by Nat Burns
She turned her attention to me. “So, what are y’all doing out and about? Is Florida still in Meridian?”
I nodded. “Be home tomorrow night,” I typed.
“I bet she’s having a great time with all those kids and grandkids.”
“You bet,” Ella answered. “She’s supposed to be sending me pictures, but I guess she’s been too busy. I’ll text her tonight and see how everything’s going.”
Annamarie brought over a plate with three warm, sticky pecan rolls to the table. We reached for them as one and then laughed together as we lifted them to our lips.
“Ohh, life is good,” Sandy said, mouth full.
I had to agree.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Ella
Alone in the guest room bed Saturday night, I lay very still, filled with fear. Maddie was remembering a lot, and she was looking to me, as her best friend, to fill in the gaps for her.
I clenched my hands and faced my fear head-on. Did I want her to remember us? Would the knowledge of what we had been to one another please her or confuse her? Would she think I’d lied to her for not telling her about us right away?
I think if everyone had known we were a couple…if we’d had time to make our relationship known to family and friends… Well, it would have been very different. I would have had a status in her life, and people would have understood that. I would have been allowed—it would be expected—that I would coordinate her care. Our relationship had been so new when the accident happened—
I tossed the blankets restlessly. I thought of Maddie in the next room and imagined that she was whole and loved me back the way I loved her. I remembered the few short days we’d had as lovers, how we’d become one so very easily. I still felt that connection to her even though she didn’t realize it. Or feel the same way toward me.
But if she remembered… I curled on my side in a fetal position. Maybe going on the way we were was best for her. If what Dr Dorsey said was true, her emotions had been damaged by the head injury. Maybe she wasn’t capable of more, and I shouldn’t wish that on her. I could do it, I thought. I could spend the rest of my life by her side as her friend, if that was what she needed, if it was what was best for her.
Dixie’s face appeared in my mind, and I wondered at that before pushing it away. Dixie could never provide what I really needed, which was Maddie. Maddie, even this damaged shell of who my Maddie had been, was what I wanted and needed.
But what to tell her when she queried me the way she had been? Did I continue to evade and lie, or should I open up, be truthful and let the chips fall where they would?
But suppose I told her the truth and then she felt beholden to be with me. I remembered seeing her with Stevie. Did she want Stevie as a romantic partner? Could I step in the way of that?
I buried my face in the pillow. “Hell yes, I could. Maddie was mine and always will be,” I whispered.
“Maybe having me around is a good talisman,” I told Maddie the next morning at breakfast. “You haven’t had one single headache since I’ve been here.”
“Thank you,” she signed, her mouth full of pancake.
This Maddie was a bit more childlike than the other Maddie. The original Maddie had been more careful, more circumspect. This new Maddie was more candid, more immediate in some ways. And though she was more relaxed about life, I’d seen flashes of the keen intellect she’d had before. I was fast becoming used to this new normal. Now, I wondered if Maddie would ever become comfortable with it. She did seem calmer and more accepting than she’d been right after the injury.
“Stop staring,” she typed into her tablet.
“Oops, sorry,” I said, grimacing. “Got lost in thought.”
“About me?” She watched me expectantly.
“Yeah, sorta.”
“Good thoughts?” she typed.
I raised one eyebrow. “Fish for compliments much? Of course good thoughts.”
We ate in silence.
“Maddie?”
She looked up.
“If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?”
She pondered this a long beat. “Today, it would be driving,” she typed.
I was flummoxed. Nothing about not having the TBI, or being a doctor again. But driving.
“Driving? That’s it?”
“Yes,” she typed. “Have a car.”
“I know you do, sweetie. Do you want me to teach you how to drive again?”
“Yes,” she signed eagerly. “Yes.”
I laughed. “Okay. Do you know where your keys are?”
She nodded and leapt to her feet, hurriedly clearing the table. She disappeared down the hall, her cane beating a staccato tattoo on the wooden floor. Moments later, we were sitting in her SUV with me in the driver’s seat.
“We’ll go to the mall and drive around there. It should be pretty deserted on a Sunday morning.” I checked the mirrors and then backed out onto Central. I glanced at Maddie. I could tell she was as nervous as she was excited. We drove through the quiet center of town and farther along Central until we came to the Four Winds Mall, which was the lifeblood of our small town. Everything happened there: our movie theater, food court, gamer hangouts and just about all shopping. Well, besides groceries. It all happened in this one huge complex. I drove us around to the side and put the car in park.
I looked at Maddie, and I could feel my own excitement welling up. “This is so cool,” I said. “Are you ready?”
