1. Cody
Cody
Past
“ S hame the one son I had that was useful is now useless, but…” Clyde Korhonen glares at his manicured nails that haven’t seen a day’s manual work in his life. “…we adapt or die, I suppose.”
I stare at my father, my hand balling into a fist, the urge to pound into him so fierce that only my injuries glue me to the bed.
“Thanks, Pops.” Hatred seethes inside me for this asswipe whose DNA I unfortunately share. “Nice to know you’re still good at kicking a man when he’s down.”
Paralyzed.
One arm.
No more flying.
No more ambidexterity.
No more?—
With disdain etched into every line on his wrinkled ballsack of a face, he sniffs. “I’ll be back later, when you’re in a better mood.”
“That’s not going to happen.” I lock my eyes on his and, with all the loathing I’m feeling, order, “Just leave me alone.”
“You won’t be discharged for a while.”
“I’d prefer to be on my own than deal with your form of encouragement.” I sneer at him. “After all, I wouldn’t want to taint you with my uselessness.”
The doctors told me that my life wasn’t over when I woke up, but everything that was before this hospital bed is over.
Clyde’s known for his foot-in-mouth syndrome, so his idea of motivation is the last thing I need.
Adapting is how I’ve survived the Royal Canadian Air Force, and I will evolve.
I can train.
I can fight.
I can strive.
Physio will be my bitch.
Hell, if this is how I’ll be forever, you fucking watch me in the Paralympics going for gold to rival my little brother’s medals.
Nothing holds me back.
Nothing.
Certainly not my blood.
“You have to face reality?—”
“Reality is that I’m not defective,” I snarl at him. “Fuck your ableist ass. Your other sons aren’t useless either. Cole has so many gold medals that he needs an insured trophy case, Callan is almost as smart as Einstein, and Colt manages our ranch a damn sight better than you ever have.” With my good hand, I jab my pointer finger at him. “You need to get out before I throw the tray then this fucking overbed table at you.”
“It isn’t my fault you can’t see the truth. I blame that on your mother!”
“Get. Out.”
He scowls, but maybe he reads the sincerity in my expression because he quickly scampers off like the rat he is.
I might be useless in his eyes, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t scared of me.
Thank fuck that hasn’t changed.
I am not defective. And neither is anyone with mobility issues. Hell, if this is how disabled people’s families treat them, then I’m ready to declare war on all pieces of shit who don’t deserve to be called ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad.’
My arm might not work, but the doctors didn’t say all hope of regaining mobility in it was gone, and I…
“Fuck.”
I sag into the pillows, features creasing with agony at the unexpected movement in my broken leg that I didn’t brace for. A broken leg that’s more metal pins than bones and cartilage at this point.
His words are like poison.
He is poison.
I can feel the noxious toxins that he exhales arcing through my veins, seeping into muscles and joints, killing me from the inside out.
“You should call Mrs. Abelman,” I tell myself as I close my eyes. “Mum. Or Colt.” My oldest brother. “Fuck, even Cole would help right about now.” My middle brother might be a dipshit, but he’s better than Tigger for putting a smile on my face. “Hell, Callan—” The youngest. “—would figure out how to get me back on track?—”
I grit my teeth again as common sense goes to war with my every instinct.
Tilting my head back against the pillow, I stare at the ceiling, attempting not to feel like a boat without an oar.
What if they think I’m useless too?
What if my only worth to them was as a decorated combat pilot?
Just as I’m about ready to scream, the nurse comes in.
Gen doesn’t look at me like I’m defective. Her smile hits her eyes, twinkling with a glimmer of appreciation that I’ve grown used to seeing since I hit my fourteenth birthday.
If I lifted my sheet, I know she’d jump right on board, paralyzed arm and busted leg or not.
Gen was the nurse who explained how physio might help when I refused to speak with the physiotherapist on staff after Pops’s initial ‘doom and gloom’ visit two days ago. She was kind but not pitying. Informative and educational.
The urge to flirt her into the sack is there, but what stops it is the letter in her hand.
I recognize the stationery and it hits me like a blow to the gut.
Nobody else uses stationery brighter than the sun—T.
It’s a loud yellow, not daisy in tone, but fluorescent with equally neon pink zebra stripes that I know she drew on there.
Anyone else would think I write to a four-year-old who has access to Mommy’s Sharpies, but years of talking to her tells me otherwise.
She graces me with this design.
A smile kicks up at the corner of my mouth. She’s…
The smile dies.
Any desire to draw the nurse into bed does too.
A part of me thought that when I got back on home ground, I’d hit T up. See if the strange chemistry we have in our letters would translate to real life. I’ve lived all over the world, so what’s New York City? It’s not like I couldn’t get a green card if I needed to.
I stare at my arm. Then glower at my busted leg.
Would she share Pops’s opinion too?
She only started writing to me because I’m in the Forces and there was a program to send letters to the troops.
What use am I to her if I’m not a fighter pilot anymore?
The thought shudders through me.
I don’t think she’d feel that way, but fuck, I don’t know.
Insecurities are something I’m good at compartmentalizing usually, but that’s my goddamn point—NOTHING IS USUAL.
Everything is different.
I’m not the man I was the last time I wrote to her. Hell, according to my father, I’m not even half a man.
Days of stewing in a hospital bed, Pops’s frequent visits, pain and distress and the prospect of more to come wear on my last nerve.
Depression has been trying to settle in for days, despondency with it. Served with a dose of real talk from my bastard of a father, I find myself caving into it because sparing T from this broken shell of a man is the least I can do for her.
“Gen?”
The nurse smiles at me as she breaks off from checking the machines still beeping around me. “What’s up, Cody?”
I cover my eyes with my forearm. “Can you help me write something?”