Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Miles winced. How many people had said they understood, but really never could? The loss of identity, mobility, the very sense of self in one disastrous moment.
Too many.
Jif could never “get it,” but she was trying, and Miles could appreciate the effort, even if it fell short of full comprehension.
Tessa hadn’t even bothered.
He should have suggested a movie. Less pressure.
Less chance for him to make a fool of himself hobbling around with his cane.
The jeans he’d dragged on after breakfast scraped over his scars, sending lances of dull, throbbing pain up and down his left thigh.
His shoulder ached from carrying the cooler to his car, and he still had to bring it down the hill at the park.
He wanted to go on a date with a girl he liked and be a regular guy, but instead, he’d already alienated her with his piss-poor attitude.
It wasn’t fair, but that wouldn’t make the situation magically change.
He couldn’t be a regular guy right now, and wishing differently wouldn’t get him through the immediacy of his reality.
He could wait until he’d fully recovered and then get back to living, or he could learn to live with what he had right now.
He took a deep breath, letting his shoulders fall as he blew it out slowly.
He squeezed Jif’s hand in return. “Sorry. I had a rough morning.”
She shifted in her seat, not quite facing him, yet, but not facing away anymore. “Anything I can help with?”
“No.” The more he dwelled on it, the crankier he’d be. “Tell me how the Coke and Mentos experiment went?”
Jif lit up and turned fully toward him, fingers still linked with his, to tell him all about Elias covering the mouth of the Coke bottle until the pressure blew his hand away and soaked him and his entire table group in sticky cola.
By the time she finished, eyes glittering with tolerant amusement, his bad mood had evaporated, and though his leg still ached, the rough pull of the fabric over his skin every time he shifted didn’t irritate him quite so much.
She’d once called him magical, but her ability to help him forget held far more magic than his mere psychology.
Not the pain—that never went away—but the annoyance of it.
The way it prodded at the back of his mind every moment of the day.
The way it throbbed dully, an eternal ache that never resolved, never quite faded, always nibbled at the edges of his consciousness.
In her company, he could ignore the talons it sank deep into his somatosensory cortex, lighting up his hypothalamus instead.
His physical therapist had told him dopamine and oxytocin could rewire his brain away from the practice of hurting. Not the pain itself, but noticing it so much. Jif’s contagious joy—her sunshine—vaccinated him against the torment of the last several months.
“I think we’re going to make cornstarch goo next week. Elias is going to love it!”
“Cornstarch goo?”
Her mouth dropped open. “Have you never made cornstarch goo?”
“Maybe? I’m not sure.”
“It might be the coolest project we do all year!” Her eyes sparkled. “When you mix cornstarch and water, it acts like a liquid. You can pour it, swirl it, whatever. But when you squeeze it, it turns hard, like a ball.”
Miles shook his head. “No way. I call bull.”
“Really, I swear it. I’ll bring some home to show you. They call it a non-Newtonian fluid. It’s bizarre.” She wiggled, her excitement uncontainable. “The kids always love it.”
Once again, Miles wondered if he would have been a more successful student if he’d had a teacher like Jif, one full of dazzling passion, creative projects, and so much love.
He cleared his throat. “Fascinating. Maybe we can make it sometime.”
As he pulled into the parking lot by River Park, Jif pointed out the window at a tall, white, inflatable rectangle at the base of the hill.
“Look! They must be doing a movie tonight. I wonder what they’re playing.”
She clipped Nix’s leash and called him out of the backseat, while Miles leaned on his cane and dragged the cooler and blanket out of the trunk.
He’d come by earlier in the week to scope out the lawn, but as he made his painstaking way toward the tree shedding dappled shade over the plush grass, he groaned.
Another family had already commandeered the space.
“What about here?” Jif called.
Miles turned to find her in the middle of the broad, sunny field, midway down the low slope toward the movie screen. “If we stay, we’ll have a good view for later.”
Miles couldn’t be disappointed when Jif’s brilliant joy lit up the whole park, even if his plan had been foiled by a happy family stealing his spot.
“Did you figure out what’s playing?”
“The sign in the parking lot said The Princess Bride.”
“Sounds... fun?” He shook out the blanket.
Her mouth dropped open, disbelief saturating her tone. “You’ve never watched it?”
“Nix, move it. Go lie down.” He flicked the edge of the blanket, smoothing out the final wrinkles, then nudged the dog with his knee until he moved to the corner. Using the cooler to anchor another corner, he shook his head. “Nope, never heard of it.”
“Oh. My. God.” The last word came out on a squeal. “We have to stay! This is, like, one of the most iconic movies ever.”
He eased himself onto the blanket. “You sure you don’t have somewhere else to be? You always have a lot going on during the weekends. Events and...stuff.”
She plopped down beside him, face carefully blank, and picked at a loose thread. “This is a date. Why would I plan something else afterward?”
He reached for her hand, covering it with his own. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Her eyes darted to his. “But you thought it.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“I didn’t want to assume you’d change your plans for me.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
He blew out a breath. With anyone else, he’d assume the same, but the vast chasm between the Jif he knew and the one she presented to her friends shook his confidence, leaving an unsettled queasiness in his stomach when he thought about it too hard.
He could tell her, get it out in the open between them, but they’d already gotten off to such a rough start on their first date. Would they recover if he broached such a serious topic so soon?
“You have a lot going on. I don’t want you to change...” But he did, didn’t he? He swallowed. “Your plans. I don’t want you to change your plans for me.”
She squeezed his hand. “I want to change my plans for you.”
Nix rolled over, waving his paws in the air briefly before flipping completely and bracing them against Jif’s leg, then burying his head in her lap.
“And for you, too.” She scratched behind Nix’s ears as the big dog’s mouth fell open in a happy pant, his tongue lolling all over her dark jeans, leaving smears of drool behind.
His heart lifted in his chest, making space for something Miles had once believed he’d never do again: laugh.
“C’mon, man. Some wingman you are,” he teased as Nix nudged Jif’s hand, demanding more attention.
“As long as you don’t drool on me, you can be my favorite. Well, not too much, anyway.”
A faint blush crept across her cheekbones as she fixed her gaze back on his big lunk of a dog, nails gently scratching his ears.
He chuckled.
“Not too much,” he promised.