Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FOREST
Once upon a time, vacations were rejuvenating.
I didn’t get them a lot. I made dick on a teaching salary, and even though I was only one man, I was drowning in student loan debt, which took up nearly half of each paycheck.
But on the rare occasion I got a weekend to myself—usually to visit Creek or a couple of old college buddies who were living in the UP—I felt good when I came home.
This time, I didn’t. This time, when Nash and I got back, I was more tired.
I was relying on my cane more and more and having longer and more intense muscle spasm spells.
The meds for the dizziness were working and I hadn’t had any more seizures, so there was that.
Now that my new insurance had kicked in, everything was covered.
Which meant physical therapy and—the one thing I hated—more testing.
But life was life. The next few weeks settled into something like a new normal.
I was back in my ground-floor bedroom and Nash was upstairs.
The week after we got home, I found myself lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, reliving the moments we’d had together in that little cottage by the ocean.
I missed it with a fierceness I couldn’t really describe.
Not just being with Nash. Not just with him willing to sleep beside me, hold me, fuck me, kiss me…
everything I’d fantasized about since the first time I laid eyes on him, but also the intimacy that wasn’t physical.
The way he’d opened up to me, and let me open up to him.
That all seemed to come to a screeching halt the moment the door closed behind us and we unpacked our suitcases.
Nash was acting strange. Different in ways I couldn’t really figure out. He was still attentive and careful with me, but not enough to get on my nerves. Yet there was a valley between us I couldn’t seem to cross.
He didn’t entirely meet my gaze at dinner, and while he would always make conversation, it wasn’t the way it had been before.
I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he regretted this whole thing.
Or maybe he was embarrassed about his night terrors or his PTSD.
I didn’t know how to make it okay. I didn’t even know if it was my place to try, so for now, I let it go and sat with a tiny spark of hope in my chest that it would somehow get right again.
The worst part about it all was that I was getting bored. Normally, I’d be distracted by work or some other research project I had on my plate, but having been unceremoniously let go without any real job prospects, I had no idea what to do with myself.
I wasn’t the kind of man who’d developed hobbies. I’d always been too busy with school, then grad school, then my dissertation. After that, it was lectures, lesson plans, paper grading, and office hours.
It was a harsh reality to learn I had no idea who I was outside of all that. And it was difficult to accept that even if I wanted to get into something, there was no guarantee my body would let me.
“Yoga,” my physical therapist said, seemingly out of nowhere.
I’d relented and gone to Kent after all.
He’d immediately clocked me as Creek’s brother the moment I stepped into his office and he saw my last name.
He was an amputee, which I was pretty sure Creek appreciated because Creek only trusted people to help him if they had experience with what he was going through.
He was also patient, which was also something my brother probably needed. And I liked him immediately.
I was halfway through a toe-touch when Kent spoke, and I looked up at him, struggling to stand upright. He helped me finish the set and then eased a chair over so I could sit.
“Did you just tell me to do yoga?”
“Yeah. You know, the ancient Sanskrit word that means to join,” Kent said with a smile. He knew I was a historian, so he was probably giving me shit. “It’s a lot of stretching and twisting, and core building.”
“You know,” I said, rolling my eyes, “I think I’ve heard of it somewhere.”
“I don’t know what you small-town Texas people are about.
” Kent winked as he sat down to check my ankles.
After PT, they would start to turn inward and stay that way for hours.
“And I know that sounds woo-woo or whatever, but trust me. There’s actual science behind it, especially if the studio follows traditional practices that are adapted for people with disabilities.
I think it might be a good idea for you. ”
I wrinkled my nose as he started pushing on the arches of my feet. “Do they even have classes like that here that I can do?”
“Yeah, actually, I attend a studio that has all kinds of accessibility classes,” Kent said thoughtfully. He rocked his prosthetic foot back and forth almost absently.
“What does that mean?”
He looked up at me. “Accessible?”
“No,” I said with a sigh. “I know what the word means. I have a fucking doctorate. I mean—what does an accessible class mean? Not everyone’s needs are the same.”
