Chapter Thirty-One #3
I roll him out to the living room, glad that Peggy Jo’s house is just one level, and park him beside the sofa.
I figure I’ll let him rest in the chair and get his breath back before helping him move onto the part of the sectional with the ottoman.
I go back to the bedroom to grab the pillow roll to elevate his leg.
“I can take care of you,” I say when I return. “You don’t have to be strong all the time. You can be weak with me.”
Dan frowns, keeping his lips sealed for a long time, and then he finally says, “I can’t trust it.”
I stop rearranging the pillows and throw blankets. “You don’t trust me?”
“No…I trust you ,” Dan says, but he sounds doubtful. “I just don’t like having to trust you.”
My laugh comes as a surprise to me, and to him apparently, given the expression on his face.
“Okay, well, welcome to life, Dan. You have to trust people sometimes. Even if you don’t like it, even if you don’t want to. You trust belay partners, right?”
He shrugs. “I trust myself on the wall more.”
“Well, look where that got you,” I can’t resist the jab.
He huffs.
“But seriously, I know everyone except Peggy Jo has let you down your whole life, but I’m not going anywhere. Besides, you have no choice but to let me help. Otherwise, you’ll just fuck yourself up even more.”
His lips tense, but he says nothing, and we start the transfer to the couch. He cries out once, which feels like a victory. At least he’s not hiding it from me. At least he’s being honest in his pain.
“I didn’t expect this to be so hard,” he says once I’ve gotten him set up with pillows, a blanket, and the remote control.
“You expected healing from a compound fracture would be easy?”
“No, I thought falling would be easy.”
I freeze for a second, taking in his distant expression. “In what way?”
“That high up on those walls, I always figured falling would mean death, and as much as I don’t want to die, actually dying always seemed easy enough. Thirteen seconds or so of fear and then the end. Forever.”
“That’s a little cheap, don’t you think?” I ask. “Expecting to pay such a low price for the risks you take.”
“Death’s a pretty high price.”
“For those who live to deal with its aftermath, yeah,” I say.
“You? You’d just be dead. It’s cheap. It’s lazy.
It’s like you said— easy. This? What you’re doing now?
This is the real stuff of life. This is the meat of it.
This is where you’ve fucked up, and you have to suffer through the consequences of your actions along with the rest of us.
Sorry if you didn’t get to opt out of that, Dan. ”
He gapes at me, and I kind of want to gape at myself. I didn’t mean to come across so harsh, and yet…
It turns out I have more to say. “My mom fought hard to live, and it was painful, horrible, and fruitless. You at least will heal, and hopefully heal well. You’ll live to climb another day.”
“In a year !”
“What’s a year? Tell me that? What’s a year, Dan?”
“Are you angry with me?”
I find that I am. And I take a step back, away from the sofa, the conversation, the moment.
I breathe in slow and deep. “Yes,” I say, after I’ve got a hold of myself.
“I think I have a right to be, and I probably will be from time to time. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to boot you out of Peggy Jo’s house or leave you here on your own.
I’m not your foster families. I’m not your mom.
” I step closer, touching his chin gently and then his lower lip, which is chapped and broken open still.
“I’m your seahorse, and I love you, even when I want to strangle you for being a selfish asshole. ”
He pulls his chin away from my fingers. “What do you mean you’re a fucking seahorse?”
“You have your phone. Look it up.” I blow loose strands of hair from my face.
“I’m going to shower and when I’m done, I’ll make dinner, and then we’ll find a TV show you don’t hate.
We’ll watch a few episodes. After that I’ll go out to your van and grab your books and journals, and whatever else you want in the house, and then I’ll shower you and get you ready for bed. ”
“Bossy,” Dan says. His eyes go a little shiny, and his mouth falls open. “If I weren’t incapacitated with pain, I’d be hard right now. That’s how hot you are.”
I can’t help the chuckle that comes up, even though I want to stay firm and annoyed. “Well, you’re hot too.”
“Even now?”
I roll my eyes. “No, sorry, you’re right. Two functioning legs were what I really liked about you. The face, the body, the dick, the personality, the smug little grin—none of that was really my thing at all. Just the legs.”
Dan gives me the bird.
“Do you want me to prove to you that I’m still into you?” I ask, suddenly interested in another way of distracting Dan from his pain, and me from my frustration. “I could blow you. It might help calm you down.”
Dan looks tempted, but then he waves at his crotch. “It’s not working. Doctors said it could be a few weeks. Months even. Trauma and all.”
I smile. “Well, I can wait.”
He lifts a brow. “You’re not going to get back on that app to find someone else to worship that hole of yours?”
Now I’m the one to give him the finger. “Who’d worship it as good as you?” I ask, turning on my heel to go shower like I’d told him.
“No one!” he calls after me. “Remember that! Even when I’m being an asshole, I still lick your asshole better than anyone else ever will!”
I don’t bother replying to that. Dan’s going to be an impatient jerk through parts of this recovery. That’s a given in every way. But he has my heart, and I’m determined to make it through to the other side.
I want to see him standing, walking, and, yes, climbing again.
“Look up the seahorse!” I yell before I strip and get into the shower. I wonder what he’ll think when he discovers what I’ve been saying. I take my time washing.
I need a minute to myself to breathe.
*
Dan
The view is much better from the sofa. At least I can see mountains, and autumn leaves, and green grass, and the cold breeze from the open doors has me pulling the soft throw blankets around my shoulders as I google about seahorses. Shortly, I think I have the answer.
Eventually, Sejin emerges from the bedroom in soft pajama bottoms and an old t-shirt. As he sits down on the other side of the sofa to brush the knots out of his long, wet hair, I say, “It’s not true that all seahorses mate for life.”
“Huh?”
“Seahorses. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
“They do too.”
“No, that’s a myth. They’re just monogamous for a breeding season. French Angelfish mate for life.”
Sejin stops brushing his hair, letting it drip against his shirt, and pulls his own phone from the pocket of his pajama bottoms. He types with his thumbs, and then says, “Listen, this is from National Geographic. ‘Seahorses are truly special, and not just because of their curious equine shape, and the fact that the males of the species carry and give birth to their young—’” Sejin carries on in a louder voice, “—‘but also because, unlike most other fish, they are monogamous and mate for life. ’”
“Well, this article—”
“Dan, I don’t care what that article says. I’m a seahorse.”
“Well, so long as you aren’t telling me you can get pregnant, I’m fine with that.”
Sejin laughs and his eyes turn into those pretty half-moons that I love.
I’m glad I conceded, even if the science articles I’ve just read say he’s wrong because, in another way, he’s right.
It doesn’t matter if all seahorses mate for life, or only some, or none.
Sejin’s telling me he’s committed to me, and that’s what’s important here.
“I’m a French Angelfish,” I say. “I mate for life too.”
Sejin snorts. “Great, a seahorse and a French Angelfish. What a compatible pair we’ll be.”
“For life,” I say, nodding.
He goes back to brushing his hair, but not before meeting my eyes and agreeing, “Yes, Dan, for life.”