Peter glances at the crowd watching them. “I’ll talk to him, okay? Just please. Calm down.”
Anna lets out a wretched sob. It’s painful to watch. Except then she notices me standing there, and some of the despair leaves her face. “Matt!” she cries.
And then Anna does something surprising. The most surprising thing she’s ever done in the entire time I’ve known her. She runs over to me and throws her arms around my neck.
I have to grab onto the wall of a cubicle to keep from losing my balance. For a moment, I enjoy the feeling of Anna’s lithe little body against mine. I want to protect her and make her feel better about whatever asshole did this to her. (Let’s face it—it was probably Cal.) But just as soon as the hug started, she realizes what she’s done and pulls away abruptly.
“I’m sorry,” Anna mumbles, although there is absolutely no need whatsoever to apologize. At all. Well, except for the part where she pulled away.
I notice that Peter is gawking at me now. I’m not sure if it’s because Anna hugged me or because of the bigass brace on my right leg.
“Are you okay?” I ask Anna.
She shakes her head. “It’s so awful what he did, Matt. I’m sure it was Calvin. It’s because of the project we’re working on… you saw how angry he became!”
“I’ll talk to him,” I promise. “Do you need help cleaning up in your cubicle?”
I hope the answer is no. Because I can’t imagine how I’m going to pick up all those goddamn cans for her. I could wipe up the creamed corn, since it’s on her desk.
“No, thank you,” Anna says. Her breathing is even again and her face has lost that red tinge. She actually manages a smile.
My crush on Anna is the most pointless crush in the history of the world. I may as well plan to run in the Olympics.
Still. I can help her out. No harm in that.
Chapter 34: Anna
I hate Calvin Fitzgerald.
I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone in my entire life. I spend the entire rest of the morning thinking about what I’d like to do to him as I clean and sterilize my cubicle.
I’d like to walk right up to his face and tell him in front of everyone that he’s the worst programmer in the entire company. No—the worst programmer I’ve ever met.
I’d like to tell Calvin’s next female conquest what a horrible person he is. That he refers to women by numbers rating their attractiveness. Oh yes, I know about that.
I’d like to go into Calvin’s cubicle, take his iPhone from the top of his desk, and smash it against the floor.
“Aw, what happened here?”
I look up from my bottle of Lysol and see Calvin standing in front of my cubicle, his arms folded across his chest. He looks extremely pleased with himself. I want to spray Lysol in his face. Instead, I lower my eyes again and go back to cleaning.
“It looks like some of these cans of yours exploded or something,” Calvin comments.
You are the dumbest person I’ve ever met. You don’t deserve a job here. You would have been fired years ago if Matt didn’t help you.
“It looks like it made quite a mess,” he goes on.
You deserve to be the one with multiple sclerosis, not Matt. I wish you were the one struggling to walk.
“It almost seems like maybe you shouldn’t have a big stack of cans in your cubicle, doesn’t it?”
I look up at him then. He’s grinning at me so wide that I want to punch him in the mouth. I take a deep breath before I look away and go back to cleaning. I count silently to 121 and by the time I get there, he’s gone. You see? It’s a magical number.
It will work for Matt too. Matt came in with a new brace on his leg this morning and I could see how hard it’s gotten for him to walk. I’m trying so hard to pray for him, but I just can’t seem to make it to 121 times with no mistakes. The most I’ve been able to do is 86. But I will. I will do it.
Chapter 35: Matt
“What the fuck, Matt?”
It’s the first thing Calvin says when he sees me. I decided to wait until lunchtime to confront him about the whole Anna thing. But the second I get to his cubicle, he sees the brace on my right leg and his whole face changes.
“We need to talk,” I say.
“Like hell we do,” he says, practically leaping out of his seat.
He follows me to an empty conference room, keeping pace with my slow steps. When we get inside, I collapse into an empty seat and he sits next to me. He leans forward intently.
