Epilogue
ROMAN
2 Years Later
“You ask him!”
“No, you ask him!”
“I bet he’s an assassin with that cane. Maybe it’s a secret weapon.”
A smile stretches across my face as I’m looking over some papers at my supervising teacher’s desk. The kids are supposed to be discussing the question on the board in small groups, but…I’m realizing middle schoolers have a fairly short attention span. Especially when a teacher walks in with a cane.
“Mr. Ward?”
I look up, surprised that one of them actually worked up the courage. By the end of the day, I’ll learn that middle schoolers are also shamelessly blunt.
“Yes?” I ask patiently.
He glances down at my cane that’s leaning against the desk. He seems to stumble over his question for a moment. “Why— Uh, why do you have a cane?”
“Because sometimes I need help walking,” I answer simply.
His brow furrows. “But…you’re not even that old.”
My lip twitches with amusement. “Old people aren’t the only ones who might need help walking.” When that doesn’t clear up his confusion even a little, I nod toward his glasses and add, “You know how your glasses help you see better? That’s all my cane is, too. Some days, my legs just need a little extra help.”
All three boys make a little oooh sound at my answer. It’s why I decide to wink at them and add, “I like to think of it as my super-secret weapon.”
Their eyes widen, but I’m already standing and calling the class to order. Hopefully, their reactions mean I’ll be getting more questions about the cane after class.
A few hours—and a million questions—later, I’m finally leaving school grounds and driving home. I’m still smiling when I walk through the door.
As soon as I’m dropping my keys in the kitchen bowl, Garfield rises from where he was sleeping on a barstool and climbs onto the counter. He lets out one demanding meow that I can already translate.
“I know for a fact your automatic feeder just went off, so no, I’m not feeding you,” I scold him, scratching behind his ear. “I’m not Tina. You don’t get treats just because you’re cute.”
“I’m telling Tina you said that.”
I’m already smiling, even before I set eyes on my girlfriend. You’d never know it’s been almost a year of living together because I still can’t get over the feeling of walking into the house and knowing she’s already here.
I look up to see her walking into the kitchen, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, her hair still wet from her shower. She’s smiling as she steps up to me, her arms immediately circling my waist. “Hi,” she greets sweetly. “How was your first day of school?”
I ignore the question, but only for long enough to slide my hand into her hair and take her mouth in a kiss.
“Hi, Doc,” I murmur with a smile.
I feel her lips tip up in a smile of her own. “Hi,” she whispers back.
But when I accidentally bump her with the cane still in my hand, she frowns and pushes me back. Looking down, she asks, “Are you having a bad pain day?”
Once again, I ignore her question and instead tip her face up for another kiss, setting my cane aside in the same motion. “What did I say about leaving your PT hat at the door?”
She nips at my lip. “That wasn’t my PT hat, you jerk. But fine, I won’t ask.” As she starts to turn away from me, I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her back. “Not a pain day,” I murmur into her neck. “I just wanted to get the cane distraction out of the way with the kids.”
Again, she pushes me back so she can look up at me, this time with excitement in her eyes. “And? How were they?”
I try for a nonchalant shrug, but I’m not hiding anything. Lily knows how excited I’ve been for the student teaching part of my undergraduate degree.
“Exactly the way I expected them to be. Curious, easily distracted, and predictably unfazed.”
Lily props her chin on my chest, sunshine radiating from her expression. “I love that,” she says. Then softer, “I love that you love this.”
I take her mouth in another kiss, because I can’t not. “I love you .”
Her smile widens, and before I can let my feelings completely adle my mind, I tap her thigh in a silent request that she jump up on the counter. She lifts herself immediately. And once she’s closer to my level, I can lean both hands on the counter by her hips and drop my face down to her neck, letting out a breath that releases all the tension from my body.
“I can already tell I’ll need the vacation we booked at the end of the thirteen weeks, though,” I murmur against her skin. “I’m glad we timed it that way.”
