Up felt like down and left very nearly tricked me into believing it was right.
Voices called out to me constantly and on repeat, but none of them were the one I wanted. Like they were speaking through water, every pronunciation of my name seemed foreign and unwelcome, and my brain did nothing but scream another.
I tried valiantly to talk my uncooperative body into bending to my will, but for the first time in my life it wouldn’t.
Digging deep down into my sternum, I found the last vestiges of my energy and willed them into one single action.
Into one single word.
“Nik.”
Priorities shifted and silence mocked me.
My entire life had been a series of events all specifically driven toward this very moment. I’d known all of my work was meant to culminate in a flourish of glory and significance. I’d known there’d be a second in time when I knew why each part of my life had played out the way it had.
I’d even known it would probably happen now—on this stage, in front of all of these people.
I’d just had the timing wrong by about three minutes.
But I knew now.
This was it.
This moment of reflection and clarity forced on me by the inability to move made it fucking impossible to deny.
He was everything.
“Calia,” I finally heard, the sound of Coach Banning’s concerned voice finding its way through the muck of my confusion.
I didn’t answer though.
I tried.
But the chain of communication from my brain to my lips was obviously hindered by a temporarily broken link.
God, I hoped it was temporary.
“Callie, listen to me. Do not move,” she instructed, making me mentally roll my eyes.
I wasn’t even responding vocally. Moving seemed pretty fucking unlikely. But, given the grave look on her stricken face, I decided to take note of the memo and put an asterisk next to it. Move it up to the very top of my Don’t Do List.
With my options for activities dwindling, I tried again to make sound vibrate properly off of my vocal chords.
“N-N-Nik.”
No one paid me any mind, but I wasn’t sure if it was because they couldn’t hear me or that they just had more important things to worry about. Everything seemed surreal to the point of feeling out of body, and it made it nearly impossible to discern whether or not the things I thought I knew were worthy of validation.
Whatever the case, after several ventures with nothing gained, I decided it wasn’t worth the effort anymore. I knew he wasn’t there to answer, and none of these people knew we had a relationship other than coach and athlete. I’d thought it was important to keep it that way, and as was my nature, when I willed something, I settled for nothing else.
That was why I was here in the first place, competing in my third Olympics and largely ignoring the ailing cries of my overworked body. I didn’t know when to say Uncle, and now, with the feeling in my legs eerily absent, my body was screaming it for me like a plane on fire with both wings broken off.
I could, however, feel my arms, and, having just rolled me up in order to carefully place a backboard beneath me, they were strapping them tightly to each side of my body with thick velcro straps. I figured if there was ever a time to cry, this would have been it.
Instead, I focused on a single, floating particle of chalk, the brilliance of its perfect white shining starkly against the obscurity of a faceless, silent crowd. It fluttered and flipped aimlessly, waiting for something to catch it or get in its way.
I hadn’t lived even one second of my life that way; conversely, I worked hard at sprinting from one place to another. I mentally berated myself for aspiring to be like a fleck of chalk, but the absurdity of its unimportance was largely overshadowed by the truth of it all.
I liked to think it was my dad’s fault. That’d he’d pushed me to this.
But I really had no one to blame but myself. Because my dad was just pandering to the version of myself I’d allowed to run rough-shod over what could have been a fucking life.
I’d been the one too cowardly to admit to him and myself that plans had changed.
By focusing all of my energy on each destination, I’d done a pretty good job of ignoring the journey. I’d competed in three Olympic games for shit’s sake. And all I could think about was making a bigger splash than each time before.
Ha, I thought as the paramedics took positions at each end of the board, my immobile body sandwiched in between. I’d sure as hell done that.
I watched as my piece of chalk met another, flitting and floating together then from one place to the next and landing safely on some asinine surface connected to one another.
I was surprisingly unaffected by the fact that my gymnastics career was over, and had ended in a fall no less.
I was worried about the lack of feeling in my legs, but when I really considered the consequences that stretched out in front of me, there was only one thing I was scared to death not to have.
And that was—
Nik.
A gentle shake to my shoulder woke me from what could only be described as a fitful sleep.
“Nik?” the flight attendant asked, having learned my name after looking at me with what I guessed was a reflection of my own sad eyes and asking.
I’d driven like a madman to Atlanta to catch the first flight in time, not grabbing clothes or belongings or more than the passport I thankfully kept on my motorcycle all the fucking time. It would have cost me a round trip of about six hours which wasn’t the end of the world, but it very well could have meant the difference in my precarious mental health.
Despite my parent’s loose affiliation with their international relatives, they’d always carried theirs with them just in case and preached the habit to me.
International travel took time, something I was finding out for myself first hand, and they always wanted to be ready and able to get there as quickly as possible if something happened.
In my entire lifetime, I’d only known of it happening one time, for the death of my Grandfather.
I didn’t go with them, as I’d never met the guy, and the reception when they got there wasn’t exactly warm, but my parents believed in doing what was right—even if that meant doing the opposite of what was easy.