I remember during our orientation years ago, Calvin and I ended up sitting together just randomly. Well, maybe not entirely randomly. I was already sitting in the room, my hands folded in my lap like a good little employee at my very first job, then Cal plopped into the seat next to mine. I noticed right away that he wasn’t wearing a tie, and I stared at him, shocked that he would have the audacity to do such a thing.
At first, the constant jokes he made during the orientation got me worried we’d get in trouble, but as the day dragged on, I appreciated his sense of humor more and more. Calvin Fitzgerald was funny as hell. You couldn’t not like him. Just like I couldn’t not say yes when Cal asked me to hit the local bar with him after work to “try and forget this stupid orientation shit.”
I used to look forward to going out after work with Calvin. I can’t even remember the last time we did it. He doesn’t even ask me anymore.
“Listen, Cal,” I say. “Were you the one who vandalized Anna’s cans?”
Calvin stares at me, the color rising up in his cheeks. He lets out an angry grunt. “Are you fucking kidding me? That’s what you want to talk about? Those fucking cans?”
“Calvin…”
“No,” he snaps. “Forget about Anna and her stupid cans. Who gives a shit about all that?”
“Did you do it?” I press him.
“If I tell you whether I did it or not, will you tell me what’s going on with you?” Calvin looks me straight in the eyes. “Because this Achilles tear shit? I don’t believe you anymore. There’s obviously something going on with you, and you’re my best friend, and you won’t even say what it is.”
“Fine,” I say through my teeth. “You tell me the truth and I’ll tell you the truth.”
Calvin looks at me for a second, then leans back in his chair. “Okay, I did it.” He shrugs like it isn’t any big revelation, like it’s no big deal. I want to punch my best friend in the nose. “So what? She shouldn’t have had them anyway. I deserve a fucking medal for getting rid of them. I should have done it years ago.”
My right hand has reflexively balled into a fist. I have to make an effort to calm myself down. “She was crying, Cal.”
“I don’t give a shit if she was crying,” he says. He raises his eyebrows at me. “So I told you the truth, Harper. Now you tell me. What’s wrong with your legs?”
I knew this day would come, when I’d have to tell Calvin the truth. He can be extremely persistent when he wants something—that’s why he’s never gone home from the bar alone. I rub my hands against my knees and feel the brace rubbing against my right palm. “I’ve got multiple sclerosis.”
Calvin is quiet for a second. Finally, he says, “Isn’t that the disease where you get crip… uh, need to use a wheelchair or something?”
I suck in a breath. “That’s… not exactly how I’d describe it. But… yeah, it’s making these lesions in my spinal cord, and that’s why it’s gotten harder for me to walk.”
“So what do you do about it?” Calvin asks.
I smile crookedly. “There’s no treatment for the type I’ve got.”
He frowns at me. “So… does that mean it’s going to get worse?”
I could lie, but there’s no point. He’s going to find out sooner or later. “Yeah. It’s going to keep getting worse.”
The room is so silent, I can hear Calvin breathing. A sad look passes over his face. “Christ, man, that sucks.”
I snort. “Yeah, no kidding.”
; He sighs. Calvin may be my best friend here, but he isn’t much for sentimental talks. Well, neither am I. Most of the things we’ve talked about have been girls and bitching about Peter. Does that make us best friends? I don’t know. At the very least, I’m not sure it’s the sort of friendship that can sustain something like this. We’ll see.
Calvin glances at the door. “So Anna was really upset about her cans, huh?”
I nod.
“You know,” Calvin says, “just because you’re legs are messed up, you can still do better than Crazy Anna.”
My cheeks get hot. Calvin has joked around about me liking girls before, but I’ve never reacted this way. I’m embarrassed by my embarrassment.
But Calvin just laughs in that flippant way of his. “Fine. I’ll apologize to Anna. I won’t bother her again.”
“You promise?”
Calvin grins at me. “What do you think Crazy Anna would do if you asked her out?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe throw cans at me.”
