Chapter 3 #2
“She sure did!” Winnie said brightly, stepping out from the doorway. “And I was promised some of your strawberry cheesecake for dessert.”
“Winnie, I didn’t know you were stopping by!” Mom said, surprised. “Come on in.”
“I won’t be long, Meera, Emmy just wanted company on the drive home.”
Mom beamed. “That’s my girl! I’ll go put the kettle on.”
After Mom disappeared into the kitchen, I felt Winnie squeeze my shoulder.
“I’ll pick you up. From now on, if you need a ride, you just let me know. I’ll help you.”
“Winnie—”
She stopped me. “Just until you’re ready to do it yourself. It’s nothing.”
I felt shame prickle my skin. “What if I’m never ready?”
“You will be, Emmy, you will be.” She stared into my eyes and gave me an encouraging smile. I nodded slowly.
“Cake is ready!” Mom sang out, and I hung back as Winnie went to join her in the kitchen. I wasn’t in the mood for cake anymore.
My alarm trilled at seven thirty in the morning, and I automatically hit the snooze button.
Rolling over, I was immediately confronted by fur in my face.
Our cat, Mr. Socks, liked to rotate his bedtime visits between Mom and me.
Lately, he’d been spending a lot of time in my bed.
Mom thought it was because he knew I needed him, but I felt like he had a hidden agenda.
He knew I left for work at the crack of dawn every morning, which meant he’d get my bed all to himself before his breakfast.
“Mr. Socks, will you go to work for me?”
He lifted one eye lazily and began to purr. I guess that was a no then.
I didn’t mind. Even after everything I’d been through, Mr. Socks still slipped into my lap on the couch and rubbed against my legs when he spotted me in the kitchen.
So many people had become stilted around me—there was always a pause when they saw me for the first time, as if they weren’t quite sure what to say, or they needed extra time to process me. At least Mr. Socks treated me the same.
I wasn’t the most popular girl in high school.
I was hell-bent on gymnastics, so I didn’t have too many friends outside of my team and Abbie Glenfield, who sat next to me in chemistry class and saved me every time there was a pop quiz—but I did date Brady, the school’s quarterback. People knew who I was.
In those first few months after the accident, I didn’t want to see anyone.
I didn’t want to be seen. I needed constant treatment, constant help, constant reassurance.
I cried every day. I didn’t want people to think I was weak.
Especially not them, my new college team.
The one I’d dreamed about joining for years.
The elite girls I’d idolized in competitions, who had already proven themselves on national stages.
My new coach reached out, checking in on my recovery and adding me to the team group chat early.
Everyone had welcomed me before the season even began, sending messages filled with excitement, offering to FaceTime, asking if I needed anything before move-in.
It should have made me feel included. After all, I’d wanted to show them that I belonged, that I wasn’t just some high school standout who got lucky with a scholarship.
But instead, it felt suffocating. Gymnastics is not a sport in which you can exhibit weakness.
It has an exhaustive checklist of requirements: balance, precision, strength, agility, flexibility, coordination, and endurance, and in an instant, all of that had been taken from me.
I had been the best at it, and suddenly I was learning how to move my body without screaming in pain.
How was I supposed to face a team of champions when my recovery wasn’t even guaranteed?
So I didn’t. I stopped answering their texts.
I ignored their messages, their offers to call.
I couldn’t stomach seeing their perfect routines on TikTok, their medal posts, their glossy smiles on Instagram.
I stopped posting altogether. I learned that when you shut people out, after a while, they stop trying to get back in.
I didn’t blame them: if you repeatedly visit a field to see sunflowers, but the sunflowers are never there, would you keep going back?
I did the same with my high school friends.
What was the point of staying connected to people who were moving on with their lives?
They didn’t understand what I was going through, and I didn’t want them to.
It was like cutting a cord: clean, final.
The only person I didn’t shut out was Coach Tillman.
She wouldn’t let me. She texted almost daily, called every week without fail.
She was always asking how I was, checking in with the latest from the doctors.
She was always reminding me the scholarship was deferred, not lost. She was the one who wrote the glowing reference that helped me get the scholarship in the first place.