Kent’s face softened. “Right. Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply—”
“No.” I felt a bit like an ass. “I don’t mean to be snappy. It’s just…” I hesitated. Kent was my physical therapist, not my mental health one. I didn’t need to be trauma-dumping all over him.
He let my legs go and sat back, resting on his hands. “You can talk to me, you know.”
“I don’t want to burden you.”
He laughed. “If you and your brother didn’t have the same last name, that statement would have tipped me off that you’re related. You’re not a burden for needing things. But I have a feeling you were made to feel like that a lot, even before all this happened.”
I swallowed heavily, then shrugged. “I was always underestimated growing up. I was short. Lived in a glass closet. I mean, being a sort of twinky high schooler in small-town Texas, there weren’t a lot of places to hide.
It was better in college, but I have this horrible baby face, and I’m still fucking short, so people have a bad habit of treating me like I’m some kid.
So I tried to take care of myself, but it didn’t always work out. ”
He grimaced. “Yeah.”
“Creek was—is,” I corrected, “a really good brother, but he can be a bit much sometimes. I want to feel like I can do this on my own, but I’m not sure anyone believes in me.”
“I get it. People help when you don’t want help. They’re a little too careful with you.”
Yeah. Even Nash, though I was starting to realize that maybe Nash wasn’t doing it because he thought I was some chibi version of a human with big anime eyes or whatever. He was doing it out of a sense of overwhelming guilt. Like he was trying to atone for a sin that wasn’t even his.
Survivor’s guilt was destroying him from the inside out.
But the way he was with me sometimes was hard because it made me afraid that everyone was going to see me as some incapable, incompetent burden who couldn’t take care of himself.
Hell, I couldn’t even jerk off because my hands wouldn’t cooperate.
So why wouldn’t he see me as someone who was entirely unable?
“Hey,” Kent said softly. I looked down at him.
“It gets better. It takes time for people to adjust. I won’t even tell you the hell I went through with my mom.
I was a teenager when I lost my leg, and when I came home from the hospital, she acted like I’d slipped through a time machine and was two again. She tried to wipe my ass once.”
I reared back. “Whoa.”
Kent grimaced. “Mm-hmm. It was hell getting her to back off. It took forever, but eventually she realized I could handle it. I think a lot of it is fear. The people who love us don’t want us to suffer any more than we already have.”
I eyed the wedding ring he wore. “Did your…wife?”
“Husband,” he corrected carefully.
“Did he ever…? I don’t know… Struggle with how to handle it?”
Kent laughed softly. “No. He and I had our issues, but that was all on me. We’re better now, and he’s amazing. You just have to be patient and let people be amazing. And remind yourself that it’s not pity. It’s kindness.”
“Always?”
He huffed. “Maybe not always. Some people do suck. But the good ones don’t.”
“Or they do, but in a way we don’t mind.”
Kent blinked, then burst into laughter. “You’re way more fun than your brother.”
I couldn’t help a smile. “Thanks. Now…about that yoga class?”
Kent carefully climbed to his feet, then walked across the room and pulled a small tri-fold pamphlet off his desk.
“The accessible classes are on Wednesdays and Sundays. There are two teachers who are both disabled, and all you have to do is let them know your limits. And,” he said, pointing his finger at me, “you have to respect your limits. I don’t want your ass limping in here next Friday because you fucked up. ”
I flushed because, yeah, that did sound a bit like me.
I took the pamphlet and opened it, scanning the text in the middle.
There were accommodations made for people with mobility issues, vertigo, and people who were blind or had low vision.
They even had an ASL interpreter on call for anyone who needed it.
I immediately thought about Dax and wondered if he was into yoga.
He was a mechanic, so chances were low, but asking wasn’t the worst thing.
And maybe having something to do outside of the home with someone who wasn’t involved in this very tight-knit group of people would help me feel a little better.
Maybe then, I could fix whatever felt broken between Nash and me.
“Thanks for this,” I told him softly.
Kent grinned and offered me my cane, then a hand up. I was still wobbly and walking pigeon-footed, but it wasn’t as bad as last week, so I was going to call it progress.
“Let me know how you like it,” he said as we headed for the locker room so I could change out of my sweaty PT clothes.