10. Roman
10
ROMAN
“Come on, Roman, give me one more set,” Lily begs. “I can’t get you walking if we don’t strengthen your muscles.”
I have an overwhelming urge to throw the resistance band across the room. I’m sick of therapy. I’m sick of being weak .
“I can’t do another set,” I spit.
Lily’s look isn’t pitying, it’s just…sad. Which only makes my fury boil.
I was never this angry before my accident. I never felt so overwhelmed by rage that I wanted to hit things or react physically. I never got to the point where I couldn’t calm myself down. But my injury changed all that. Now, my fuse is nonexistent.
My frustration only mounts as we keep working. Every time I can’t move a muscle, or every time a muscle is too weak to move the band, my anger grows. There’s a tidal wave inside me, one bigger than I’ve ever dealt with. I feel like screaming, or throwing something, just exploding ?—
“Let’s try the other leg now,” comes Lily’s voice as she watches me fail at a move once again.
“If I can’t do it with this leg, what makes you think I can do it with the weaker one?” I snarl at her without thinking.
And it feels good to aim some of this at her. After all, she’s the one making me do this shit. She knows I can’t do half of these exercises. Does she seriously think she’s helping me? Maybe she just gets off on watching the big, bad fighter who didn’t want her enough to go after her look like a complete and total weakling.
With my pulse beating harshly, I open my mouth to just unleash on her, but?—
“God, it’s like working with a toddler!” she snaps, throwing her hands in the air.
Shock douses me like a bucket of ice water.
“I… Did you seriously just…?”
Crossing her arms, she glares at me and doesn’t take it back. “You’re goddamn right I did. Do you know that you had me seriously debating this week if I should start offering you cigarettes as a reward? Maybe that’ll help with your attitude problem. Might as well get your fill of them now, anyway, since you’re gonna be giving them up as soon as you’re on your feet.”
I blink at her, properly chastised.
Something on my face makes Lily’s eyes narrow, and her head tilt.
“ Would you respond to a reward system?” she asks.
I quirk an eyebrow. “Sorry, Doc, cigarettes I can get any time, and I don’t think sweets are going to do anything for me.”
It isn’t until I give the playful response that I realize her outburst has somehow driven all the anger from my body.
“Not sweets,” she corrects. “Rewards.”
That confuses me. “What kind of reward?”
Shrugging, she says, “Whatever you want. You name it.”
“ Whatever I want? I doubt that’s a medically approved treatment.”
She holds my gaze. “Humor me.”
My eyes narrow. This feels like a trap, but I can’t figure out how. “To be clear, you’re saying if I go through your exercises?—”
“And give me real effort,” she interrupts.
“—you’ll do, or give me, anything I want?”
“Within reason, yes. If it’s something I can give you inside these four walls right now, I’ll agree to it.”
No part of me believes she’s telling the truth. I know her well enough to know she takes immense pride in her professional persona—not to mention that she’s kind of a goody two-shoes.
But the other part of me is intrigued. And I want to test her, to see how far I can push her.
“Fine,” I concede. “I’ll do the reps, if you…smoke a cigarette.”
I almost smirk when she swallows thickly, already going green at the thought. But without any hesitation, she nods and says, “Deal.”
My amusement disappears. “You’re not going to smoke a fucking cigarette,” I growl at her.
“Out of the two of us, I’m not the liar in this relationship,” she sasses back. Then she takes a deep breath and calmly says, “Do one set of reps and find out. Kick the band out eight times.”
I glare at her, realizing I now have to do the fucking exercise.
We’ve been working a lot on strengthening my leg muscles, using resistance to flex my foot up and also down, but also lifting my whole leg up and pushing back down. It’s been depressing to see how weak my quads are, but that’s one of the muscles that Lily has really been harping on. Before this ridiculous conversation started, she had me sitting on the table, pulling one leg up to a bent-knee position, and pushing against the resistance band wrapped around my foot while holding the other end.
Up until now, I had only been able to extend my leg completely twice.
“I need real effort, Roman,” comes Lily’s softened voice.
“I got it,” I snap back, that fear of failure creeping back in. For some reason, this moment feels bigger. I can’t not do eight reps.
Gritting my teeth, I adjust my position and my grip on the band. And I will my leg to move.
I get the first two extensions easy. Slowly, but easy. I’ve already done two, even on a shit day like today.
I get the next two as well. I’ve gotten four in the past a few times.
By five, my leg is quivering.
By six, I’m sweating, my stare locked onto my foot.
By seven, I can’t tell if the fire in my leg is pain or something else.
By the eighth rep, my chest is heaving, my whole leg is shaking, and I swear it takes forever for my foot to push the band all the way out. With every inch, the resistance makes the movement harder. I don’t think I’ll make it.