Sometimes, I look back at how worried I was that I wouldn’t fit into Lily’s life outside of the clinic, and I laugh. Because that fear couldn’t have been further from the truth. In the two years we’ve been together, we’ve taken plenty of trips, some with just the two of us and some with her dad and brothers. They folded me into their family so seamlessly, I forgot I was ever concerned about not being able to keep up.
This upcoming trip we’re taking, the annual Davis family trip, is the perfect example of that. Because they let me pick the destination, and when I suggested a scuba diving trip after becoming certified as an adaptive scuba diver, not only did they agree to the idea, but they also became certified as adaptive support divers. Even knowing it was enough safety-wise for Lily to be my support diver, they still took the time and money to go the extra step to make me feel included.
“I think we’re both going to be ready for some time off by then,” Lily comments, her hands brushing along my ribs. “I swear Fran is trying to overload me with patients lately.”
I smile against her neck. “It’s because she knows you’re the best physical therapist.” I press another kiss to her skin. “Although I might be slightly biased.”
Lily lets out a laugh, her arms going around my body to pull me closer. But when my phone rings with a call, she reaches into my pocket and pulls it out to show me Mikey calling.
I accept the call with a gruff, “What’s up?”
“Hey, man. You home?”
I straighten with a frown and look around. Because I can hear the question from the phone, but it also sounds like?—
“Are you here ?” I demand.
A pause. “Maybe.”
I sigh. “You’re insane.”
“Is that Mikey?” Lily asks with an amused smile.
I nod. “He probably sussed out that we’re having our breakfast for dinner date with Mom tonight.”
“I did,” Mikey confirms. Another pause. “So…can I come in?”
“Just get in here,” Lily sighs into the phone. We hear the door opening, and a moment later, Mikey is strutting into our house and throwing himself onto the couch like he owns it. Lily rolls her eyes and goes to move off the counter, but I box her in and keep her where she is.
“I thought having my girlfriend move in with me would put a stop to your pop-ins, but I guess that was an ambitious dream,” I call over my shoulder at my best friend, even as my attention turns back to Lily.
“Hey, I stopped walking in. I call more. That’s all you get.”
I shake my head, but I’m smiling. Lily chuckles.
“Do you want me to get started on dinner while you shower?” she asks when we hear Mikey turn on the TV. “Your mom said she’s coming over in an hour. Apparently, her book is riveting. She talked my ear off for twenty minutes when I walked over to ask.”
My smile widens at that tidbit. Not that I would’ve expected anything else, but the fact that Mom fell in love with Lily the same way I did never ceases to make me happy. Some days, the two are inseparable. They bonded instantly, over books, traveling, and of course teasing me.
It’s one of the reasons we decided to keep Mom in the cottage on my property. I would’ve paid for a new place if she wanted to live a little once I no longer relied on her as my safety blanket, but in the end, I realized that was never why she had been there in the first place. She likes being close. And I love having her around. Lily, too.
“Do you want to get started on that stuffed French toast that she loves?” I answer Lily. “We haven’t made that in a while.”
She nods, just as Mikey calls out, “Oooh, stuffed French toast, nice.”
Lily and I roll our eyes at the same time. But after a moment, she sobers and peeks up at me. “Sure you’re okay today?” she asks softly.
I haven’t needed my cane in a while, so I know that’s what’s making her worry. Because that care she treated me with from day one has never faded, never dulled.
I nod and take my time reassuring her with a kiss, the same way I do every time. Even though I still have bad days, days when the nerve pain gets bad again, or I need the cane to walk, I’m no longer in a place where those things can send me into a spiral. Nowadays, I know those things don’t determine my worth.
I pull back so I can look at Lily, this beautiful woman who saw that worth even when I was in the darkest period of my life. The woman who never gave up on me, who revived me and helped me find a new version of myself. And I wonder, for the millionth time, what I may have done in a past life to deserve her.
I want to tell her that I’m always okay when she’s around. That my legs never hurt when she’s kissing me.
That I’m so madly in love with her, my physical therapy has been solely focused on one specific exercise lately.
Getting down on one knee.
But I’m not quite there yet, so instead, I smile and tip her chin up for another kiss.
“Never better, Doc.”
* * *
Thank you so much for reading “Revive Me!”