by Davis, Alexa
“Don’t you worry,” she grinned and reassured me. “You told me everything during the telephone interview. I’m sure we will be fine. I have been doing this for a while now, so I know what I’m doing – you don’t have to worry about anything.”
“Yeah okay.” I breathed out deeply. “I will keep my cell phone on all day with me anyway, so if you have any questions, please ask.”
“Of course, of course, now off you go. You have the subway to catch, am I right?”
“Yes.” I clapped my hands together and smiled through the terror. “Okay, I’m just going to say goodbye to Meghan.”
I found my daughter and tightly wrapped my arms around her, holding her close to my body before I left her for the first time in New York. I knew she’d be okay, it was obvious she’d be fine with Drea who appeared to be very competent, as able as I thought she’d be, but still the strings on my heart tugged painfully.
“I’ll see you later, okay, baby?” I said into her hair. “You be good for Drea.”
“I will, Mom. Love you,” she muttered distractedly into my ear. “I promise that I’ll be good.”
“Love you, too.”
I had to tear myself away literally, but eventually, I managed it and forced myself out the front door. I walked in a haze of sadness and fear into the elevator, and I wandered out the front door towards the nearest subway station. My last job had been within walking distance, so this commute was going to take some getting used to, but I hoped it’d be alright.
The station was crowded with people, but I nestled myself in between everyone and got swept along with the crowd onto the train as they all moved. I didn’t manage to find a seat, but I got a hook to hold onto, which would be fine since it was only a four-stop journey.
All in all, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.
Once outside the building which housed the physical therapy office, I paused for just a moment to calm myself down. I couldn’t take too long, though, because the last thing I wanted was to be late on my very first day. I knew that Ms. Simms was taking a huge chance on me and wanted to prove myself worthy.
Surprisingly, Ms. Simms was outside the door of the office, all ready to greet me. It was nice actually, a touching personal gesture that helped me to relax. I recognized her crinkly eyes and his warm smile from our Skype interviews. She had more white hairs than I would’ve thought, though.
“Hello there, Olivia.” She smiled warmly and held out her hand for me to shake. “I’m so glad to meet you in person finally.”
“You, too. Thank you for this opportunity.”
She opened the door for me and let me inside. “Come on in; I’ll show you the room that you’ll be working in.”
I followed her while trying to listen to her and drink everything in at the same time. It was strange to think that this building would soon be very familiar to me…if it all worked out, of course.
“So, as you know, this is shift work so that the schedule will be different every week. If there is any time that you need off, I will try my best to accommodate that, but I do try and keep patients with the same therapist. It just makes sense for their treatments because everyone knows better where they stand. I hope that’s okay with you.”
“That sounds perfect,” I beamed. “Thank you. So, what sort of injuries do you get here?”
“Mostly athletes,” she told me as she led me into my room. “Some military men, some with long-term conditions. It varies.”
“So this is my room?” I looked at everything and smiled to myself. I never thought I’d land a first real job at a place like this; it was so clean, so professional. It was awesome. “Looks great.”
“Yes. I mean, there may be times when you need to move rooms or share your room, but primarily, this will be your room. So, do you have any questions?”
So many questions flooded my mind, but I didn’t really need to ask any of them. I knew what I was doing; I could do this job – I just needed to have full confidence in myself. “No, I think I’m okay. Thank you.”
“Well, the phone is there. If you need me, I am on extension six oh three. Please feel free to contact me about anything. I am happy to answer any questions you have.” She checked her watch smiled at me. “Now, your first client will be here soon, so I better get going.”
I knew it wasn’t my office exactly, but as soon as Ms. Simms left, I pulled out a photograph and rested it on my desk. I wanted the place to feel like mine for the time I was here. The picture was of Meghan and my parents, taken at our old home. It gave me a pang for everything that I’d left behind, but luckily, I didn’t have time to focus on it.
Ding!
Oh, it seemed my room had a bell. That was good to know!
“Come in!” I called out. As I waited for the door to swing open, I straightened down my clothing and stood up. I rearranged my expression into a serious, professional one while I waited…
Oh, my God.
“You,” I gasped as the man entered my room. It was the one person I knew in this city, and I was completely shocked to see him. Zack.
“You,” he replied just as shocked. “Fancy seeing you here, Olivia.”
I glanced down at his knee, remembering his fall the previous day. I knew there was a weakness there, so I wasn’t sure why he’d overreacted so much about it. “Yeah, me.”
“So, it seems that you do have some medical knowledge,” he chuckled, acknowledging that day, too. “Fair enough.”
I didn’t want to rise to the bait, so I nodded to the chair in front of me. In my head, I was screaming at the horror, the unfairness of having to work with this asshat on my very first day on the job, but outwardly, I was cool, calm, and collected. “Please, take a seat. Erm, I’m here because of Rebecca, your former therapist, is on maternity leave.”
“I know,” he laughed. “I kinda guessed from the swollen belly.”
“Right, of course.” I couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, of course, you know about that. Erm…” I glanced down at the notes in my hands. “Maybe we should go out into the exercise area where you can show me just what you’re capable of.”
