Chapter 4
RIGGS
I’m a hero.
A goddamned, bonafide hero.
At least that’s what the medal, nestled in a bed of dark blue satin on my hospital nightstand, says.
It is my privilege to present to you the Medal of Honor, awarded for acts of conspicuous gallantry and heroism during …
I had to lay here, buck-ass naked under my too small hospital johnnie, catheter tube shoved into my dickhole while it drains into a bag, and listen to some random officer I’ve never met, give me the thank you for your sacrifice, spiel when what I really want to do is spit in his face and tell him to fuck all the way off.
I can’t fucking walk but that’s okay because I’ve got a shiny new piece of metal and the undying gratitude of the United States government instead of a pair of working legs, so that’s cool.
Totally worth it.
Maybe not but the fact that Jimenez and Wasdin are still alive is worth it. What’s done is done, so quit being a crybaby bitch and just shut the fuck about it already.
Even though I know it’s true—that a father of three and the man who organizes the annual base back-to-school supply drive for the local family shelter are more than worth a pair of working legs—I’m still not able to claw my way out of the dark, black hole I’m rapidly sinking into.
Because no one is talking about the rest of them.
Freeman.
Gallagher.
The ones I missed.
The ones who died in the dark.
Calling it a small miracle that I was able to make it through my bedside medal ceremony while my mother sniffled in the corner without earning myself a court martial, I answered Officer Random’s canned thank you/salute combo with a half-assed salute of my own.
As soon as he was gone, I tossed the velvet box with the medal in it onto my nightstand and rolled over to face the wall and pretended to go to sleep so I didn’t have to look at my mom while she cried.
It’s been two months.
I’m not sinking anymore.
I’m sunk.
All the way sunk.
Not even trying to remind myself that I traded my legs for the lives of two good men. That the fact that they’re alive and breathing is worth more than being able to pee standing up or the ability to walk. It’s true. I know it’s true—of course it is.
I just don’t give a shit.
I can’t give a shit because giving a shit means I have to hope. I have to believe and I can’t do either of those things because someone has to be rational. Someone has to be reasonable. Accept the reality of my situation and it sure as hell isn’t going to be my mother.
“Riggs, honey?” She turns her hand over in mine and gives my lax fingers a squeeze. “Are you listening?”
“No,” I answer her honestly, giving her a flat smile before I aim it at the man, standing at the foot of my hospital bed. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Riggs,” my mother admonishes quietly while the man—early forties. Faded green scrubs with sandy blond hair and flinty brown eyes—gives me a look that says he’d happily strangle me if not for the fact that he swore on a stack of bibles to do no harm.
“I’m Dr. Barrow,” he says in a flat, you know exactly who I am tone. “I’ve been your neurosurgeon since you were admitted, Sergeant Wheeler.” I’m in a Naval hospital in Virginia. Been here since they shipped me stateside, and they’ve all had just about enough of my shit.
“Neato.” I make a who gives a shit noise in the back of my throat before reaching out to nudge my pink plastic pitcher across the rollaway table between us. “Think you can go get me some water. I’m parched.”
“Rigley Adam Wheeler,” my mom hisses at me while yanking her hand from mine. Pretty sure she’s going to use it to slap me upside the head but the good doctor cuts her off before she can start swinging.
“As I was saying,” he says, ignoring my asshole request completely.
“I’ve done everything I can for you here.
” Looking down at his hands, he frowns at them like they’ve betrayed us both.
“Your last two surgeries have yielded minimal results.” Looking up at me, he shakes his head.
“My skillset and quite frankly, my patience, are exhausted, Sergeant Wheeler.”
Something that feels very much like panic starts to churn in my gut. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I can’t help you,” he tells me bluntly.
It’s nothing I didn’t expect. Nothing I haven’t been preparing for, but hearing him say it out loud still leaves me sucking wind. I guess I haven’t been so rational and reasonable, after all. “So now what?”
“So now you leave here,” he tells me, his tone telling me that it’s already done. There’s no room for argument. My discharge is already under way. I’m leaving this hospital whether I want to or not.
“And go where exactly?” I bark it at him, my gaze narrowing down to slits.
“That’s up to you,” Dr. Barrow gives me an apathetic shrug. “As I was telling your mother and trying to tell you, you have two options—one, I discharge you to a VA rehabilitation center. There’s one in Houston, near?—”
“No.” It comes out hard. Final. “You’re not going to ship me off to some warehouse for cripples so you can just forget about me—you can fuck off with that shit.”
“It’s only a warehouse for cripples for those who’ve chosen to give up on rehabilitation and recovery, Sergeant Wheeler,” he informs me, his tone telling me that’s exactly who he thinks I am.
Exactly what I’ve done—given up. “For those who want to put in the work and fight their way back, it’s a battlefield. ”
“I don’t give a fuck if it’s the goddamned Alamo,” I snarl at him. “I said no.”
Dr. Barrow stares at me, his apathy quickly being overtaken by frustration. It’s understandable. I can barely stand myself these days. “Option two—I transfer your care to another neurosurgeon—one far more skilled than I am.”
“Listen,” my mother breathes the words beside me, her tone trembling with hope. “Please listen to him.”
When I don’t snarl at him some more, the doctor takes it as a sign that I’m listening.
I’m not. I’m just letting him talk. Say his piece so I can say I’ll think about it and he can leave.
