Crash (on hold)

I looked at the guy in disbelief, disgust and sadness slowly taking over my senses. How did he even have the nerve to show up here?
I opened my mouth, but waited a little while before I said something. “Can you please go?” I eventually said, trying my best not to either jump out of bed and kill him or ball my eyes out in front of him.
Tony still looked at me with the same fear still in his eyes, but there was also a heartbreaking pain visible in them now. I didn’t feel a spark of sympathy for this person, though. He took every single thing I loved from me.
“But-but-” he started, although I was pretty sure he had no clue of what he was going to say.
“No.” I said, interrupting him by raising my hand. “You have absolutely no right to be here. The last thing I want are your apologies.”
He tore his eyes of mine and let them fall to the ground. “I never meant to...I didn't want to...I just wanted to…” He started, but I didn't even want to hear what he was planning on saying. I just wanted him to leave me alone and let me drown in my own misery.
I nodded my head at him. “You just wanted to ease your conscience. Or you wanted to make sure I wouldn't sue you. Either way, you only thought about yourself when you made the decision to come here. Otherwise you wouldn't be here right now.” I said. He could've known that I didn't want to see him. That it would only make my trauma worse.
Tony stood still in the same position as he was in a few seconds ago. It kind of seemed like he was afraid to move. “I don’t have time for your sympathy, even not if you mean it. I still have to think over what I’m going to do with my life. You know, since I won't ever be able to walk again.” I said and my voice broke at the last sentence. I was quite proud of how long I was able to contain myself, but now the emotion finally consumed me. It was so real now I said it out loud.
Tony’s head shot up and he looked at me with shock. “You can't feel your legs?” He asked. It really seemed like he hadn’t heard this before.
I looked away from him, the last thing I wanted was to cry in front of him. I didn’t want to give him that satisfaction. “I can't feel them no. And my doctor has told me that I probably never will again. Which incredibly sucks, and that's an understatement, because I dance for a living.” I said. I don't know if I was happy I said this because it would make him feel more guilty or if I was embarrassed for letting my guard down.
After I had said this, it was too quiet in my hospital room. It was almost like he wasn’t breathing anymore or like he had left the room.
It gave my mind permission to finally go down on that spiral of thoughts I didn’t want to go down on. I would never dance again. I would never touch my dance shoes again and I would never feel the thrill of being on stage anymore.
I felt the tears well up in my eyes and before I knew it they were spilling over my cheeks. I couldn’t help it. I was a tough person, I hard learned to be that over the years, but I was completely lost now. I didn't really see a reason to be strong anymore anyway. Well, the only reason would be to not let the guy who ruined my life see how much damage he did.
So I wiped the two tears off my cheeks and toughened up again. Like I had always done. I looked him in the eye with a stone cold look while he stood there broken looking. I hated it that he was sad, he didn't have the right to. “I want you to go now. You had no right of coming here in the first place and if you want to be sure you won’t get sued: talk to my lawer. I don’t want to ever see you again, okay? You’ve ruined my life, there's no use of walking around in the ruins anymore.” I said.
As soon as I was done his eyes fell down and he nodded. I was sure I saw his hand shaking as dragged it through his hair and walked to the door.
As soon as he was gone I broke down in tears. I was a wreck lately, it was like everything made me more sensitive. Normally I wasn't like this at all, in fact the last time I cried was ten years ago when my dad died.
It was just, when I looked ahead, I didn’t see anything. Normally I always had a plan. I knew what I wanted and there was nothing that was going to stop me. I was not afraid to face obstacles and would do anything to get what I wanted.
I had worked so hard over the years and now I knew I wouldn’t ever succeed. What kind of logic is that? And I felt so powerless because there was nothing I could do. I was purposeless and I hated that feeling more than anything else.
I mean, I could go to one of those wheelchair dance classes, but it wouldn’t be the same. I was used to flying over the stage, I was used to performing, I was used to my muscles aching in the morning. Those classes wouldn’t ever be enough. I would always want more.
I buried my face in my hands, somehow that made me feel like I had more privacy even though I was alone. I would never let anyone see me cry.
Luckily I had just dried my tears, before my mother and brother walked in. I put up a smile and quickly acted like anything happened. They seemed happy too, but I saw that they had this particular look on their faces. Deep inside I knew that they would never look at me the same anymore. From now on I was the pathetic family member that couldn’t take care of herself anymore.
My brother bought me a bag of Doritos, though. Which was a good thing about their visit I guess. He knew me too well, my brother. Doritos were literally the only thing I couldn’t ever refuse. And he knew that, so every time I was sad he brought me a bag of them.
My brother was three and a half years older than me and even though he was a lot like me, he also had completely different interests as me. My brother’s hobbies included: being in pajamas all day, getting wasted at pubs and doing absolutely nothing. And as you know, I’m more of a do-er.
Al though he was the laziest person I knew, he was also quite talented. You see, my brother always had a big obsession with music. Any kind of music, he would listen to it and find out everything about it. He was actually quite a good guitar and bass player himself and he had a beautiful voice. He used to sing me to sleep when we were little kids.
But of course he never really tried to make it big, I guess it was just never really in his nature. He actually was a music teacher at a local high school right now. Al though he could do way more, this job kind of suited him. He loved interacting with people and being able to play music, so he was happy where he was.
