Chapter 10
S everal days later Nelly watched from the hallway as Zander stood up slowly from the wheelchair, grabbed the crutches from Shane, and slowly made his way to her. She clapped a hand over her mouth, then exclaimed, “Oh my, look at you.”
“I know. I’m taller than you expected, right?”
“Ha. You’re also scrawnier than I expected,” she pointed out.
He burst out laughing. “According to Shane, I put on eighteen pounds.”
She turned to Shane for confirmation. He nodded. “Absolutely, and that is a good thing.”
“How much of that is muscle and how much of that is chubs?” she asked, with a chuckle.
As Zander got closer, she reached out her arms, and he wrapped her up in a big hug. “Now that,” he muttered, with a chuckle, “was well worth the work.”
And she slowly turned him around and pointed. “Now back to Shane.”
“What’s the matter? Don’t I get another hug?” he quipped.
“Yep, Shane will give you a hug at the other end,” she teased.
He rolled his eyes at that and slowly moved forward. By the time he got to Shane, Zander’s grin was huge, but he hated how weak he felt.
“You’ve come a long way,” Shane declared, “so don’t ever knock it.” He put him back in the wheelchair and declared, “Now, that’ll do for today.”
“That’s good,” Zander admitted. “I’m not sure I could have done any more.”
“But you could have,” Shane noted. “I want this now to become part of your workout.”
“What part of my workout?” Zander asked.
“I want you to do this walk tonight before you go to bed, and then I want you to do it again in the morning before you come to see me.”
“And you won’t be there each time?” he asked, startled.
“Do I need to be there?” Shane asked, smirking at him.
“No, I,… I don’t think so,” Zander replied. “I’m pretty sure I can make do on my own.”
“Good,” Shane replied, “because I don’t think you need me.”
And, with that, Zander turned to face her with a huge grin.
“You know something?” she asked Zander, as Shane walked away. “I think you just graduated.”
“Not from everything,” Zander clarified, with a shake of his head. “But, hey, I’ll take whatever I can for right now.”
She nodded. “And now it’s coffee time.”
“Is it really?” Then he checked his watch. “And he sprung this on me at the end of the day.”
“It’s all good,” she said. “You’ve been here four-plus months and look at you? You’re back on your feet, walking with crutches so far, and you’re gaining strength.”
“He’s got me doing weights now too,” he added.
“That’s because you need as much muscle as you can build right now,” she noted, with a smile.
Zander shook his head at that. “The days are just racing by.”
“I know. Have you put any thought into what you are doing after this?”
He nodded. “Lots of thought—but no answers.”
She didn’t want to push it, but she could see that he wasn’t too bothered about it. “So presumably you have a plan of some kind.”
“Absolutely.” He chuckled. “I’m just not sure where I want to go with it.”
“I think there are a lot of things you can do, but, hey, you still have time.”
“I do have time,” he agreed, “but, if nothing else, this shows me that I have such great progress happening, so then it must be time to start thinking about it.”
She thought it was past time, but, hey, that’s because she had dealt with so many people here already.
Some came in absolutely struggling to find a way to make future plans, yet Zander seemed quite laissez-faire about it all.
“You mentioned how your parents were in England. Is that where your sister is too?”
He just nodded, preoccupied with his thoughts.
“So no family close by, right?” she asked.
He again nodded. “Sure, but my parents are scientists, living in their labs, with my sister maybe becoming a doctor. So nobody in my family has a business or anything that I would want to work in.”
She frowned, and he saw that, knowing she was already worried about him.
“I’m just letting some things roll around in my head,” he shared. “I have enough going on right now with rehab.” He looked at her and said, “I know it’s coffee time, but do you think there’s any chance of a treat at the same time?”
“For you, always,” she replied, “although I don’t know that you need more sugar.”
“I was wondering about ice cream.”
She burst out laughing. “Ice cream’s possible, definitely possible.”
As they walked in the dining room, they saw no sign of Dennis, which was happening more and more, as he and the others were in the kitchen, always working on wedding things.
When he popped his head out and saw them, he stepped forward and noted, “You’re early for dinner.”
“We know,” Nelly admitted, with a shrug. “Is there a chance of ice cream?”
“Ooh.” Dennis’s face lit up. “Absolutely.” He disappeared and came back with two cones.
She looked at him and laughed. “I didn’t even tell you what flavors.”
“And I didn’t ask ’cuz we didn’t get our dairy delivery,” he explained, “so these are the flavors.” And he handed over two cones, one that had a bright pink something all through it and something else that had streaks of probably caramel.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what the flavors are. It will be delicious anyway.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Dennis replied. And, with that, he disappeared again into the kitchen.
She looked at Zander. “It’s such a different air at the center right now.” She had a big grin on her face. “I’m really loving it.”
“Especially now that we got the you-know-what,” he whispered, looking around.
“Let’s go out on the deck,” she murmured. “And you’re right. Now that we got that one locked down, I think this will make her wedding day so very special.”
“It will, indeed,” he agreed, “and I’m really proud to be invited.”
“Was there any doubt about you coming?” she asked.
“No, but I felt like an interloper, until Aaron gave me a personal invite.”
She frowned at him, and he explained about meeting him in person. “That’s awesome. I knew everybody in Hathaway was invited, so I wasn’t worried about it,” she shared, with a smile. “So it’s nice to know that you don’t feel it’s a problem now.”
“No, not at all. And it is a pretty special time. As you said, a once-in-a-lifetime event.”
“And just think, by the time the wedding gets here, you’ll be walking around even more so than now.”
“Does Dani have family, other than her father?”
“No. Aaron does. Dani doesn’t, but she has close friends—many close friends. It’ll be a big deal,” she said, laughing.
*
And Zander was happy for Dani. He really was.
Yet all these wedding discussions were definitely making him think about his own future and what he wanted.
As he saw the excitement build day after day, and sharing it with Nelly so much of the time, he realized just how special this whole thing was and how big a deal it seemed to be, especially for the women.
“I guess you would like to have a big wedding too, wouldn’t you? ” he asked Nelly.
“Not necessarily. I would be happy to just go the courthouse and get married to somebody I love.”
He nodded. “You don’t want all this stuff?” he asked, as he waved a hand around, trying to encompass all the discussions and the secrets too.
“No, not at all. In this case it’s appropriate because it’s for Dani, and we have to keep so much of our plans secret,” she added. “Yet I wouldn’t want that. I would just want a simple ceremony.”
He filed that away for later.
But then she looked at him and asked, “Why?”
And such an honest curiosity filled her tone that he realized she really had no idea. He shrugged. “Just something I was wondering about.”
At that, somebody else interrupted them, for which Zander was grateful.
But the thought crossing his mind was something that was hard to let go of.
Same as he knew there was no way he would let go of her.
They’d spent so much time together that she’d become a major part of his world.
Yet he didn’t think that she had any idea just how major. He frowned as he sat here.
When she looked over at him, catching him frowning, she offered, “Hey, if you want to leave, go for it.”
He looked at her and realized that he’d more or less been ignoring her for the whole visit. He winced. “Sorry, I haven’t been very good company.”
“You’re not here to be company for me,” she noted. “If you want to go lie down, then lie down.”
At that comment, he realized that she mistook his silence and his confusion and myriad thoughts for being tired. He looked at her, nodded gratefully, and added, “I think I will.” And, with that, he quickly made his escape.
Still, it didn’t stop the thoughts in his mind that just seemed to circle and circle around in his head. Was it too early to ask? Was it too fast? Did she care? Did she care enough? Did she not care at all? Sighing heavily, he returned to his room, laid down, and, unbelievably, fell asleep.