katy"s car.

I slipped off my shoes and left them on top of the sea wall. Except for being cold, I enjoyed the way the sand slipped under my feet. I could see why Ken was using it to exercise. It was challenging. It worked all my muscles and kept me fighting for balance as it shifted and slid beneath me.

I wasn"t being exactly stealthy when I walked across that sand, and I knew that Ken could hear me. He didn"t look up, and I thought he might have been pretending to sleep, hoping whoever was coming wouldn"t bother him. As I got closer and still got no reaction, I became concerned and dropped to my knees beside him.

“Ken?” I put a hand on his back. He jerked back, gasping in a big breath of air. He
had
fallen asleep, exhausted. He looked at me with round, confused eyes, and I just slipped down beside him and took him into my arms.

“What? What"re you—”

“Shh,” I whispered.

“How did you find me?”

I debated how much to tell him. “Magic.”

“Mark.” He sighed. “I thought he was looking tired lately. I should have recognized the signs. So…neither of us has been getting any sleep.”

“He"s very worried about you.” I pulled him so he rested with his back tight against my chest.

After a while he said, “It"s no use.”

“What?”

“I"m not going to get a whole lot better.” He was staring out at the ocean, spooned up against me, and I felt his body tremble a little.

“Maybe you"re not,” I said. “Maybe you are. I don"t know. You"re strong, though, Ken. Plenty strong enough for whatever you need. For whatever I need.”

“I thought I could come down here and walk on the sand—you know, like Rocky or something—like all I would need is the will, if I just want it badly enough.” 136

Z. A. Maxfield

“That only works in the movies because they"re an hour and a half long. Your recovery could take a year or more. You"re not giving yourself enough time.”

“I wish we"d met before the accident.”

“Why, so I could have been a one-night stand when your ball club played the A"s?

Think about it. You and I wouldn"t have had a chance before. You wanted to stay in the closet, and I wasn"t interested
in
or capable
of
relationships.”

“Will you still want me even though I may never be the man I was?” I pictured Ken"s mother standing in front of me in the parking lot at Day-Use saying
cut him loose
. “Your mother has other plans for you.”

“I can"t worry about my mother.” Ken shook his head. “I can only worry about my body, my attitude, my state of mind. My heart. Whether my muscles are strong enough or my balance is good enough. I can only worry about whether I"ll ever walk without assistance again. I don"t need to worry about my mother,” he ground out. “She needs to worry about me.”

“She
is
worried about you.”

He sighed deeply and pushed back against me, pulling my arms tighter around him.

“She may be right, Ken. You may never have wanted someone like me if you hadn"t had the accident. When you"re better you may want to move on.”

“That"s true,” he agreed, turning over to look me in the eye. “But I may not. And isn"t that true of anyone you"d meet? Anyone I"d meet? You make me
feel
good.” I admit I might have smiled a knowing kind of smile.

“Not just that way.” He pushed me onto my back. “But yeah, that way. I feel…like Goldilocks. This one is
just right
.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Like being here now.” I reached up and pushed some strands of hair off his face, but the wind blew them right back. “I should have been here for you all along. No skulking around trying to be all strong and shit.” He looked away. “I don"t care how well you get around. I just want to be by your side.” He leaned in for a kiss. “I want you.”

“You have me.”

He stilled. “How?”

Was he asking to be reassured? How did he have me?
“However you want me. I"m yours. Wherever. Whenever. Whatever. I swear I"ll stand by you. And if it all goes to hell or your family gives me shit? Bring it on. As long as you want me, I"m there.” He was still for so long I thought I"d said the wrong thing. Finally, he touched his lips to mine again, delicately, and I felt the tenderness seep through that kiss as he ran a hand down my back to my ass. He froze. “Are you in your
pajamas
?” Physical Therapy

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“Yeah, well, magic doesn"t wait for you to dress,” I said sourly.

“I"ll work on our manners.” He was feeling my ass with both hands, kneading the muscles there, and I could tell he was getting ideas.

“Your timing could be better too,” I said, thinking that I didn"t really want to be arrested for lewd acts on the beach at four in the morning. “I hope to fuck you"ll give me a ride home, because I told Mark and Katy to go. I"ve got the mother of all headaches again, damn it.”

“Sure; I"m parked by the pier.” He began to haul himself to his feet, and I got to mine to help him. I got up too quickly, got dizzy, and stumbled for a minute and thought about what a dumbass pair we made, laughing a little.

“What?”

“It occurred to me that I might not be much use to you yet.”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “I wasn"t going to say anything, but you"re kind of a spaz.”

“Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, pot.”

“I want to walk back.” He tightened his lips. “I"m not very good at it.”

“Let"s do it together. I"ll be here if you need me.” I looked toward the pier. “It"s not like we have a choice.”