She looked at me with shining eyes and signed “yes” as she scrambled from the passenger seat. I moved her cane over and took her place, and then I watched as she got into the driver’s seat and buckled in. She savored the moment a few brief seconds before checking the mirrors and taking it out of parking gear. The car rolled forward and she stomped the brake too hard, causing us both to burst out laughing. She drove forward again and then drove slowly around the perimeter of the parking lot.
“You’re doing really well, Maddie. I guess it is like falling off a horse. You just need to get into the saddle again.”
She snickered yet kept her eyes in front of her and continued to drive. By the end of almost an hour of driving, she was exhausted, I could tell. She had spent the past fifteen minutes weaving in and out of parked cars and I could see her hands trembling.
“Maddie? I know you are loving this, but we need to stop. Your Aunt Florida will be home soon, and if she sees all those dirty cups and silver we left in the sink, she’ll have my hide,” I said, keeping my tone light.
Maddie nodded and pulled to one side and put the SUV in park. I touched her forearm. “You did a fantastic job,” I told her.
She covered my hand with hers and smiled at me, thrilling my heart.
I switched places with her and headed back to her house. She dozed off before we were halfway there.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Maddie
I fell into my chest and lay across the red, beating muscle of my heart. I think I was dreaming…or maybe remembering, though a part of me knew I would be dead if I had actually cracked my chest open.
I could feel the rhythm of the pulse beneath me. As I lay there, lost in the rhythmic beat, lights from the heart rose and surrounded me. Their bright warmth enclosed me and buoyed me up onto a new warmth of the flesh. They brought me into a new kind of heat, actually hotter than my skin. The lights blinded me, but they diminished enough to allow me to see the dear face under me. I had my fingers entangled in thick blond hair, and my body ached with the pleasure suffusing me. I pressed my lips against hers again, and our tongues danced a minuet as I took and gave and she took and gave. I brought up my knee, and my thigh found warm, wet delights. I pressed myself, my very center, into the thigh of the woman below me.
My lips eventually found the smooth, fragrant skin of her neck. As I traveled lower, across the gentle rise of her breast, the heat of the lights increased until they filled me, waned then filled me again with this heat. I felt that I would e
xplode soon if the lights of the heart continued. I was relishing the heat, though, feeling the energizing gift of that intense power. I could accomplish anything with these beautiful, glowing blue-green eyes looking at me.
I awoke abruptly, eyes snapping open and seeing only darkness. The glow of the streetlights penetrated my vision, and I realized I was in my bedroom. I glanced at the digital clock and saw it was two fifteen in the morning. I relaxed into the bed, hugging my pillow close. I went over the dream in my mind. There was something I was missing, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The woman in the dream…I recognized her. That familiar scent, those beautiful green eyes. I suddenly knew what I had been overlooking. It was Ella. I loved Ella, loved her with every part of my being. A life without her in it would not be worth living.
What should I do with this knowledge? It didn’t matter that she had been my friend through the insanity of my brain injury; being in a relationship with a disabled person was a whole different thing. Funny—I realized that I had never asked if she was in a relationship. I had seen no evidence of it at her apartment, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t seeing someone. My heart lurched painfully. I turned and grabbed my phone from its charging cradle on my nightstand. I found Ella’s icon and pressed it. The message application opened and I typed a message. “Are you seeing anyone?” I wrote. “Are you in a relationship?”
I pushed send and then replaced the phone. I knew she wouldn’t answer tonight. She had to be sleeping. I was just turning over to try to go back to sleep myself when a soft chime sounded. It was her. My Ella.
“You’re awake!” I typed. “Don’t you have work?”
“Yep, just couldn’t sleep. Y R U awake?”
“Dreaming, woke up,” I answered.
“R U OK? Headache?”
“No. Just wondered if U R in a relationship,” I answered.
After a long pause, she responded. “I was. Ended, sort of.”
“Do U still C her?” I curled on my side and nestled myself, and the phone, into the blankets.
“Sometimes but it’s not like it was before,” she responded.
“Do U wish it was?”
Another long pause.
“I really don’t know. It’s good the way it is now. Better all around, I guess. Why R U thinking abt this?”
“I don’t know,” I answered finally. “I had this dream and…” I stayed my finger. There was so much I wanted to say and this …typing…was so frustrating.
“Look, go to sleep. I need to sleep 2.”
“Will I C U tomorrow?” I asked.
“Sure, I will come by after work. Julio says night night.”
