Terry’s gaze cuts up to mine. “Four weeks ago?” He neither looks or sounds impressed.
“It’s gone down almost entirely, now,” I say. I try not to get defensive. I should have come in for a check-up, and I didn’t. That’s on me.
Terry sighs. “What about the bruises? Are they from four weeks ago as well?”
I thought all the bruises were gone? Mark would have kicked up a fuss yesterday about putting cream on any bruises. Unless he was distracted, as I was, from doing so. I peek and am surprised by what I see. The last time I’d seen my leg in more than a brief, accidental glance, the scar from the surgery had been red and jagged.
Most of the red is faded, and the scar is considerably smaller. Obviously, it isn’t ever going to disappear, but the part I can see is much thinner than when I’d last seen it. I focus on the quality of the pale skin, seeking, before I cast Terry a puzzled look. “Where are the bruises?”
“Here.” He cups his fingers into a circle, hovering them above the skin where the rim of the socket presses. “There’s also bruising down here.” He indicates the bottom of my residual limb. “I’m guessing what happened is you didn’t give your leg the chance to heal after injuring it when the old prosthetic broke.”
“I was off my feet for a full week.”
Terry’s eyebrows lift. “And what schedule did you follow to re-accustom your leg to the replacement prosthetic?”
I blink.
“None. Correct? You went straight back into full days. Which is why you’re still bruised and swollen a month after you were injured.”
I frown. “It wasn’t swollen like this until today. If it was bad, I couldn’t have been fully mobile on the prosthetic. It would have hurt too much.”
Terry stares but I don’t back down. I may not like looking at my leg, but I’m not ignorant of the care it needs. Except when it comes to bruising cream and icing it…but Mark did all of that for me. Point is, I took care of it. I stayed off it until the swelling went down.
“Swelling can happen for a number of reasons besides physical injury. Water retention—in particular, if you have a high salt diet—is one of the most common causes we see here. Even hot weather can do it, though it’s not that one today. And you need to keep in mind that even if a week used to be enough for you to heal from a sprained ankle or the like, your residual limb is still healing from the surgery. So when I tell you that you need to take it slow, I’m not just saying that for the hell of it.” Terry stands up and retrieves his tablet. “Let’s start going through the exercises. Do you remember them?”
“I only did them all summer,” I reply.
The exercises go smoothly, though instead of the usual exercises with my prosthetic on, Terry wraps an extra large cold pack around my stump. “Cold helps the muscles retract. You should be able to take the prosthetic off without any difficulty once you’re home.” Terry looks at Chris. “I’ll get the information packs you asked for, and some prototypes for you to have a look at,” he addresses the last part to me. “Although for simple hikes, the prosthetic you have now should hold up no problem.”
I lean back on the bench and incline my head toward Chris as Terry walks away. “You asked about exercise prosthetics?” I ask. “They told me I have to wait a minimum of six months to get fitted for one, and in most cases, it’s longer than that.”
“You can look at the options and be thinking about it.” Chris sits next to me. He’s silent a moment, his gaze distant before his eyes flick to me. “I didn’t realise you were so uncomfortable.”
“It’s just awkward,” I reply, looking away from him.
“I thought you were mad earlier because you find the appointments annoying, not that you found them hard. I should have talked to you before I booked you in. You would still have to come in, but it wasn’t fair to spring it on you like that. I was worried about you missing the appointments; I didn’t consider the reason behind it.”
Apparently, my stellar acting that had fooled Terry all summer was transparent as glass to Chris. I don’t dismiss my discomfort as “awkward” this time. “I doubt there’s anyone in the world that takes losing part of their limb in their stride.”
Chris wraps his arm around my shoulders and ruffles my hair. “I hate that I wasn’t here and you did it alone, but I’m proud of how much you’ve adapted.”
I lean into him. It hadn’t been easy. None of it was. Weeks in hospital, several surgeries, and then physical therapy when everything just hurt like hell? I wanted Chris. I wanted him and wanted to just cry all the time. Without him? I had no other choice. I couldn’t walk for weeks, and every day I got more and more afraid that somehow one of my other brothers would get word about me. That one of themwould walk through the door and say they’d take care of me. I became singularly determined to get mobile before that happened. The motivation from my recovery hadn’t been inspired by anything other than naked fear.
“Is it okay for me to take the spare room?” Chris asks.
Earlier, I’d been against the idea because I didn’t want him putting his life on hold for me. But now that he’s here, I can’t help the selfish part of me that is just…relieved. He’s here. I’m alone. “You’re not allowed to kick people out of my apartment,” I stipulate. “Or boss me around.”
Technically, the housing money is all coming from Chris’sinsurance policy, so it’s more his apartment than mine.
“And you can’t be mean to Mark,” I add. Chris continues to rub my hair. He doesn’t answer. “Chris…he’s been really good to me.”
“I’ll see.”
Chapter Nineteen
“I was thinking about joining the hiking club,” I say. Tommy and Mark have been giving each other enough looksto make me jealous. Granted, they’re most certainly dirty looks, but that’s not the point. I sat down with Tommy for lunch in the cafeteria, and Mark joined us.
They both look at me.
