Chapter 81

Scottie

“You come first above our mother,” Wren says. She sits on the edge of my bed, and her hands clutch mine tightly as I finish telling her the whole sordid tale of my freshman year at Dickson. “Always. Don’t ever forget that.”

Dane. Nadine. Finn and fights. It’s a lot to take in, but at the end of it all, Wren is more determined than ever to prove her loyalty to me. I appreciate it greatly, but it doesn’t change the colossal challenges that are left ahead.

“I can’t believe Dane ended up being such a…” She pauses, and I don’t have any problems finishing her sentence for her.

“Asshole?”

“Sis, I don’t even think that’s a strong enough word for him at this point.” She shakes her head. “He ended up being way different than I envisioned when you first started dating him in your junior year.”

“I know.” I sigh. “Trust me, I know.”

“I hate that I’ve been so out of the loop,” she says, and a small frown etches across her mouth. “From here on out, I refuse to go that long without talking, okay? I want to know everything that’s going on with you. All of the college parties and classes and boyfriends,” she says, waggling her brows. “Or maybe boyfriend,” she emphasizes with a laugh. “He hasn’t left your side, and I really like him. Normally the cute ones aren’t this sweet.”

Her words make discomfort wiggle inside my chest, and I look down to where my legs sit on the bed. Her talking about college parties and classes and boyfriends is a stark reminder of what I’ve lost. I’m probably never going to walk again. Definitely never going to cheer again. Everything that’s been my identity for so many years can no longer be a part of my life.

I’m the paralyzed girl now.

A million questions roll through my head, none of which have a simple answer.

Will I still even be able to go to Dickson without my cheerleading scholarship? I don’t have a job, and I know my father can’t afford an expensive university like Dickson on his middle-class income. He worked himself to the bone to pay for me to go Ivy Prep, and that was less than half of the cost of college at Dickson.

And medical bills? How is my father going to pay for those? Surely those are racking up every second that I sit here in this bed. It’s not like I’m going to be able to help him right away. I have to go through rehab and physical therapy, and who in the hell wants to hire a girl in a wheelchair who can’t hold her bladder?

And Finn? How the hell can I even think about saddling a nineteen-year-old guy with the world at his feet with a paralyzed girlfriend in a wheelchair? I don’t even know the logistics of how possible it is to ever have sex again. Surely having kids is out of the question too.

I’m spiraling by the second, but Wren is still busy with all the things a girl with two working legs thinks are important.

“So, this thing with you and Finn…is it—”

I suck my lips into my mouth, and she clams up as Finn and our father step into the room. They have bags of food from the cafeteria in their hands, and they’re both smiling as they chat about something funny that happened when they were in the elevator.

Outsiders would probably think this is strange behavior from my dad, seeing as he just had to escort my mom out of the room. But I think after years of dealing with Stephanie Bardeaux—through marriage and then divorce—he’s grown numb to any and all of her drama.

It’s like she put him through so much stress and devastation in the past that he’s learned to compartmentalize it all.

“Did you see this?” Wren whispers as our dad and Finn sit down on the plastic sofa in the corner of the room. I look over to see she has a small disc in her hand and quickly realize it’s what our mom set down before she left my room.

4 Months, the sobriety chip reads.

“Is that how long it’s been since…you know?” she asks, her voice still a whisper, and I force myself to nod.

It only makes me angrier that my mom thinks she’s in the top fifteen on my list of things to worry about these days, four months sober or not.

Where in the hell am I supposed to go from here?

A week ago, I was staring toward a bright future, but now, all I see is a dark tunnel filled with obstacles and challenges I never in my life thought I would face.

“Scottie, do you want a sandwich?” my dad asks, and I shake my head.

“You’re going to have to eat something, sweetheart,” he urges, but I have no appetite at all.

It’s hard to feel hungry when you’re watching all your hopes and dreams go up in flames.

“I will,” I lie. “But I think I’m going to take a nap first.” I attempt to turn over on my side, but struggle with my body’s new normal. Wren and Finn stand up to help me, and I have to bite down on my tongue to stop myself from crying.

It’s demoralizing, to say the least.

They go above and beyond to make me comfortable with pillows and adjusting my blankets over the legs and feet that I can’t fucking feel, and I stew on the pot of steam boiling deep inside. When they’re finally finished, I shut my eyes and try like hell to fall asleep.

Unsolicited tears escape, and I discreetly lift my blanket to cover my face.

I don’t miss that the lights of my room are turned off after that, Finn and my family trying everything they can to help me.

But every help they offer is a reminder of how much help I need in the first place, and I can feel anger seeping into all my cells one by one as they do.

What good is a light at the end of the tunnel if I have no chance of reaching it on my own two feet?