“If you ask her,” Calvin says, “you should probably wear a helmet.”
“And body armor,” I add.
We laugh, but the truth is that asking Anna is out is something I’ve been thinking about more and more lately. But I don’t because I’m sure I know what her answer would be.
Chapter 36: Matt
You would think that given my issues, shopping would be a pain. But actually, I like it. Because, think about it: in the grocery store, everyone is pushing around a shopping cart. I can toss my cane into the cart, and use the cart like it’s a walker. I practically feel normal again.
Today I know I’m not going to feel normal though, no matter what. My right leg has been acting up all day, and I’m tired. But all I’ve got in my refrigerator is ketchup and a moldy apple, so unless I want to get drive-thru McDonald’s for the fourth day in a row, I’m going to have to buy some groceries.
When I get into the grocery store, I’m about to toss my cane into a cart when I see them. Two scooters with baskets in front for groceries. I’ve seen those mechanical scooters a million times and not thought much about them. But now all I can think is how much easier it would be to do my shopping in one of those scooters.
It wouldn’t be a step towards not being able to walk. It would just help conserve my energy.
Before I can overthink it, I sit down in one of the scooters. I feel ridiculous sitting in it. It’s got a little control panel in the front that seems fairly straightforward to use. I hit a button and the scooter moves forward.
It takes me a few minutes to get the hang of it. Literally every single person I pass stares at me in this scooter. But since I’ve still got my KAFO on my right leg, I don’t think anyone is doubting my need for it. I’m obviously not a faker, taking a joyride in the motorized shopping cart.
I have to say, it does make shopping a lot easier. A lot easier. I’m grateful though that I do have the ability to stand, because a few times, I have to get out to reach an item on a higher shelf. That said, at least three times, I was paused in an aisle, thinking about what to buy, and a worker rushed over to me, and said, “Can I help you with anything, sir?”
When I’m driving through the canned food aisle, I can’t help but think of Anna. I wonder if she’s replacing all those cans.
And that’s when I see it:
It’s a can of jellied cranberries. And for some reason, it makes me think of Anna. I’m not sure what makes me think this, but somehow, I think she’d want this can.
So I grab it and put it in my cart.
Stupid, right?
The hardest part about the motorized cart is navigating it down the narrow checkout aisle. I start trying to squeeze it down the aisle and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to fit. After a moment of trying to figure it out, the checkout girl calls to me, “Sir! We have a handicapped aisle down on the end. We can open it up for you.”
“But I’m not—” I start to say.
Except what was I going to say, exactly? That I’m not handicapped? I’m in a fucking motorized cart. Obviously, I need the handicapped aisle. Why would I fight them on this?
So I follow them to a wider aisle that my motorized cart can fit down easily. The cashier helps me get my groceries on the conveyer belt, even though I can definitely at least do that myself. It does work out that the credit card machine is lowered to a height that I can manage without getting out of the scooter.
“Would you like help carrying the groceries to your car, sir?” the girl bagging my groceries asks me. I start to tell her no, but then she adds, “You can’t take the scooter off the premises. The wheels lock.”
“Oh,” I say. That will be a problem, actually. I’ve got three bags of groceries, which I can’t possibly carry on my own. I could transfer them to a cart, then push the cart to my car. Or… “Okay, thank you.”
I leave the scooter parked outside the grocery store where I found it. The girl follows me out there, and easily grabs my groceries from the basket while I struggle to my feet with my cane. The girl smiles at me while she patiently walks with me to my car in five times the amount of time it would have taken her to walk there herself. She’s maybe twenty and fairly pretty—Calvin and I would have called her a solid eight, back in the day when I used to hit on girls like her. She’s more my type than Cal’s, with her wavy blond hair and little upturned nose with the freckles, but it’s obvious by the patronizing smiles she’s giving me that any attempts to get her phone number will be embarrassing for both of us. She’s not looking for a guy who shops with a motorized scooter and needs a girl to carry his groceries for him.