“Doesn’t it say all of that in the plans left for you by Rebecca?” Zack furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “She told me she was going to leave all the details for whoever was covering her maternity leave.”
Ah , for some reason Rebecca hadn’t told her patients that she didn’t intend to come back . She could afford to be a stay-at-home mom since her husband worked in the financial industry. There had to be a reason for that, and I didn’t want to blow her cover already. I just wanted to get through this day.
“Well, I like to see for myself.” I stood up and gave him a look. “I’ll be doing this with all my patients. It’s all well and good reading what someone else has written, but I want to know for myself.”
“Fine.” He stood up and gave me a determined look. “Let’s do this.”
With a bit of resentment, Zack followed me, but as soon as we got into the exercise room, he actually started to listen to me. He did everything I asked of him, and I quickly came to terms with his current ability level. He was actually doing really well; he had all the ability there, a lot of it was a mental blockage. He didn’t like that he wasn’t where he wanted to be, and without even realizing it, that was holding him back.
I could work with that. Especially if he continued doing what I asked of him. It had taken a while to get there, but at least he seemed to be listening to me now. I hoped that would last.
By the time the session was over, he was starting to look a little tired, which I understood. Trying to get your body to do something it didn’t want to was exhausting. I knew that.
“Okay, that’s great, Zack.” Saying his name aloud felt weird; it made me feel a little uncomfortable, actually, and I wasn’t sure why. “That’s it for today. I will get a plan organized for next time, okay?”
“Yeah, alright.” He could barely meet my eyes. I could tell he hated being seen as
vulnerable, which was silly. That wasn’t how I saw any of my patients – they were stronger than most! “Thanks, see you later.”
Once he was gone, I took a few moments alone in my office to calm myself down. There was something about Zack that made my body react wildly, and I wasn’t totally sure why. I hated him. I thought he was a rude, horrible person…but there was something beneath the surface, too. I could sense that if someone was willing to take the time to peel the layers back, they could find something really unique there.
If they were willing to go through all that crap, of course.
Ding.
Okay, time to move on. My next patient was here.
Chapter Five
Zack
Tuesday
I lifted my head from the couch where I was laying down, lazily vegging out, and furrowed my eyebrows in confusion when a knock sounded on my door. I wasn’t expecting anyone today, and it wasn’t like I had a lot of visitors coming my way, so I was perturbed as to who it might be. I racked my brain, but no one immediately came to mind.
“Who’s there?” I called out sleepily as I pushed myself into a standing position. If it was a cold caller, I wasn’t going to answer. I was not in the mood for small talk right about now…not that I ever was.
“It’s me, knob head!” Lark’s voice rang through my apartment, making me sigh with relief. I didn’t mind the idea of seeing my friend. “Who else is it going to be? Some beautiful blonde who’s desperate for your body?”
I laughed mirthlessly at that ridiculous idea and went to greet him. “I thought you had some competition in Las Vegas to get to. What the hell are you doing here, bothering me at eleven a.m.?”
“Yeah.” He pushed his way inside and grinned up at me. “I do, but my flight doesn’t leave until this afternoon, so I thought I’d come and visit my best buddy before I go.”
“Oh God, what do you want?” I asked him warily. It wasn’t like Lark to want anything from me, but I had a feeling that today was different.
“No, nothing, God what do you think of me?” He flopped onto my couch where I’d been laying only moments before and changed the channel, breaking the chain of murder documentaries that I’d inadvertently ended up watching all morning long. Not that I was really taking them in, they were just running in the background while I thought. “No, I just came to see you…although, you can make me a coffee. How have things been?”
I flicked the coffeepot on and turned to face him. “Well, I had physio yesterday, and I have a new therapist.”
“Oh yeah? Rebecca finally went to have her baby?” It was crazy how much he knew about me.
“Yes, and you’ll never guess who it is.” I poured the coffee granules into a mug and waited for the boiling to stop. “Olivia, the woman from across the hall.”
“No way!” He spun around to stare at me in shock. “Are you serious? The hottie who moved in the other day?”
“The very same.” I paused for a second while I recalled the time I spent with Olivia in her office. She had been professional the entire time, but I could acutely tell that she felt a little awkward around me. I completely understood because of my obnoxious behavior around her, but now, I wanted it to end. I didn’t want her to think I was truly like that. I needed to make her see the real me…whomever that was these days. “Weird, right?”
“Does that mean you’re going to have to be all nice to her out in the hallway now?” Lark was gushing now like we were two schoolgirls gossiping. “So she’ll treat you nice in the hospital?”
I shrugged and tried to blow the suggestion off as I handed him a drink. Ever since leaving the Navy Seals, I’d tried to keep a low profile, and that had become even more of a necessity in recent times. I wasn’t just keeping people at arm’s length because I wasn’t myself anymore – the other reason felt much more prominent. I didn’t want to start being overly nice to some neighbor just because I felt like I had to. Who knew where that would lead?
“Oh, God.” Lark rolled his eyes as he seemed to see right into my mind. “Are you thinking about your lottery win again? God, you must be the only guy in the world who isn’t flashing the cash and actually enjoying the one stroke of luck. You still live in this crap hole; you don’t really own anything nice, you don’t even use it to your advantage to help you get women.”