“We’re about to begin our initial descent.”
“Thanks,” I murmured, sitting up taller and wiping an agitated hand across the sleep in my eyes.
I peered over the person next to me to the view of Brazil, not that I could point anything out to you technically or with skill. Lush green peppered the landscape outside of the city, and my knees bounced with unconfined anticipation.
I just wanted to see her. Talk to her. Touch her perfect skin and look into her chocolate eyes and know that she was okay.
The rest of it didn’t matter. Not what she wanted from me or didn’t or the circumstances under which we’d parted ways.
Not the disapproval of the people around us or her reluctance to commit.
Not time or distance or some misspent effort to do what was right.
All that mattered was her.
All that ever mattered to me anymore was her.
Navigation through an airport and one cab ride later, and I had never been more thankful for the “Speak to Translate” app in my life.
I knew Portuguese was the language in Brazil, and I knew I didn’t speak it.
What I learned pretty quickly when I got there was that it was a problem.
I couldn’t find an English speaker anywhere, and I didn’t have time to seek one out. So instead, I spent what was probably five hundred million dollars and downloaded an app using international roaming data on my phone.
Luckily it had gotten me here, but under the duress of the situation, hours upon hours of travel, and the crushing relief of finally ending up in the building where Callie was, my memory did a good job of fleeing.
I rushed th
rough the doors and to the front desk without one single look back to the cab, starting to speak as soon as I got within five feet.
“Callie Nickleson, please. Calia. You have to let me see her,” I pleaded with the woman at the desk, waiting foolishly for her to answer me.
She shook her head in the negative, her understanding of even a single word I’d said failing.
I groaned to myself, grappling with my pockets and digging for my phone.
Before I could get it out though, a woman in scrubs approached the desk and looked at me appraisingly.
“Who are you here for?” she asked in perfect English, stopping the frantic search for my phone and freeing up a hand to squeeze the back of my tension-filled neck.
“Calia Nickleson.”
“Are you family?” she asked, the dread that filled my stomach nearly sinking me to the floor when I realized that they weren’t going to let me back there. Not only wasn’t I family, but Callie was a public figure. There was no way they were going to just let any old schmo back there to see her.
“No, I’m…”
Looking over my face again, she interrupted me. “Are you Nik?”
My chin sank back into my chest.
“Yeah.” Excitement made me stutter. “Yes.”
She pursed her lips to the side. “Look, I’m sorry to be a pain, but I’m going to have to check your ID to make sure.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I agreed easily, “No problem.” I reached quickly into my back pocket and pulled out the waiting passport.
She smiled warmly at the confirmation of my name, taking my elbow immediately and starting to walk.
“She’s been waiting patiently for you.”
My eyes teared up and very nearly spilled over. I wiped at the corners just in case.
“She’s in surgery right now, but she made sure I knew to bring you back as soon as I could. Keep checking to see if he gets here, she told me over and over again before they took her back.”
“Surgery?” I asked, forcing a swallow past my tight throat and scratching almost violently at the skin of my forehead. I felt positively itchy with anxiety and worry.
“On her back,” she confirmed slowly.
Pulling me to a stop, she measured her words, cringing slightly as she lowered her voice.
“She was having some trouble feeling her legs.”
Oh God.
I felt sick and uneasy on my feet and, given her reaction the evidence must have been splashed pretty clearly across my face.
Pushing me to the wall, she helped me settle my back against it and slide down, my butt hitting the floor and leaving room for my head between my knees.
She pushed actively on my neck, coaching me to keep my head down if I felt like I was going to pass out.
And I did.
I followed instruction and let the thoughts swirl endlessly like a bad loop of a nightmare on repeat.
I stewed and stewed, worrying every muscle so much they practically separated from the bone, knowing this kind of disability would break her.
She lived her life bottled inside herself most of the time, but her internal emotions were messy, fucked up, and relied heavily on the one thing she’d always held steady—her ability to release aggression and feeling through movement.
In that way, she really was like me.
“When you’re ready we’ll go to the waiting room. You can wait for her surgery to be over with her parents.”
I hadn’t thought it was possible before, but I quickly learned I could, in fact, be more nauseous.
I knew it was better to get it over with quickly though, so I pushed to my feet, swaying only slightly when ambushed by a wave of lightheadedness.
“She’s gonna be fine, Nik,” she comforted, naively thinking I only had one thing to worry about.
God, I didn’t even know her name.
“What’s your name?”
She smiled and patted my arm. “Shirley. And if you need anything you can ask for me.”
I wanted to ask her more, like why she spoke English and anything and everything else I could think of about Callie. Her mental state and her spirits and how’d she’d been feeling besides the lack of feeling in her legs.
But before I could utter a word, we rounded the corner and came face to face with Frank and Sonya Nickleson.
His face warmed at the sight of Shirley but quickly turned to stone when he realized I was the one on her arm.