The university was willing to defer my start, but I wasn’t just worried about the training it would take to get back to where I was.
I thought of the makeup, the sparkles, the perfectly coordinated leotards, the smooth muscles, all under close watch.
It would be a joke, me performing. Most days, I couldn’t even look at my own reflection much less subject myself to the scrutiny of judges looking over every inch of my body.
Brady, however, did go off to college. He left with his friends; they went on their own road trip and he posted it all over social media.
Within a month, he had a new girlfriend.
Meanwhile, I was still in active recovery.
Between Brady, gymnastics, my friends, and the ache I felt every time I opened my eyes, it was too much.
And then I dropped an entire display of hiking poles on Henry during my first shift at Adventure Rudy’s.
Oops. With physical therapy, I had gained some of my strength back—not the kind required to complete a backward flip and twist, but enough to stock shelves, man the register, and pretend not to notice when customers stole granola bars from the impulse-buy section.
Adventure Rudy’s was an outdoor retail store catering to tourists and local hikers, selling everything from thermal socks to bear spray.
People came through Everston every season, eager to take advantage of the nearby trails.
Some came prepared. Others had clearly underestimated Colorado’s terrain.
The store was chaos that afternoon. A busload of tourists had just come through, and I had been restocking a rack of trekking poles when I lost control, sending them clattering to the floor, right at the feet of a man flipping through a field guide.
I knew who he was; everyone in town did.
Henry. He was the local librarian and pretty much adored by everyone.
I bent down to pick up the fallen poles just as he knelt to do the same. “Sorry,” I mumbled, “didn’t mean to do that.”
“No harm done,” Henry replied, straightening as he placed the poles back on the rack. He was holding a trail guide to Stormy Peaks.
“Planning a hike?” I asked.
He glanced down at the book, as if he’d forgotten he was holding it. “Oh.” He admitted, “My brother loved hiking. I’m trying to figure out where to scatter his ashes.”
He said it so casually, I felt myself reel back.
Henry noticed and quickly added, “That makes me sound like a serial killer, doesn’t it? I promise I’m not, he died of cancer.”
“Well, what a relief,” I replied dryly.
Henry grinned. “I don’t hike all that much, to be honest.”
“Well, grief makes us do weird things,” I said. “I was in a car accident and now I can’t even touch the door handle of a car, let alone drive one.”
He studied me for a beat before speaking again. “I’m starting a grief support group at the library,” he said. “It’s not only for people who are grieving death, and it’s a no-pressure space. It’s free; you should stop by sometime.”
Coach Tillman had suggested therapy for my mental health after the crash, and so had my doctors, my nurses, and even my new boss.
Mom already had two jobs, and insurance was barely covering the medical bills, so I couldn’t add anything else.
What Henry was suggesting was a different kind of therapy, with no bills attached. I didn’t think I had anything to lose.
I hadn’t lost anything since. I just hadn’t found it yet, either.
That morning, I spent most of my shift in the hiking gear section, answering customer questions about trekking poles (ones that were still standing upright this time), shoes, and other equipment.
Yes, this style comes in a nine wide. No, you don’t need special socks to wear them.
My favorite trail? Eagle’s Head. That sort of thing.
A tourist came in midmorning asking what our best hiking boot was—Speedgoats?
Merrells? Danner Trails? Nikes? He bought the pair I didn’t recommend, didn’t even try them on, and never once looked me in the eye.
What a fulfilling exchange.
I moved on to a lady and her kids looking at the raincoats.
“What’s on your face?” the little boy asked, squinting up at me.
“Andrew!” the mother exclaimed, grabbing the boy’s arm and yanking him away from me.
“I am so incredibly sorry. Kids are…you know…”
I wasn’t bothered by kids asking direct questions about my burns; they were just naturally curious and honest. I was much more bothered by people who obviously pitied me.
Far beyond those who wouldn’t meet my eye, like Hiking Boot Man, they were the ones who made me feel fragile, like a broken bird fallen from its nest.
“It’s fine. I had an accident. But I’m getting better.”
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“Not anymore,” I lied.
“Wow, you are really brave,” his sister piped up, before handing her mom a sweater. “Can I have this?”
“Sure, honey,” the woman answered quickly.