“There have been some pretty exciting breakthroughs in spinal cord injuries over the last few years—the most exciting being centered on your specific type of injury.”
Incomplete injury to the L1 and L2 region of your spine.
That’s what happened.
That’s why I couldn’t feel anything, lying in the dark, waiting for them to dig me out.
When I don’t ask, my mother shoots me a withering look. “What sort of breakthroughs?” It’s obvious she already knows. That she’s asking the doctor to repeat himself but I don’t care. I just stare at him and wait for my turn to say my line.
“An implant.” Dr. Barrow plays along, shooting me a quick look before he continues.
“About the size of a dime, situated at the base of your spinal column, that will stimulate your damaged nerves and facilitate communication between them and your brain. They’re still considered experimental but with your type of injury… ”
“You could walk again, Riggs,” my mother says like maybe I’m not understanding what he’s trying to tell me. “You could?—”
“Where?” It’s not what I’m supposed to say. I’m not supposed to ask. Shouldn’t let myself care. Even though I know what it means—more surgeries. More hope. More failure—I ask because wherever it is, it has to be better than the alternative.
Shifting his gaze to my mothers, the doctor’s expression goes still, the set of it telling me that this is a conversation they’ve already had and my reaction has already been predicted.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
“You’re kidding right?” Looking at my mom, I shake my head before I aim my glare at the man in front of me and wait for him to drop the punchline.
Because that’s what this is, right?
A joke.
A sick, cosmic joke.
One that no one thinks is funny but me.
“Clearwater, Texas,” he confirms quietly before I can start to scream. “They have a brand new, state-of-the-art trauma center and?—”
“Get out.”
“their lead surgeon specializes in spinal injuries. She’s?—”
“Get the fuck out.” I bark it at him, lifting a hand to jab my finger at the door. “Now.”
“seen your films and she is confident that?—”
“Get. Out.” I bellow it at him, dropping my hand to swipe my pitcher off the table, sending it flying.
I’m having a full blown, crybaby bitch tantrum and the fact of it makes me want to do nothing more than put my head through the nearest wall but I can’t.
I can’t because I can’t fucking get up and walk and this motherfucker wants to send me back to the one place I’d rather?—
“Or what?” Like he’s reading my mind, Dr. Barrow watches me dispassionately while I flail and scream like a toddler in need of a nap.
“What are you going to do if I don’t? Because you sure as hell aren’t going to get up and make me.
” He gives me that look again. The one that screams quitter before he looks at my mother.
“It’s the VA rehab center in Houston or Dr. Ragnar in Clearwater.
That’s it. Those are his options. He has until the morning to decide before I file his transfer paperwork,” he tells her before he walks out without so much as bothering to tell me to fuck off.
As soon as he’s gone, my mother hunkers down and gets in my face. She isn’t crying anymore. She’s pissed. So done with me that she looks like she wants to follow the doctor out the door and never come back.
I can’t say I blame her either.
“How dare you,” she hisses softly. “How dare?—”
“You can leave too,” I tell her, my tone flat and final, gaze aimed straight ahead because if I look at her, I’ll probably start screaming again.
When I say it, I feel her anger dissipate and the absence of it makes me even angrier.
Angry at her for ambushing me and angry at myself because I’m nothing more than a sentient lump who can’t even get up to take a leak or get his own goddamned glass of water.
“Riggs…” Her mouth trembles around the sound of my name in my peripheral.
“What happened? I don’t understand.” Reaching up, she tries to push my hair away from my face.
It’s been nearly six-weeks since I’ve gotten a haircut and it’s driving me crazy.
“Please, just help me understand why you won’t at least consider?—”
“There’s nothing to consider.” Jerking my head out of reach, I set my mouth in a grim, hard line in an effort to keep myself from spiraling again. “I said no.”
No means Houston.
No means a life stuck in a wheelchair.
No means I’ll die bitter and alone because I’m too much of a coward to try.
Is that what you’re really afraid of? Are you afraid of trying or are you afraid of facing what you did to her?
“Please.” It comes out on a soft sigh that warms my cheek. “Just help me understand?—”
“Leave.” I growl it at her, glare still aimed into middle space. “Now. Before I say something that’ll make you hate me.”
“There’s nothing you could ever do or say that would make me hate you, son,” she tells me on a stubborn head shake.
“Wanna bet?” I say, shifting my gaze to stab her with a quick, hard glare. Whatever she sees in my eyes causes her breath to catch in her throat before she shrinks back just enough to let me know I’ve done it. I’ve finally done it. I’ve finally scared her enough to push her away.
“Okay…” Straightening herself slowly, I watch her reach for the purse she tossed on the chair as soon as she walked in. “You have some thinking to do and a decision to make so, I’ll leave you to it.”
My mother lives in Galveston. She and my dad moved there when he got a cushy supervisor job on one of the off-shore rigs.
I don’t know where she’s been staying while I’ve been in here.
I never asked. All I know is that she’s here every morning as soon as I finish my breakfast and she doesn’t leave until long after I finish dinner.
She’s been here, every day. Watching me spiral.
Trying to figure out a way to make me care about something I can’t care about without driving myself insane.
But that’s over now.
I also know that when she leaves, it’ll be for the last time. Once she’s gone, she won’t come back.
I can’t blame her for that either.
“I love you, Riggs.”
I don’t answer her. Instead, I turn over and face the wall so I don’t have to watch my mother walk away.