It’s also insanely difficult to wrap my head around how tied-together our lives have been.
“And when I was in the hospital the next day, you brought me back Puppy. You were pretty much my knight in shining armor,” she finishes. There’s a dreamy look on her face as she loses herself in the memory.
Her knight in shining armor.
Those words play in my head as disgust settles in my stomach, washing away any possibility I thought we might have.
Her memories of me are too large for me to live up to. What if I never return to being that man? She deserves so much more than who I am today.
She deserves who I used to be.
And I can’t guarantee I’ll ever be that man again.
Rather than pushing the conversation I know we should have, I bite my tongue and stand from the bed. An abrupt, “Goodnight,” is all I’m capable of giving her.
Even though she deserves the loving words I bury deep inside, I can’t give those to her. Knowing I may never be able to give her what she deserves, I walk out of her room and ignore her soft sobs through the rest of the night.
“How was therapy?” Walking with David back out to my car, a feeling of peace settles around me.
“Good. Making progress and getting a bunch more feeling back in my fingers.” He slides his bag into the back seat of the car, and sits up front. It’s a small thing, but just seeing how at ease he is with me, and our routine, it makes me happy. “Ian says hi, by the way,” he adds as he buckles his seatbelt.
In the two weeks since he’s been home with me, his anger has diminished, especially as bits of his memory returned. His physical recovery is going even better than they’d hoped. He was downgraded to one of those walking casts just yesterday and even the fire department medical office says he might be cleared to return to work again sometime early next year, pending the successful completion of retraining courses.
Since he still can’t drive, I end up helping out as much as possible. But the very real fact that he could be on his own now lingers in the air with every breath I take.
And while all of this progress is amazing, and I couldn’t be happier that he’s healing, it all leads to one certainty.
He’s going to leave me. He’s going to move out and return to his own life. The one where he only vaguely remembers who we used to be. Some of the memories have returned—some prompted and some not. But overall, I’m still mostly the woman who sang to him while he was in a coma. I haven’t even had the heart to bring up the issue about how he feels about me, if he remembers loving me.
Because the answer scares the life out of me.
“Feel up to a little food shopping? If not, I can drop you off. Just let me know what you need.”
“Yeah. I’m all energized. Being cooped up all day is getting old.”
By the time we make it to the frozen foods aisle, the cart is filled to the top. There’s no way on earth two people could ever need this much food. “Hungry?” I ask, eyeing him over the mountain of food.
“A little,” he says from behind a freezer door. Dropping a bag of frozen sweet potato fries into the cart, he admits, “Okay fine. More than a little.”
He’s taken to trying out all the food in the world in the hopes of remembering what he likes and what he doesn’t. I bite my tongue as he drops some frozen lima beans into the cart. I know he hates them, but he doesn’t. I’ve learned to avoid pressing the issue of what he remembers in our conversations. Letting him bring it up when he feels like it seems to work best. So for now, I silently fight for the man I love, hoping that one day he’ll love me in return.
“I forgot something a few aisles back,” David says before he turns and walks away.
With only an aisle or two left, I figure I can finish what’s left of my part of the list and meet him by the checkout.
Turning the corner, I walk over to the milk cooler. As I place a half gallon of skim milk for me, and a gallon of whole milk for David into the cart a voice calls out from behind me, “Fancy seeing you here.” The voice catches me off guard, but I know who it is instantly. “Hey, roomie.” Tim walks over to me, a small hand basket in tow. “Stocking up for the zombie apocalypse?” he asks, eyeing the stock pile in my cart.
“Seems that way, huh?” I laugh. We walk through the rest of the aisle, talking about school and my upcoming observation. I’ve been able to push it back until everything else in my life was settled. Now that it’s next week, I’m more than a little nervous.
“You’ll be just fine. More than fine.” Tim squeezes my shoulder, reassuring me with his easy smile. “We’ve gone over the plans a hundred times. You have it planned out by the minute. No one’s more prepared than you.”
“Grace.” David’s voice sounds like a growl from behind me. Pulling my arm free from Tim’s hand, I turn to him. To say he doesn’t look happy is a gross understatement.
“Hi,” Tim cuts in, extending his hand. “I’m Tim. I work with Grace.” He’s polite to a fault.
“I’m David,” he introduces himself, pumping Tim’s hand in return. I bite my tongue, the reminder that they’ve met before dying in my mouth. “Grace’s . . .” He doesn’t finish the sentence. “I’ll meet you at the checkout,” he all but grunts. “Nice meeting you, Tim,” he lies before stalking away.
Offering Tim an apology, I say goodbye. Walking away from Tim and toward David, I can’t help but struggle with the uncertainty of my own future.
Wordlessly, David helps me load the groceries onto the conveyor belt. I bag them while he pays—a battle I stopped fighting after he insisted on giving me money the first time I shopped for him.
With some kind of seething anger beating off him, he stalks to the car, walking in front of me and the cart. After loading everything into the trunk, he walks the cart back to the front of the store. In what I can only categorize as the most uncomfortable silence of my life, we drive back to my place without saying a single word.
When the final bag is unloaded and packed away, we stand in the kitchen. Silent. Eyes on each other. Tension surrounding us.
“What’s wrong?”
“He was touching you,” he nearly growls, barely opening his mouth enough to let the words fall out. The air of what used to be his anger hangs in the place. “Have you fucked him?” He takes a second to register the shocked look on my face, before continuing. If it’s possible his words contain more venom than I ever thought any human could ever throw at another. “Probably started before I was hurt. I mean why not, you spend all day together. I was in a coma for two weeks, who the fuck knows what happened.”
“He’s a friend. And a co-worker,” I snap. “I’m not even going to entertain your questions with answers. You’re being an asshole. Just like you were the last time something like this happened.”
Throwing his hands up in the air, he yells in anger. “Of course this has happened before. And of course I don’t fucking remember it. So did you fuck him the last time, too?”
Everything I’ve been able to keep in check these last few weeks breaks through. “What if I did? What would you care? You don’t even remember who I am? So now I’m not supposed to have friends?”
As if I’d slapped him across the face, David stands there. The only movement is that of his chest rising and falling with his shaky breaths. His non-reaction spurs me on even further. “You know, not once in the two weeks since you’ve been here have you ever said thank you. I wanted you to live here so I could make sure you were okay, and maybe hopefully remind you of who I was. But it’s not working for me anymore. I can’t do this. I do nothing wrong at all. I have a conversation with a friend and you give me the silent treatment, like a child.”