“What are you doing here?” he barked, surprising Shirley significantly.
She was the only one.
My jaw hardened along with my resolve. The only way he was getting me out of here was by shooting me first. And even then, I’d make sure to request a room right fucking next door to his daughter.
“I’m here to see your daughter,” I told him. My words were steel fact.
“Like hell—”
“Frank!” Callie’s mom broke in, looking from my face to Frank’s and back again.
“He’s not going in there,” he told her turning to look directly at her in order to issue the order.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I am,” I corrected without waiting for his cold eyes to come back to me. “I already was, but now I’ve heard that Callie was asking for me herself. And if she wants to see me, you couldn’t keep me away no matter how hard you tried.”
My chest ached and heaved with each word as I fought to keep control of my volume. I wanted to yell and curse and punch him right in the nuts while I was at it, but the pesky rational voice in my head told me that wouldn’t be a good idea or help anyone involved.
Scratch that.
It would help me. At least emotionally.
But not anyone else. Least of all, Callie.
And this was all about her.
His voice shifted to an angry whisper, the threat rolling easily off his tongue, “I’ll have you physically removed—”
“Frank!” Sonya yelled loudly, startling us all.
My chin pulled back into my chest as I looked at this completely unknown version of Callie’s mom with caution.
“Jesus, Frank, just stop. For Christ’s sake, don’t you think you’ve done about enough?”
As surprised as I was, Frank was mystified. It was astoundingly clear that Sonya Nickleson had never talked back to Frank a single day of their married lives. And maybe before.
But she was sure as hell talking back now.
“We’re in goddamn Brazil, waiting on our daughter to come out of back surgery so we can find out if she’s still got the use of her legs. Nik obviously traveled here as fast as he could, and Callie’s asking for him, and by God, Frank, if she wants him, she’s going to fucking get him.”
The knot in my gut eased, the notion that I wasn’t the only person here fighting to reunite me with Callie just barely lightening the burden.
I wasn’t sure I trusted it enough to thank her verbally, but I met her eyes with my own and did my best to express my gratitude.
I looked from her to Frank and back again, and then watched as Shirley scooted quietly out of the room unnoticed. The other families looked on with interest, but no one said anything.
Not me, not Sonya, and most surprisingly, not Frank.
Shock painted his face as he backed over to a chair and sat down.
I kept a few chairs between us, but ultimately sat down on the same wall and waited.
Waited for news.
Waited for Frank to threaten to kick me out again.
But mostly, I waited to see my girl’s chocolate brown—
Eyes.
They were the last thing I saw in my dreams and the first thing I saw when I woke up. Brilliant blue and surrounded by lush, dark eyebrows, lashes, and hair, they smiled at the corners, shimmering with a wetness beyond their normal pools of water.
I was groggy and confused, but I knew those eyes, and most of all, I knew who they belonged to.
“Nik?” I croaked, my throat scratchy and sore.
My focus zeroed in, an
d the fuzziness of his face started to clear.
“Right here, Cal,” he whispered, leaning forward to kiss the very apple of my cheek.
“Are you really here?”
He laughed and smoothed the loose hair back off of my face.
“Pretty sure.” His thumb moved from the corner of my mouth to my ear and back again. “Otherwise the ten hour flight was a really god awful dream.”
I tried to smile, curving my lips up and holding them there as long as I could.
“Rest,” he whispered, rubbing at the corners of my eyes until they fully closed. “You’ve been through a lot, my little Pea. And I swear on my life I’ll be here when you wake up again.”
“Good,” I murmured just as I was drifting off to sleep. “Cause if you’re not here, I’ll kill you dead.”
“Calia. Caliaaa. Come on, sweetie, wake up for me.”
Warm fingers rubbed at the hair on my arm, pulling it from one side to the other and back again. It was easier to wake up this time, but I still felt way more fatigued than I was used to.
“Mmm,” I mumbled, not quite knowing what I was saying or who I was talking to yet.
“Hi, Calia,” a female nurse chirped, and with the blur of her face I couldn’t tell if I recognized her or not yet. “I’m Shirley.”
“Hi, Shirley,” I responded, simply because it felt like what I was supposed to do. And then I had a flash of something from the first time I’d woken up.
“Nik?”
“Nope,” I heard his voice call out from the other side of the room. “You killed him good and dead.”
“Huh?” I groaned, shaking my head to try to help clear it.
He chuckled, coming into my line of sight and resting his hand on my leg. “I guess you don’t remember what you told me before you fell asleep.”
Slowly things started to come back to me in pieces, my routine and the fall, and a whole lot of hours spent wondering when I could see Nik again.
I hadn’t known he would come, and I hadn’t expected it.
But I had sure as hell hoped.
Then being wheeled into surgery on my back, an effort to try to restore feeling to the lower half of my body, which no matter the outcome meant the end of my ability to do gymnastics ever again.
These Battered Hands Page 19
