by Shayna B
He nodded. “Yeah, we do. The blind, cranky guy and the girl who sucks at giving directions in a wheelchair.”
“Are you seriously going to start that argument again?”
“No, not right now. I’ll save it for later.”
I rolled my eyes. “What is it that I see in you again?”
He ran his fingers up and down my arm. “My charming personality?”
“Oh yeah, that must be it,” I replied sarcastically, before snuggling into him a little more. “No, I think it must be that you’re so comfortable to cuddle with.”
He smirked a little. “That’s not all I’m good for,” he said suggestively.
I smacked his stomach lightly. “Pervert.”
He shrugged. “Can’t deny that. I am a guy after all.”
“Very true.” I stretched my arms up over my head and then sighed. “I suppose we should get up. Jared will be coming in here soon if we don’t, because I know he’ll want to start working on the therapy right away.”
As if on cue, there was a knock on my door. Jared opened the door and poked his head in a moment later. “You ready to get started Hailey?”
“I suppose. Blake will help me get up and we’ll meet you in the kitchen shortly. I want to eat before this torture begins.”
Jared rolled his eyes. “It’s not that bad. You’re just being dramatic.”
“No, you’re just a slave driver. But I know it’ll get me back on my feet faster, so I’ll try not to bite your head off too much.”
“Remember that in about an hour, okay?” he asked and then closed the door again.
Two hours later, I was cursing and swearing at him as he stretched my legs out for me. He looked at me with mild amusement. “What happened to not biting my head off?”
“You started pushing me too hard already, that’s what happened,” I snapped.
“Hailey, you know I’m not pushing you too hard. We did this before.”
“And it hurt then too,” I retorted.
Blake squeezed the hand that he was holding. “What kind of names did you call him last time?”
I thought back for a moment. “Pretty much the same ones as this time,” I replied.
“Well, we can come up with more creative ones now, right? Two minds are better than one, after all.”
And that was how the rest of the session went. Blake and I thought of creative names to call Jared and it managed to distract me from the pain. When the session was done, Blake carried me into my room so I could rest for a bit before lunch. I knew that I’d have to go through another session in the afternoon, so I was grateful for the brief reprieve.
Blake turned some music on and we relaxed on the bed for a bit, eventually talking about school again. “It was nice of Mr. Avery to let us finish the semester out of school,” I said.
“Yeah, it was pretty cool of him to do that. And he arranged our schedules for next semester so that we have all our classes together.”
I smiled. “You do realize that means I’ll make you do work in all the classes, right?”
“Yeah, I kind of figured that. Luckily one of the classes is music, so that one won’t be so bad.”
“And we have a spare, so we really only have two classes that I’ll have to bug you about.”
He sighed. “I’ll just have to suffer through it, I guess.”
I chuckled. “It won’t be that bad. And we still have a couple of weeks before the next semester starts, so you don’t have to worry about it for a bit. I, on the other hand, have to deal with this torture called physical therapy for a couple of months.”
He rubbed my back gently. “Yeah, but we can keep on thinking of creative names to call Jared. It made you feel better earlier.”
“I think it was just the fact that you were distracting me that made it better. You’re officially hired to entertain me during my sessions.”
“How much does it pay?”
“Three kisses an hour.”
“Hmm, can I get some payment in advance?”
I laughed and pressed my lips to his, kissing him lightly. “Good enough?”
“No way, I want more than that.”
“You have to earn them first,” I said teasingly.
“Now who’s the slave driver?” he grumbled.
“Still Jared, but maybe it’s rubbing off on me.”
He kissed me a couple more times and then pulled away. “There, that’s one hour in advance.”
I just shook my head and gazed up at the ceiling. “Is Sophie still coming over here after school?”
“Yeah, she’ll bring us some homework to do. My aunt is picking her up and driving her here.”
Later that afternoon, after my therapy session, Blake and I went into the music room to play around a little. He put my wheelchair in front of the piano and then picked up his guitar, sitting close to me. We fiddled around for a bit and then decided on a song to actually play; Stand by Rascal Flatts.
When we finished the song, we were both smiling. “That song reminds me a lot of you,” Blake said as he stood up, putting his guitar to the side.
“It suits you as well,” I replied. “Especially because of what you had to deal with when it came to your father.”
He shrugged and grabbed the handles of my chair. “I think it suits you better. You ready to go get something to eat?”
“Yeah, I’m getting hungry.”
Neither of us noticed as Sophie quietly snuck away from the door to the music room.
Chapter twenty-nine
I threw myself into my physical therapy in the time before we had to go back to school. Jake joined us fairly often and he graduated from a wheelchair to using a cane. I slowly started gaining control of my legs again, but it was a very slow process and I was still wheelchair bound. When the day came for Blake and me to return to school I was more than a little nervous.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said as we sat in Jared’s truck outside of the school.
“Yes you can,” Jared said. “You’ve never let what people think stop you before and you’re not going to let them now.”