I smiled into the phone, even though she couldn’t see me. “Night, night Julio.”
After signing off, I lay there in the dark, listening to the night sounds all around me. I imagined still being friends with Ella and not revealing my love until she was ready. Or maybe until I was ready. And then I imagined so much more. I eventually drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Fifty
Ella
“Oh man! That was good, Florida, but you don’t have to feed me every time I come over.”
“Bah! You’re family, Ella. Thought you knew that.” She waved my protestations aside. I helped her clear the table and put the leftover roast and vegetables in the refrigerator.
While wiping off the table, I glanced at Maddie, who was kneeling by the coffee table. “She’s still at it, huh?”
Florida laughed. “Yes. I’m not sure how we’ll ever get it away from her. We’re lucky that we got her to eat.”
The cousins had sent Maddie a magnetic building set, and she had been entranced with it since Florida had unpacked it earlier that morning. She’d shown it to me as soon as I had arrived, after giving me an uncharacteristic kiss on the cheek along with my usual hug. During dinner, she had been distracted, glancing often at the coffee table and the shiny, colorful building blocks atop it.
I sat on the sofa and watched her build. Though there was not much building going on. She seemed fascinated at the repel aspects of the magnetized blocks, pulling them together and then letting them shoot apart. I watched her, and though one could say she was playing as a child would, she held herself regally and her face was very serious. I could see her trying to figure out the physics of the magnetism.
“If the two ends are the same, they repel,” I said. “If they are different, positive and negative, they attract,” I explained.
Florida came in and kissed Maddie on the top of the head. “Okay, kiddos, off to my room to read. Y’all behave and no fighting over the toys.” She chuckled at her joke.
I stood. “Guess I’d better be getting home so you guys can turn in.”
Florida waved me back down onto the sofa. “Stay, play. She loves having you here.”
I resumed my seat on the sofa. I slipped off my shoes and sat back, legs curled under me, still watching her. She was such a beautiful woman. I’d thought so since the day we’d met. That seemed like so long ago, when actually it had been only a little more than two years ago.
She must have felt me watching her, for she looked up and flashed me that adorable smile I’d become so familiar with before her accident. I was glad to see it had returned.
She pulled her tablet closer. “You’re watching me again,” she typed.
“It’s become one of my favorite hobbies,” I joked. “It’s like watching paint dry.”
It took her almost half a minute, but she got it and laughed, nodding her agreement. When she sobered, she looked at me. Really looked at me, and my old hunger for her burst forth. I tried to squelch it, but I was sure she heard my swift intake of breath and saw my cheeks flush with wanting her. I started to say something smart—something to laugh off the attraction—but my phone vibrated in my pocket. I averted my gaze, glad to have a distraction. The caller ID said that it was Dixie. I let it go to voice mail.
“Who was it?” Maddie typed.
“Just Dixie,” I responded.
Maddie turned back to her magnetic blocks as I tried to shake off what I was feeling for her.
“No. Usted ha dicho que no la quería que ella,” Maddie said quietly, in her own voice. “Usted dice que los dos son solo amigos. Me di cuenta te amo y ahora se rompe mi corazón.”
“Maddie? I’m sorry, hon. I don’t understand Spanish. Can you type it, or sign it?”
Maddie just shook her head, eyes downcast. Eventually, just as I was really starting to worry, she lifted herself off the floor and sat next to me on the sofa. She looked at me, and I saw so many things in her face. She was confused, she was frightened, she was determined.
“Maddie, sweetheart. What is it? Do you need me to go get Tia?”
“No,” she signed repeatedly.
“Okay, tell me what you need.”
“I need you,” she signed.
I sat in shock for a moment. Had I dreamed her response? Had my dreams invaded my waking life? I looked into her eyes and knew the truth. Whether she remembered me from before or not, she loved me.
Our kisses were filled with sweet longing as we clung together, and I was weeping from my overwhelming joy. I’d shed the armor I’d been wearing since the accident and felt new freedom expand me. I let my senses breathe her in and I keenly remembered our night of passion together. Did she remember? Had she really forgotten what we were to one another?
I realized anew that I didn’t care. Each kiss we shared was novel and unique. I had my Maddie back. Maybe not the exact Maddie from before, but she was still my one true love.
“I thought you would never love me again,” I whispered against her lips.
“Te amo, te amo,” she whispered back. “Eres la luz de mi corazón, mi alegría.”
“Oh my God, I so need to learn Spanish,” I choked out as she kissed my neck.
She pulled back. “Let me teach you,” she signed, and then bent to kiss me once more.
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