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Chapter Twenty-Seven

Darien

‘G rab the ball, Darien. Come on. You can do this.’

Celina leans forward as if anticipating something. What she thinks will happen, I don’t know. I’ve been trying for almost ten minutes. And this is the third day I’ve been back. The team gets on the road tomorrow, and I’ll be joining them, for no good reason other than I think I’d disintegrate if I had to stay here any longer, wallowing in self-pity. My arm can barely extend itself. The stupid ball is all the way at the other end of the table.

‘Reach out.’

‘I’m trying!’

Cel is one of the most patient physios I’ve met, but even her fuse is shortening. She looks like she’s going to smack the ball off the table any minute now.

I manage to get my arm up at table level. That’s it for me. I let it go limp with a groan, already exhausted and in pain.

‘Okay. See? That was good, Darien! That was progress,’ she assures me.

I keep trying to reach across the dumb table and take the ball. It should be so easy. But it’s soon ten p.m., and I still haven’t gotten it.

Fuck.

How will I drive a car? I need my hand for the steering, the paddles. I don’t know what I was thinking, because I can’t even move. If I can’t even move, there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to drive. I wonder if my father would be so proud of me now.

I decide to call it a day. Apparently, my window is open, so I try to close it with my good hand, which I can’t do properly, it being my non-dominant. I leave it, grumbling curses before flopping backwards onto my bed and taking the TV remote. Whatever.

And then I hear something from outside. The slightest sound, but the kind that makes your stomach turn. Crying.

I get up, clamber to my feet, over to the window. I don’t think she notices, but I see Shantal outside on the bench in the little courtyard below. Her shoulders shake as she presses a hand to her cheek.

I take the stairs down to the back door, and silently slip out. Shantal has always been so outspoken, so snappy. I’ve seen glances of sadness, like that day at the beach, but never like this.

‘Shantal?’

She startles, her eyes wide but puffy and red. Her face is without makeup. She’s got her pyjamas on, a T-shirt and sweats. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so … out of it.

‘Hi.’ She blots away all the tears she can and plasters on a smile. It’s not the sort of genuine smile she lets slip every once in a while. It twists my throat so that swallowing becomes agony. ‘You’re still up.’

‘Are you all right? Why don’t you come in, I—’

‘I’m okay, Darien.’

I would usually just let her be, but something is different this time. ‘Come inside, Shantal, I don’t wanna leave you here like this.’

She nods and stands up, and together we walk back up to my drivers’ quarters room, where that damn table is still front and centre, with the fucking ball there, of course.

I scoff just looking at it, and pull out the chair that Celina had sat in for Shantal. I take my seat across from her with a mumbled, ‘Screw that thing.’

‘Is she having you …’ Shantal gestures to the ball.

‘Yeah. Yeah, it’s just I … it’s harder than I thought,’ I reply with a sarcastic chuckle. ‘Everything’s harder than I thought. But listen, what about you, Shantal? Are you okay?’

She focuses on a tiny knot in the wood of the table for a moment before looking back up at me, and this time, I don’t see anything held back in her eyes. She shakes her head. ‘I don’t think I am.’

‘Hey.’ My eyebrows knit together as I absorb all this from Shantal’s perspective. The accident, the weird middle ground that it put the two of us in, being far away from her family when everything is so chaotic. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’

‘It’s just … something has turned my world on its head, Darien.’ Her gaze flickers towards my wrapped hand. ‘In so many ways, good and bad.’

‘Bad?’

I almost don’t want to know. I want to stay in this blissfully ignorant pocket where I get to fall for her a little more with each breath she takes.

She buries her face in her hands. ‘I don’t know why, but everything changed when I saw you hurt like that. I was suddenly experiencing all these unfamiliar feelings, trying to sort everything out, and then you getting in the accident, it’s terrifying, after …’

Her hanging words leave a blank I’m unsure how to fill in. A heavy blank, loaded with something that is clearly hitting home.

‘Shantal,’ I whisper. I don’t quite know what to offer her, so I let her decide. ‘What do you want me to do right now? What can I do for you?’

‘You don’t have to do anything.’ She lowers her hands, and she bites her lip nervously. ‘I just …’ She looks up at me. ‘I can’t stand it,’ she says, her voice so quiet I can barely make it out. ‘Watching someone I care about suffer like that.’

Maybe I should be smart and gather something intelligent from that statement, but instead, all that comes out is, ‘Yo, you care about me?’

Now she can’t help but laugh, an entire, full laugh. The sound is respite and relief from hospitals and physical therapy, sombre spaces where no one enjoys themselves. I wish I had the ability to freeze her every laugh and smile, no matter how small, and file them away in my memory for ever. If watching her so much as breathe drives my emotions for her an inch, then hearing her laugh drives them forward a thousand miles. I want her to let herself feel, want her to realize that this is so much to me, but I hate myself for that. I don’t want to make her do anything or think anything.

Her laugh stops abruptly, forming a short gasp. Her eyes open in shock as they meet mine, and then as they travel down to the table.

‘Darien.’

I look down just as she does, and I gasp the same gasp as she has. ‘Oh … wow.’

My hand, across the table, grips hers, my thumb brushing her knuckles.

Across the table.

‘Holy crap . Shantal!’ I squeeze her hand in mine, look up at her and grin like a happy-go-lucky idiot. ‘Shantal, you’re seeing this, right?’

‘I’m seeing every second of it,’ she smiles at me. It’s a much more welcome emotion than the tears.

There’s even a layer of something new beneath the simple smile: pride.

Shantal Mangal is proud of me, and in that instant, it doesn’t matter how horrific this recovery will be. I’d do it all to see that look on her face again and again.