I made a face. “Sometimes it’s a pain when people have so much confidence in you,” I replied.
“Look on the bright side Hales. If people piss you off, you can run over their toes with your wheelchair,” Blake said helpfully.
“I’m not as mean as you,” I said. “Although that does sound like fun,” I admitted.
Blake opened his door. “Come on, we’ll be late if we don’t get our butts in gear.”
Jared got out and grabbed my wheelchair from the back of the truck. He unfolded it while Blake got out and then carefully picked me up. With my guidance, he set me in my chair gently. I strapped myself in and he moved around to grab the handles.
“I’ll pick you two up after school,” Jared said. “Have fun.”
“Oh yeah, this is going to be a laugh a minute,” I said dryly.
“Well, at least you still have your sarcasm intact,” Jared muttered as he climbed back into his truck. “See you later.”
I watched as he drove off and then gave a resigned sigh. “Okay, let’s get this over with. I’ll steer so we don’t run into anyone. You just hold onto the handles, okay?” I asked as I turned my head to look at Blake.
He pouted a little. “You ruin all my fun,” he complained.
I grinned and shook my head at him. “If you weren’t so sadistic, I wouldn’t have to ruin anything,” I retorted, starting to wheel myself forward up the path to the front doors.
Blake walked behind me, hanging onto the handles. “Can we at least run over one person’s toes?” he asked.
“Maybe if you’re really good,” I replied.
He seemed satisfied with that and continued to follow along behind me. When we got to the doors, he went ahead of me to open them and I pushed myself through. Then he grabbed the handles again and we went down the hallway.
People did turn to look at us, but to my surprise they were a
ll smiling. A few people even called out greetings, which I definitely hadn’t expected. When we got to my locker, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. “Whoa,” I said.
“What?”
We stopped in front of the locker and I looked at it in amazement. “There’s a huge paper attached to the locker door and people have written messages on it.” I leaned a little closer. “Give me your hand.”
Blake did as I asked and I put his hand on a specific piece of paper. I saw his mouth drop open in shock. “There’s Braille on here as well?”
“Yeah, it looks like it’s in a few spots. All the messages pretty much say get better soon or something along those lines.” I sat back again, a little overwhelmed. “I can’t believe people did this,” I murmured. There was no falseness to any of the messages; they all seemed genuine. Maybe I had been wrong about receiving fake sympathy from everyone if they knew about what happened to me.
Blake put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently. “Apparently people actually like you here.”
“Some of them must like you too, because it couldn’t have been easy to get Braille onto this paper.” I shook my head in wonder. “It had to have cost a bit to get that printed out.”
He ran his other hand over the paper, finding the few messages that were written in Braille. “I guess that’s true. Maybe my status as an asshole is slowly fading. I might have to do something to get it back.”
I smacked him in the stomach lightly. “No, you can lose that status. I like it better when you’re nice.”
“I’d still be nice to you,” he assured me.
I rolled my eyes. “That’s not what I meant. We should probably get going to our first class.”
We started going down the hallway, but stopped when we heard our names being called. Rachel came hurrying up to us and she was almost vibrating in excitement. “That video of you two is so amazing!” she squealed.
“Uh, what video?” I asked.
Her excitement dimmed a tiny bit. “You mean you don’t know about it?”
“No?”
She whipped out her phone and fiddled with it for a moment and then handed it to me. I looked down at the screen and my jaw dropped when I saw myself and Blake in the music room at my place. The video showed us playing around for a moment and then we started actually playing the song and singing.
Blake leaned over my shoulder a little. “Why can I hear our voices coming from your hands?”
“Rachel handed me her cell phone,” I replied. “Apparently a little birdie was taping us after one of my physical therapy sessions, when we were in the music room. Three guesses who it was.”
“I only need one. I’m going to kill Sophie,” he grumbled.
“Why?” Rachel asked in shock. “Everybody loves the video! Everyone has been talking about it since it got posted. It’s had over half a million hits already.”
My eyes widened. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, and you should read what some of the comments say. I think you’ve inspired a lot of people.”
I looked up at Blake. “Maybe we shouldn’t kill her. If we’ve helped even one person in some way, then the video was worth it.”
He sighed. “Fine,” he agreed reluctantly. “But you have to promise to try and get a video of her doing something embarrassing.”
“I can try to do that. We really need to get to class right now though. We’ll see you at lunch, okay?” I said to Rachel, handing her the phone back.
“Okay. I need to go find David anyways; I seem to have lost him somewhere along the way.”
I chuckled as I watched her scurry away. “That girl really has too much energy sometimes. I don’t think she ever actually just walks anywhere.”
“I never would have thought David would date a girl like her. He was always so calm and laidback about everything.”
We started heading towards our classroom again. “Well, they say opposites attract. I mean, we’re opposites when it comes to our personalities and yet we fit together really well.”
“That’s true,” he agreed.