He placed a hand lightly on my shoulder. “It"s slow going.”

“I"ve got time.” I swallowed hard. “I swear to you there"s no place on earth I"d rather be.” He hooked his arm around my neck and pulled me to him again, his lips coming down hard on mine for a searing kiss. He framed my face with his hands and drew away. His eyes promised me that was only the beginning.

138

Z. A. Maxfield

Chapter Twenty-one

I don"t know exactly how many times the dream of Bobby came again, visiting, knocking on the door of my sleeping self. It still came regularly after my car was found abandoned and burned on Interstate 80 just outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming. After my mother found a new life baking pies for six of the restaurants in town and a temporary place to live above Nacho"s Bar. After I had healed and my hair had grown back—

cropped close—almost completely hiding the scars. The dream kept coming even after Ken and I had been living together in his house for a time, spending our days working and our nights and weekends fixing and painting and gardening and making love.

Sometimes small details changed. I thought I was dreaming in order to relive the outcome of the tragedy and I was destined to have the same dream forever. So if it changed, even the smallest bit, I was surprised.

Then one night I dreamed that after waking in the hospital, I made my usual way out via the elevator onto the beach by Nacho"s Bar. As always, I crossed over vast space in my hospital gown and ended up in River Falls. My hometown was dark and silent before me as I crossed familiar landscapes. When I went up to the door with the Johnson family knocker on it, I rapped three times.

Perfect, whole Bobby Johnson answered the door carrying a toy truck. I looked down at my hand, and predictably, I had the flashlight, but Bobby didn"t scream when he saw me. Instead, he looked up at me with unblinking brown eyes. I held out my hand, the one that did not contain the flashlight, and he took it with his.

It seemed then as though I almost dreamed it all backward; River Falls was getting smaller and smaller behind us as we trudged across the farmlands and prairies together. In the distance I could just begin to make out the glittering, changeable Pacific Ocean. First we came to the high cliffs, where steep and rocky paths led down to the tidal pools, and then, our feet submerged, we stood in the shallow water, toes tingling from the cold.

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Bobby Johnson, my dream Bobby, who always seemed so alive and whole, took my flashlight from me, casting it as far as he could out over the water. It landed with a satisfying
thunk
and disappeared into the churning green sea below. He looked at me again and then at the toy in his hand. He handed over the die-cast metal truck and looked serenely out to sea. I flung that truck twice as far as he"d thrown the flashlight, and when it hit the water, the sun seemed to set behind it, slipping into the fiery horizon until there was only a glowing burst of raw and vivid color left behind. I looked down to see how Bobby was taking that, if he thought it was as beautiful as I did, but he was gone.

I jerked awake.

“What is it?” Ken asked me when he felt me sit up.

“I had that dream again. It was…it was all wrong.” He slipped a hand around my hips and pulled me into that muscled body of his.

“What do you mean?”

“I dreamed that this time, instead of Bobby screaming or running away, we came here, to St. Nacho"s, and he threw the flashlight from my attack into the ocean.”

“Yeah?” He sat up.

“Then he gave me a toy truck. I threw that away as well, and the sun set.”

“Really?” He reached out an arm and pulled me to him so that I straddled his lap.

I put my head down on his shoulder, in my favorite place, with my lips against his neck. “Do you think that means you got rid of it? The past?” I tensed. “I hope not!”

“Why not?” he asked. “What good is carrying it around?”

“I can"t let go of that. I can"t. It"s like saying it"s okay. It would be like I"m okay with Bobby"s death. As if I could
get over it
.” Ken seemed to think this over. “Before, when things were tough and you were just starting over in a new life, I think you may have needed the guilt to keep you from making bad choices.”

“Isn"t
that
the understatement of the century?”

“You"ve been making good decisions ever since I"ve known you. You"ve done the right thing. You"ve helped others; been generous with your time. You"re a good guy for kids like my brothers to look up to.”

“Yes, but—”

“Maybe the dream is telling you it"s time to let go of—”

“No!” I stopped him. “I
need
to carry him with me. If I stopped, that would be like killing him twice.” I couldn"t say why, but the idea of throwing away my past made me feel empty and terrified.

“I was going to say that maybe you should keep Bobby, keep the sorrow, keep the memory so that it can continue to guide you, but lose the guilt.” 140

Z. A. Maxfield

“How do you lose guilt?” I asked. I couldn"t imagine. Every time I thought of Bobby a fresh wave of pain sluiced through me.

“Maybe…” He pulled me to him and began stroking circles on my back with the flat of his hand. “Maybe you should allow it to become a passion for helping others.” It was so dark and quiet in our room that I could hear his gentle breathing and every slip of the sheets against his warm skin.