My defenses rose high. The wall I’d built around myself flew up and blocked Lark out. “The other day, you were giving me crap saying I need to save, now you’re saying I need to spend.”
“I was being sarcastic when I said you needed to save. Obviously, I think you need to start living your life a bit more.” That riled me up, and Lark could see it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to stop him. “You could be traveling the world, living in luxury, banging a different woman every night. A flash of the cash would get you everything you wanted. I keep telling you that. I don’t know why you won’t listen.”
“You know I don’t want that,” I told him firmly. “I’m not interested in sowing my wild oats or whatever. I just want to get better; then I actually want to settle down.”
“Oh whatever, every guy wants that,” Lark made a dismissive comment, but it didn’t bother me. I knew that was what he wanted for his life, too, despite the bravado. “Are you actually saying you’re the one person who’s different?”
“I am not getting into this with you, Lark. I’m living my life how I want to.” That wasn’t strictly true. I couldn’t exactly say that I was happy, but that didn’t help my argument right now, so I ignored it. “Come on, let’s watch this movie, something has just started playing.”
There was some old Western playing on the television that would be a good distraction. I didn’t want to get into an argument with him, especially not if he was going away for a few days. It was easier to veg out simply and to sip our coffees until he had to go.
***
Lark and I both leaped up as someone hammered on my door, proving just how into the movie we’d gotten. It was during a really tense bit, so being shaken out of it was something of a shock. We stared at one another wide-eyed as if there was going to be something horrifying on the other side of that door.
“Who’s that?” Lark demanded as my heart pounded angrily. “It’s not the physiotherapist, is it? Is she likely to come and visit you?”
“I don’t know who it is.” My pulse painfully thundered as I walked to the door, but I tried to remain blasé on the outside. I didn’t want Lark to know that I was weirdly freaked. “Could be anyone.”
“Zack!” I was shocked to find myself staring at my upstairs neighbor, Dolly. As a fashion designer in her early forties, she had that amazing quirkiness that guaranteed to cheer me up whatever my mood. Right now, she was wearing some spotty red outfit that looked like it took her forever to climb in and out of.
She held out a plate of tarts for me, which suggested that she was worried. I only ever got baked goods from her when she was stressing about something. It was a blessing and a curse all at once. “I’m having a terrible week.” Just as I suspected . “It’s awful, just awful.”
I stepped aside to invite her in. “What’s wrong, Dolly?” She clip-clopped through my home like she owned the place. Her dominating nature undoubtedly helped her to get to where she was in life: very successful!
“Urgh, it’s this new show I’m doing, the nature line…” She always said these things as if I should know what they meant. I always nodded along because I didn’t want to infuriate her in the way that her employees did, as I’d been told many times. She couldn’t tolerate stupidity, and I felt certain that not understanding fashion terms counted as that. “And, the models just aren’t cutting it. I don’t know what it is about them – they’re just so practiced, polished. I think what I want is someone new, someone, who isn’t currently in the business, but then it’s like…do I have time to train them up?”
Lark shot me a look, and I gave him a half shrug. He knew about Dolly, but he hadn’t ever actually been here for one of her
famous rants. He didn’t know that the best thing to do was just listen. All she wanted was a neutral ear; she would come to her own conclusion eventually.
“You should check out Olivia, from across the hall,” he interjected, making me cringe internally. His opinion would not be taken well. “She moved in last week sometime. She’s a real natural beauty. She has a kid, too, so she’ll probably want the money.” I tried to give him a warning look, but it was too late. He was on a roll. “She’s got this long red hair and pale skin…like an English rose.”
Dolly gave me a surprisingly inquisitive look. “What do you think, Zack? Is she pretty enough to be in one of my shows?”
I pictured Olivia gracing the pages of a fashion magazine, her plump lips pouting and her wide brown eyes staring. She was definitely gorgeous enough to be a model, in my mind. “I do,” I admitted. “But she’s a physiotherapist, not a model.”
“Perfect!” Dolly happily declared while snatching the plate of tarts from me. “That’s exactly what I want, someone I can mold myself. And if she’s a physiotherapist, she must be very clever, so she’ll probably pick up on things really quickly.” She paused and mused for just a second before bulldozing on. “Yes, she sounds exactly what I want. I’m going to give these tarts to her now, sweeten the pot a bit…”
And then she was gone. Like a hurricane she blew in and out of my life, leaving me a little breathless. I often wondered what had just happened after she left.
“Thanks a lot, Lark,” I grumbled angrily at him as I shook all of that off. “I never get baked goods – that was the first time in ages. I didn’t even get to eat one of them!”
“I’m sorry,” he chuckled in a way that suggested he really wasn’t. “Dolly scares me. I panicked. I just wanted to help her.”
“Yeah, well, that’s only going to help if Olivia wants to do it. If she doesn’t, Dolly will be back here in a moment.”
Lark uncomfortably shifted where he sat. The idea of Dolly coming back pissed off at him had him trembling in his boots. It was almost laughable. “She will, though? Won’t she? Doesn’t every girl grow up with dreams of becoming a model?”