We reached our classroom and I guided both of us to some empty seats near the back. Blake moved a chair out of my way and then took his place right beside me. “What class is this again?” he asked.
“Geography. We have Music next and then History after lunch. Our spare is last period, which is great because it means we get to leave school an hour early.”
He reached over to play with my hair lightly. “I was thinking that since it’s actually a nice day out, did you want to just walk home? The fresh air will do us both some good I think.”
We’d had a recent spurt of warmer weather over the past few days, which wasn’t unusual for this time of year. We’d get more cold weather soon, so I was all for taking advantage while we could. “Well, you can walk and I’ll just go along for the ride,” I replied with a small laugh.
He grinned and shook his head. “Smartass.”
I shrugged. “Can’t argue with the truth.”
The morning went by quickly. Music was a lot of fun and I quickly realized that everyone in the school had already seen the video. A lot of people stopped to talk to us wherever we went. It was definitely different than being given funny looks and then ignored.
At lunch, we sat at our usual table with Rachel and David. Again, a lot of people came over to talk to us and ask me how I was doing. By the time the day ended for us, I was a little overwhelmed. I think Blake was as well, but he didn’t say anything about it as we started home. I had already called Jared to let him know we didn’t need a ride.
“That was an interesting day,” I mused.
“Was it as bad as you thought it was going to be?”
“No, it definitely wasn’t. I still can’t believe how many people came up to talk to us because of that video. I wonder why Sophie decided to make it?”
“We’ll ask her later. I don’t know where she was at lunch.”
“Probably hiding because she knew what your initial reaction to the video would have been.”
He chuckled. “You’re probably right. Maybe I’ll have some fun with her before I let her know we aren’t mad at her.”
I rolled my eyes. “You can be so cruel sometimes, did you know that?”
“Hey, I gotta have my fun where I can especially since you won’t let me roll over anyone’s toes.”
I laughed and reached over to pat one of his hands that were on the handle of my chair. “Don’t worry, I’m sure we can think of other things to do that are fun.”
“Hmm, you’re probably right. But I still like tormenting her. She’s like my little sister, so it’s my job as her ‘big brother’ to annoy her by any means possible.”
“I want to say that it’s not your job, but I have Jake as a brother so I know that it kind of is.”
We continued walking along, chatting about random things. When the house came into view, I frowned a little. “There’s someone at the house,” I said, eyeing the unfamiliar car in the driveway.
“Probably someone who works with Liam.” Blake didn’t pause as he continued to push me forward.
“You’re probably right. So what do you want to do for dinner tonight?”
“Do you want to go out? I could call Jack and see if he’s free to drive us tonight.”
Jack had been driving us around a bit since my surgery. It was nice to still have the freedom to go places without Jared or Liam having to come with us. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Maybe we can go…” my voice trailed off as I spotted the person leaning against the car in the driveway. “Marcus?”
Chapter thirty
My wheelchair jerked to halt as Blake stopped quickly. “Marcus?” he repeated incredulously.
I squinted against the bright sunshine. “Yeah, he’s leaning against the car in the driveway.”
“What do you want to do?”
I debated with myself internally for a moment before letting out a long breath. “I think I should probably talk to h
im. Obviously ignoring his calls and texts isn’t getting the message through to him.”
Blake started pushing the wheelchair towards the house again. Marcus spotted us and straightened up from his slouched position. He didn’t say anything as we approached him.
When we were closer, I got a good look at him and my eyes widened slightly. His light brown hair that he’d always had carefully styled was now long and lifeless and flopped over his forehead. His green eyes that had always sparkled with mischievousness and playfulness were now dull and had a haunted look in them. He had dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks were more hollow than they had been the last time I had seen him. He looked like death warmed over, and that surprised me almost more than actually seeing him.
I put a hand on one of Blake’s and he stopped once more. I looked up at Marcus and studied him for a moment. “You look like hell,” I told him bluntly.
His lips twitched the slightest bit, but he didn’t smile. “Thanks.”
“What are you doing here?”
He brought a hand up and scrubbed it over his face roughly. “You wouldn’t answer my calls.”
“That should have told you that I have no desire to talk to you.”
He lowered his hand again and gave me a pleading look. “Hailey please. I just want to talk to you, explain to you what happened that night.”
I bristled. “I know what happened that night,” I hissed, gesturing to my wheelchair. “I was there, remember?”
Marcus flinched, but stood his ground. “I know. But I want to tell you my side of the story.”
“Your side? Marcus, you were drunk and had another girl in the car with you that distracted you enough to cause you to run my parent’s car off the road. What else could you possibly have to tell me?”
Blake put his hands on my shoulders and rubbed them soothingly. “I don’t think she wants to talk to you,” he said in a deceptively calm voice.
Marcus looked at him briefly and then back at me. The pain that was evident in his eyes made my breath catch a little. “I saw the video of you two,” he said quietly. “It was then that I realized I had to at least come here and try to talk to you. Please Hailey, just hear me out.”
