Memories

Chapter 15

Beware, there is some action between Alex and Savannah at the start of the chapter so if you don't want to read it, you can skip the things that I've put between the ***.

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"Good morning, Dr Anderson." The obnoxious doctor's walking towards me. I don't know if he's going to respond, but it's worth a shot.

My hopes are diminished as he walks past me without a reply, so I continue towards Savannah's room. However, a couple of moments later, I hear his stern voice call out to me. "You're here to see Miss Beattie, aren't you?" I turn back round to face him, and he continues. "You might want to wait a minute: she's currently having physio."

"Ok, thank you." I walk up to her room and poke my head in the door.

In the middle of the room, Savannah's sitting on the floor and her physiotherapist is sitting cross-legged in front of her as she lifts a ball from one side of her legs to the other.

The therapist sees me and gives me a quick nod, bringing my arrival to Savanah's attention. She turns her head and gives me a quick wave when she realises who arrived.

"Hey, I can wait outside until you finish."

"It's okay. We were just about to move onto some stretching, getting those tense muscles and all that scar tissue loosened up. How about you join us?" I notice an accent in his confident voice, somewhere European.

"Okay sure," I say, entering the room and dumping my things on the chair. "Shoes?" I ask, noticing that the physio isn't wearing any.

"It's up to you."

I untie my laces before slipping off my shoes and joining them on the floor.

"Let's start with some simple ankle flexes with toes pointed and then release," the guy demonstrates.

As he guides us through the exercises, which get more strenuous as time goes on, my mind wanders to his face. I feel a slight pang of jealousy as I take in his features: his eyes are a deep chestnut brown, and his tanned skin looks almost as unblemished as Savannah's. The only mark on it is a light scar nestled into his eyebrow. Somehow, Savannah managed to keep her face unscarred in the accident and the tissue damage began at the nape of her neck.

After about fifteen minutes of stretching, he finishes up with getting me to fold in half and I nearly make it down far enough to lick my knees, but the pain in the backs of my thighs makes me stop and I return to a sitting position. I look up to Savannah who has a wide smile across her face.

"Stop laughing, my flexibility, or lack of, isn't funny."

"I'm sorry, Alex, but it kind of is. Most patients can get down further than that."

"Shut up and I'm sure that that's after months of physio and rehabilitation."

"I'm not going to reply to that," he replies, getting to his feet. He moves towards Savannah and holds out his hands, helping her to get up.

Even though I know that he's taking most of the weight, it's a nice surprise to see her walk to the bed.

"Right then, that's me done for today. Savannah, I'll see you tomorrow and Alex," he pauses, and I regret joining in with them. "I suggest you join a yoga class or at least stretch out those legs more."

I roll my eyes at his comment and perch on the edge of the bed as he gathers the equipment scattered on the floor. "So today is the ninth of December. Did you know that the very first traffic light was installed in London, on this day in 1868?" She shakes her head, and the smile falls from her face; the realisation of what I just said, hits me. "Well, on a completely different note, on the fourteenth of February every year, we celebrate Valentines Day. It was originally celebrated to commemorate St Valentine who was the saint of 'courtly love'. Nowadays, it's been twisted into this big commercial day where shops sell tons of flowers, boxes of chocolates and cards with even more flowers on them. As you can probably tell, I think nothing of it, but the first year that we were together, you insisted that we celebrate it."