But then…my knee locks out. My leg is straight. I did eight reps.
With a gasp, I let go of the band, watching it go flying across the mat. Jesus.
When I look up, Lily’s expression is downright giddy. I mean, she’s completely lit up.
“Shut up,” I say, out of breath.
She grins. “I told you so.”
I aim a glare at her. “Whatever. A bet’s a bet.”
Her wary gaze drops to my hand as I reach into the pockets of my shorts and pull out a pack of cigarettes.
I can’t help grinning as I pull out my lighter and a cigarette. “Regretting your therapy strategy, doc?”
Her eyes snap up to lock with mine. “Gimme that,” she grumbles.
It’s amusing, watching her fumble with the lighter. But as she lifts the cigarette to her lips, I can’t help asking, “Why are you doing this?”
There’s nothing but honesty in her eyes as she says, “Because, apparently, it’s the only way to get you to do your PT.”
And then she lights the cigarette, inhales, and promptly coughs up a lung.
I snatch the cigarette from her. “Alright, just put it out. Jesus. I can’t watch this.”
As she sputters some more, I look for a place to put it out, since this isn’t exactly a place loaded with ashtrays. In the end, I scratch it against the sole of my shoe before throwing it in the bag on my wheelchair that I use as a trash bin.
Leaning back on my hands, I watch Lily chug some of her water. When she has her breath back and collapses against the wall across from me, I still haven’t figured out why she just did that.
“I really didn’t think you would do it,” I admit.
“I know,” she says simply.
I study her for another moment. In the end, I just ask her outright.
“Why do you care if I do my PT?”
And again, there’s nothing but honesty in her eyes as she says, “Because someone should.”
My chest tightens as I drop my gaze to my hands in my lap. “I wasn’t always like this, you know,” I say roughly.
“An asshole?”
My head whips up in surprise. She’s rolling her lips to keep from laughing.
“Just trying to lighten the mood,” she says innocently.
Even as my eyes narrow, my lips twitch in amusement. “Bitch,” I bite back playfully.
Somehow, her grin widens. “I love that title.”
Shaking my head, I finally let my smile come through. “You are certifiable.”
“And I also just got you to do eight reps of an exercise you’ve been pouting over for two weeks, so you can’t say my methods don’t work,” she quips.
The reminder of my therapy is sobering. I drop my head back with a sigh.
In her spot across from me, Lily leans back against the wall and wraps her arms around her waist. Her grin has also disappeared when she asks hesitantly, “What were you like when you first started PT?”
Right. My admission.
I can’t meet her eyes. It’s easier to be honest this way.
“Determined. They told me the most recovery happens in the first year, so I went into it fully prepared to work my ass off. And I did—for a while. Even the hard days weren’t enough to make me quit. It wasn’t until—” I swallow thickly.
“Until what?” Lily asks gently.
I take a deep breath and admit the rest. “It wasn’t until the UFC officially cut me from their roster and released me from my contract six months later that I realized none of it mattered. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t fight again. God knows the doctors told me enough times. I just never heard it. But when that call came through…” I shake my head, clearing the memories. “I don’t know. It just kind of hit me that none of it mattered. Why was I killing myself when my end goal was unreachable anyway?”
“And you didn’t think changing your end goal to walking was worthwhile?”
I can hear the frown in Lily’s voice before I even look at her. Sure enough, her expression is one of disbelief.
“I know it’s not logical,” I admit. “But that felt like changing my dream from shooting for the stars, to shooting for the top of the tree in the backyard. It felt meaningless and stupid. And then, by the time I realized that was stupid, a year had passed, and it had gotten harder to progress and…easier to fail.”
Saying this out loud is…a relief. I’ve always held on to the anger and stayed quiet in rebellion. I’ve never felt the desire to unburden myself like this.
“You can, you know.” When I give Lily a confused look, she explains, “You can still walk. Even though it’s been two years. They say your spinal cord experiences a heightened state of neuroplasticity in the six months after an injury, but that doesn’t mean you can’t regain function. It’s harder, sure, but it’s still possible.”
I want to tell her that it’s been a long time since I’ve let myself believe that. That I’ve become so used to giving up, I don’t remember what it’s like to fight anymore.
That I don’t want to disappoint her.
I don’t know if she reads any of that in my face. But I watch as she straightens from her stance and picks up the resistance band, then walks over to stand before me.
“I know you don’t want to let yourself hope for it,” she says, eyes searching mine, “and that’s okay. I’ll carry the hope for a little while. I just need you to put your trust in me. Because I swear to you , Roman—” Determination blazes in her eyes. “I will get you on your feet.”
I want to believe her. But she’s right, I’m not ready to let that hope in.
So, I don’t answer. I just reach for the band in her hand.
“Other leg now, right?”