Page 87
Story: Eye of the Storm (Hudson 3)
Giving Up
.
Austin returned on Monday to continue my
therapy. My doctors had told him to keep my exercise light and easy and gradually build back up to the program we had been following. Consequently, we spent a lot more time just talking and being outside. He told me about himself and his family, revealing that he never really liked the way his father treated his mother.
"She works with him at the plant. Actually, I should say she works for him. He acts like she's just another employee. There's no change in tone of voice, no warmth, no real sharing. She doesn't even know how much money they have.
"For as long as I can remember, she asks him for things the way my sister Heather Sue and I do. I mean, she needs his permission to spend any of their money, even on her own things. My father has a business manager who reviews their household expenditures as well as their business expenses and gives him a monthly report. God help my mother if the categories have gone up in any dramatic way. Then we have the Spanish Inquisition at my house!"
"Doesn't she complain?" I asked. "She likes it that way."
I knitted my eyebrows together.
"I swear. She's one of these old-fashioned women who believes the man should be totally in charge of these things. She likes being dependent. I think."
We were outside, under the sprawling old oak tree to the right of the house. A pair of squirrels watched us suspiciously. They seemed to freeze in midair when they stood up or turned, their eves always on us.
The sky was strewn with thin long clouds that the wind spread like cream cheese over the deep blue. For us it was a welcome breeze coming out of the northwest, driving the humidity away.
Austin was on the grass, sprawled on his back beside my wheelchair, chewing on a blade and looking up with his hands behind his head. Suddenly, that looked so inviting to me.
"I want to lie on the round. too," I said.
"Do it," he challenged. "You don't need anyone's permission orhelp."
I lifted myself out of the chair, mostly with my arm strength, leaned on my right leg that he had been strengthening with our exercises and then tried to lower myself gracefully, but I toppled to my left and fell over him instead. He screamed with pretended pain and threw his arms around me, holding me there for a few seconds. I turned and our faces were inches apart. Our eyes locked. He smiled.
"Nice try." he said and lifted his head just enough for his lips to reach the tip of my nose. He kissed it and started to lower his head again.
"Nice try," I retorted.
His smile widened and then his eves drew something deep and strong from inside him as he raised his head once more and this time brought his lips to my lips. It was a very soft, gentle kiss, but a kiss electric with expectation. It stirred feelings in me that I thought were gone, trampled and forever crippled by my injuries. My breath quickened as my heart began to pound.
"Oh boy," he said after he pulled back. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that."
"You mean that's not part of my therapy?"
He laughed and shook his head.
"I thought I was the one with the sense of humor here." "Maybe I'm not joking." I said.
His smile tightened and then he moved me gracefully off him and I lay back on the grass. He sat up and took the pillow I had on the wheelchair off and put it under my head. "Comfortable?"
"Yes," I said.
He sat, looking down at me for a long moment, playing a blade of grass over his lips as he thought. The breeze lifted some strands of his hair and made them dance about his forehead.
"I'm not supposed to let emotionally involved with any of my clients," he said. "it's not fair and it isn't very professional. I can't let something like that happen again. Seriously," he insisted, "If I did. I'd have to ask my uncle to have me replaced.
"Not that you're not a very pretty girl. Rain. You art. If I wasn't your therapist. I could fall in love with you."
"Right," I fired back up at him. "You would see me wheeling myself down some street and say, there's a girl I'd like to know,"
I turned away, fuming, frustrated, an arrow of anger looking for a target and finding nothing but air.
"You're making a mistake thinking you're not still very attractive."
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87 (Reading here)
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148