“So, yearbook will be out in a few weeks.” I said to my brother after we had talked for a while. “Are you going to be voted hottest teacher again?” His school had a tradition of voting for the hottest teacher of the school and put it in the yearbook. He had won it for four years straight now.
He chuckled and flicked his dark bangs out of his face. “Of course I will.” he said sassy. “That’s not hard, though. I’m the youngest teacher of the school. The rest are literally all over fifty.” he said a little more serious. I knew that wasn’t totally true, there still were a lot of old teachers at his school. I was sure that he secretly really liked being voted hottest teacher, even though he didn’t want to admit it.
I grinned, I decided I wanted to tease him a little more. “You’re not really young anymore, either. You’re pushing thirty…” I said.
He squinted his eyes and pointed a finger at me in a threatening way. “Look out, you! You might be in a hospital bed, but that doesn’t mean I won’t kick your ass.” he said. I was quite sure he was trying to keep himself from smiling.
I grinned and nodded at him. “Come at me, old man.” I said challenging. I looked at my mom and saw that she had closed her eyes. She knew exactly what was going to happen. She had been going through these kind of things for more than twenty years of course.
My brother stood up from his chair next to my bed and made his way to me, ready to tickle me. “That’s the last straw, woman!” he said with a big smile on his face. I already raised my arms in defense.
But before he could attack me, my mother stopped him by pushing at his chest. “Kyle…” she said in a warning tone, like she spoke to a ten year old. “Not now.”
Kyle looked at me and then back at my mom, before pouting and sitting back in his chair. “As soon as your ribs are healed I’m going to get you back for that!” she said challenging, while I lowered my arms.
I grinned again, but before I could say anything back, my doctor walked in with a clipboard in his hands. My heart skipped. Every time he came in he had told me something horrible. I just couldn’t stop myself from thinking that this time wasn’t going to be any different. Did my legs needed to be amputated? Did I need a risky operation?...Was I going to die?
“I’m sorry, doctor. I know visiting hours have been over for a while, but we kind of forgot about time.” I said to him. That was actually a lie, though. My mother and brother had tried every day to stay here until they got kicked out. Sometimes they were here until dinner.
The doctor smiled at me. “It’s okay. What I’m going to tell you concerns them too. So it’s useful that they’re still here.” he said and I felt my heart skip a beat again. Nurses and doctors had told me so many times that stress wasn’t good for me right now, but they kept telling me these horrible things, anyway. It was a bit hypocrite. But at the other hand, I guess I was letting my anger out on the doctors too much. They only did their job anyway. I couldn’t help but feel like they didn’t do anything to help me feel my legs again. It felt like they just didn’t care.
He took a short glance at his clipboard and then looked back at us. “It’s actually good news. You’ll be able to go home tomorrow.” he said, his grey eyes sparkling. I saw that he really liked bringing good news to patients.
But this wasn’t what I expected at all. Even though it wasn’t as bad as I first expected, I didn’t know if this news was particularly good. Going home meant living my new life. My new pathetic life. I was diving into a black hole and I had no idea of what was going to happen.
I smiled at him and tried to hide my fear as well as I could. “Wow, that’s great!” I said, not knowing what else to say.
My mother put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m so happy for you, honey.” she said a bit relieved. I knew she had a rough time knowing I was in the hospital. She had to lose dad too and I think she was afraid to go through that again.
“Thanks mom.” I said without looking at her. I just stared at my hands that were resting on the covers of the bed.
“I know it’s nice to go home, but you still need to take a lot of rest at home. You probably should call in sick for work for a while.” The doctor continued.
I rolled my eyes. I could probably call them that I would be sick forever.
“Don’t do things that take up too much energy, liking working out and such. You also probably need to install a stairs elevator in your house and other things that make life easier in a wheelchair. You can read about it in this flyer.” he continued and he handed me a blue and white flyer. I didn’t look at it and immediately handed to my mom. I knew that I had to read it some time, but I would postpone it as long as I could.
“Last, but not least, we need you back at the hospital each week for check up’s and rehabilitation.” he said. Right. They were going to give me hope by trying all these dumb exercises with me, but in the end they were all just to keep my muscles from getting stiff. “Are you available next monday?” the doctor asked.
I shrugged, still looking down at my hands. “I’m always available from now on.” I said a little more emotional than I intended to.
A short silence filled the room and I realized that what I said probably wasn’t smart. I then saw that my brother had put his hand on my leg in a comforting manner. Of course I didn’t feel it and Kyle seemed to realize this too as he took his hand away like my leg was made of fire.
“Okay. Will ten in the morning do?” the doctor continued. He obviously hadn’t noticed the little, tense moment me and my family had.
“Yeah.” I just said, looking down at the place where Kyle had touched me. I hated that I was never going to feel someone trying to comfort me like that anymore. I was never going to feel it anymore and everyone would be scared of touching me.
I thought back at the visitor I had this morning. He had looked so nice, so innocent. He looked truly broken, truly sorry. But he couldn’t be really sorry, because he didn’t know what was like. He couldn’t possibly imagine how it is to lose everything he lived for, to never feel touch anymore, to be pathetic to everyone else.
I truly hoped he would understand the weight of what he had done to me. That he would understand what I felt now. But I knew that it would be impossible. I knew he never would.

Notes

heyyyy guys!

Sorry it took so long and sorry this is so short! I'm just in such a busy period of my life right now. Ugh I'm just realizing how bad this chapter actually is, but well. At least you guys get something...the few people that have been sticking around XD

xxxx

Nicky