I pop my trunk open and the girl drops the groceries inside. She gives me that overly sweet smile again. “Anything more I can do for you, sir?”
“No, I’m fine,” I mumble.
I watch her sprint back to the store, feeling some combination of old and crippled. I am never using a motorized shopping scooter again, that’s for goddamn sure.
Chapter 37: Anna
I am the last person to leave work every day. I can’t risk aggravating my knee problems, and this is the only time when the elevator is likely to be empty. I still hoof it up the stairs every morning.
It’s nearly six and I’m busy cleaning up my cubicle from the assault this morning. I cleaned everything with Lysol this morning, but the entire space still felt contaminated. But I was out of Lysol. So I had to go out to the drug store and purchase more Lysol. That ended up taking a while, because the first store I went to only had one bottle of Lysol, and I was afraid that since it was in the front of the row, someone had been touching it. I had to go to yet another drug store that had a more plentiful supply of Lysol in order to complete my purchase. By the time I got back to my cubicle, my knees were killing me.
After that, I went over the cubicle a second time, then a third, then a fourth. I’ve spent the entire day cleaning, my hands are raw, and I still feel that the cubicle is contaminated. I’m considering going back to the drug store and purchasing some bleach. I don’t know what else to do. I suppose I could ask Peter to move me to the empty cubicle at the end of the aisle, but then I wouldn’t be next to Matt. And anyway, he probably wouldn’t do it.
I’m rubbing down my desk for the tenth or twentieth time today when I hear footsteps approaching. I know immediately that it’s not Matt—the sound of his limp is easily distinguishable these days. It’s somebody else. Somebody very sure-footed.
“Hi, Anna.”
Such as Calvin Fitzgerald.
He’s standing in front of my cubicle, his hands folded across his chest. I look at him with some degree of trepidation mixed with my hatred. We are two of the last people in the office. Matt is long gone. Peter is gone too. Earlier Calvin came here to taunt me. But now there are no witnesses in the vicinity. I imagine him moving closer to me, trying to touch me… or worse.
If he does that, I’ll spray him in the eyes with Lysol. And I’ll run.
“Hello, Calvin.” I kee
p my Lysol bottle clutched in my hand.
“Listen, Anna…” He reaches up and scratches his head. His pose is not threatening. “I wanted to talk to you.”
I raise my eyebrows at him and point my spray bottle in his direction. “You may proceed.”
A flash of anger passes over his conventionally handsome features. “For fuck’s sake, Anna, why do you always have to be so goddamn weird?”
I just look at him. I’m not sure how to answer that question.
Calvin sighs and his shoulders sag. “Look, Anna, the thing is… I’m the one who… you know, I…” He sighs again. “I messed with your cans. Okay? And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I mean, you shouldn’t have the cans in the first place, but… okay, never mind that. The point is that I’m sorry. And if you want to report me to Peter, well… I hope you won’t, but I’m not going to deny my guilt if you do.”
An apology from Calvin Fitzgerald. I expect hell may have frozen over and that pigs are presently soaring through the sky.
“I won’t tell Peter,” I say.
Calvin’s smiles crookedly. “Thanks.”
I study his face. “Matt told you to say you’re sorry?”
He hesitates for a moment. “Yeah. He did.”
I imagine Matt confronting Calvin, standing up for me and telling his best friend what he did was wrong. I wish I could have seen it. Before I can stop myself, I blurt out, “Did he say anything else about me?”
Calvin seems thrown off by my question. For a second or two, he just stares at me. Then his lips twist into that grin that all the women in the office find so terribly irresistible. “Why do you ask, Anna?”
My cheeks grow warm. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t like the idea of this man having any sort of window into my thoughts about Matt. I imagine him telling Matt, about the two of them laughing about me having a deluded little crush. “Never mind,” I mumble.
I feel sick as Calvin walks away chuckling to himself.
Crazy in Love (Matt & Anna Book 1) Page 12
