“Hey,” Dean threw his hands up. “I’m the new guy, I know. But when Spencer laid it all out for me…I don’t think I want to have anything to do with them. I’m content here. We haven’t ventured out to the suburbs, if we work together we can clear more ground, move around. Start a little garden.”
Spencer’s flipchart and easel remained set up in the corner. Dean saw it and smirked.
“A little garden?” Darla scoffed.
“I can put together a little demo too, if it helps.” Dean ignored Darla. “Look, Ethan and Darla, you’re the holdouts.”
“I don’t count?” Ainsley asked and then waited. Everyone looked at her. “Fine. I don’t count.”
“And Doctor Krause agrees with you?” Darla asked.
Dean shrugged. “It would appear.” Then he cracked his neck and clapped his hands once together. “Well, this has been fun. Just…think about it.” He spun and walked out of the den, and then kept on walking out of the house, shutting the door behind him.
“If I’d known that Spencer and Dean would end up being besties, I would’ve shot him when I had the chance,” Darla moaned. Then with an agitated sigh, she stomped out of the den, leaving Ainsley and Ethan alone.
After a prolonged silence, Ainsley turned to Ethan and cleared her throat.
“I’m growing to hate all the grown-ups,” she moaned.
Ethan shrugged. “You don’t feel like a grown-up?”
“No,” she stared at him. “Do you?”
He made a face. “I feel bored. Boredom is my most active state.”
“We can cure that,” Ainsley answered.
Ethan motioned for her to continue.
“I believe you had offered to take me on a date?” she reminded him with a sly smile. “Or was that some drug induced offer?”
He paused and turned his head slowly to her. He moved his chair forward and backward; rolling in a straight line and backward, his head hung low. “Oh yeah? I mean…I didn’t think…it was just a…” He looked up at her. “Really?”
She shrugged. “It was your idea and, well, we’re both bored.”
“Oh, I see. Boredom-date. Thanks,” Ethan replied sarcastically. “But…”
“No, sure,” Ainsley stood up without waiting for a full reply and she waved her hands in front of herself. “I get it. It’s fine. I was just kidding too.” She looked at him and then added dryly, “Ha. Ha.” She exhaled. “Cribbage, then?”
“Fine,” Ethan said before she had time to leave the room. He wheeled his chair a few feet forward; close enough that he could touch her, and he raised his eyebrows. “Okay. I’ll plan a date. Tomorrow night. A real thing…you know…because we’re bored.”
Ainsley smiled and tucked a piece of curly hair behind her ear. “Well, don’t let me twist your arm,” she said. “I didn’t really—”
“No, I got this,” Ethan interrupted and he rolled his chair back, unwilling to let Ainsley take back the thinly veiled request. “Trust me.”
“A what?” Darla asked. She flipped over a card. Teddy waited for his instructions. She looked at him and then said, “Skip around Ethan’s wheelchair while holding…this stuffed animal,” she said and then Teddy took off skipping.
“A date,” Ethan said loudly and then he lowered his voice and cleared his throat. “A date…you know…something fun. To break up the monotony.”
Darla high-fived Teddy as he finished the rounds and slid into her, giggling.
“Your turn, Mommy,” Teddy said and Darla flipped over another card. An X. She smiled and put it in the X pile.
“So, what is it? A date or just something to break up the monotony?” Darla asked.
Ethan ran his right hand over the wheel of his chair; it spun in lazy circles in the middle of the den. He didn’t answer right away and then he shrugged.
“Can’t it be both?” he finally asked.
“No,” Darla answered instantly. “It can’t be both.”
“You can’t blame me for wanting to have some fun. We have to make our own fun, right? Humans weren’t made to live like this.”
Darla rolled her eyes. “You don’t have it so bad,” she said. Teddy flipped a card.
“What does it say? What do I do?” he squealed.
“Run upstairs. Touch the door to the bathroom and run back,” Darla answered and Teddy took off running, his little feet pounding heavily against the floor. She shifted her attention back to Ethan and ran her hand through her long dark hair, combing out her tangles with her fingers. “So, what do you want from me?” she asked.
“What should I do? I need ideas.”
“This was your idea. You’re on your own.”
“Come on—” Ethan whined. “I can’t take her to the movies. Or like to a fancy restaurant…” he trailed off. Then he looked at Darla with a crooked smile. “Or can I?”
Teddy’s pitter-patter began to make its way back to them; they listened as he stampeded down the steps and then rushed into the den, breathless, his cheeks pink.
“Just tell me what to do, Ethan,” Darla said as she crawled back over to their playing cards and flipped over another one. An X. “Game over, dude,” she told Teddy with a frown and Teddy started calling for another round.
“I’m going to need some help to get my idea up and running. Help from Dean and Spencer and Joey too. It takes a village,” he replied.
“That phrase doesn’t refer to dating post-apocalypse. Which,” Darla put a finger up, “I’m not okay with. It feels…”
“Normal,” Ethan finished for her. “I just want something to feel normal.”
“Too bad,” she said. “We don’t get that luxury anymore.”
“I disagree.”
“When is this date?” She spread out the cards on the floor, shuffling them and mixing them together with both hands.
“Tomorrow night.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
Ethan beamed. “Does that mean you’ll help?”
Darla fell forward and rested her head on the floor of the den. She banged her head slowly against the wooden floorboards and mumbled something Ethan couldn’t hear. When she brought her head up, she looked at him with annoyed disdain. “I’ll help,” she conceded. “But only because I feel sorry for you.”
“I’ll take it!” Ethan replied with a wink.
Doctor Krause looked at the thermometer and shook her head. She reset it and tried it again, waiting the requisite amount of time until the beep-beep-beep signaled that it had reached the apex of its slow climb.
“How long have you had the bruising?” she asked Ethan and he turned away from her, embarrassed and ashamed. “And the redness. The oozing. How long?”
“A few days, maybe. Maybe I noticed it yesterday…I don’t know.”
“And you didn’t tell me? Ainsley didn’t notice when she came in for rounds?”
Ethan grimaced. Ainsley had been by to check on him, but he hadn’t let her be his nurse the past few days. Instead, he’d encouraged her to just sit with him, play cards, read books. She hadn’t complained about being relieved of nursing duty and it made Ethan feel like he was doing something good—allowing the girl, his friend, to have a life again that didn’t involve constantly checking on him. It was the unfairness of it all that got to him the most—Ainsley didn’t ask to spend her days bound to him. She deserved better than that.
“She didn’t notice…I didn’t let her check my leg,” he said and the moment the confession left his lips, he knew he had admitted something dangerous.
The doctor was quiet, like her daughter, stoic and unassuming, but she took her role as Ethan’s caretaker seriously. The flash of worry across her face was unmistakable and Ethan’s stomach sank.
“Don’t get mad at her,” he quickly amended. “I just didn’t want to feel like a patient. I wanted to be normal…I didn’t—”