The Phone Call

I let the phone slide from my ear. I think I plug it back into the charger. The red light doesn’t come on to let me know it’s getting juiced up again. I don’t care and I don’t bother to fix it. At this point, I don’t care if the damn thing ever rings again. I take a deep breath because suddenly, I’m dizzy. The room begins to lurch and spin and I close my eyes. I feel a warm hand on my back, hear my name being called. I open my eyes, but I don’t respond. The room has stopped spinning.

I fling the blanket off of my legs. Ignore the surprised cry of the one beside me. I curl both hands under my left leg. Lift it. Push it over the side of the bed. I do the same with the right leg. Just like they’ve showed me. He leaps from his side of the bed. Grabs the wheelchair from the corner of the room. Moves to help me. I push his hand away. With a jerk I twist my body off the bed and fall with a hard thump on the floor.

The pain is sudden but no longer surprising. It’s a thousand tiny needles running across my hips and racing up and down my spine all at once. I gasp and reach up, accidentally yanking the cell out of the charger. It comes down, hits me hard in the shoulder. Falls onto my lap. I pick it up. Stare at it as if it’s evil, unholy. With a shout, I hurl the phone across the room. The not-so-delicate touch screen cracks. Leaves a jagged dent in the wall.

He moves to help me again, and again I push him away. I flip over on my stomach and using only my arms, begin to drag my body across the floor. My legs, the useless pieces of flesh, muscle and bone that they are follow me, haunting me, taunting me. Making my journey that much longer. That much tougher. That much harder.

The bathroom door is open and I pull my body across the cold lavender tiles until I reach the porcelain commode. He’s left the toilet seat up again and for once I am grateful for one less obstacle in my way. My arms cradle the commode. Sweat drips from my brow. The room has started spinning again and this time I welcome the feeling. I lean over and I vomit. I vomit until my stomach is empty and then I vomit again and again until nothing, not even bile comes out. My eyes are now blurred, my face wet with tears.

He runs to my side, cradles my head in his chest. He doesn’t know what’s wrong, doesn’t know the news, but still he tells me that everything will be okay, tells me that together we can get through anything and they he’ll make everything right. I don’t see how he can and I break down. Loud, gut-wrenching sobs wreak my now permanently damaged, fragile body. Tears that scare us both. I want him to feel it. Feel my hurt. Feel my anger. Feel my pain. I beat my pain into his chest. I want him to feel the anger. The cold, empty numbing pain that I now know will forever run through my legs.

Still, he doesn’t fight me nor does he ask the reason for the tears. Yet somehow, strangely, I think he already knows. All that matters now is that he is here. That he is with me.

He tells me once again that everything will be all right.

Wrapped in his arms, feeding off his warmth, his love for me seeping into my skin, I feel it.

And for the first time, I believe him.