Emergency Medical Dad

XVIII: Saturday, 7:00pm, present

JORGEN

I'm getting blisters. It's high time I get a new prosthetic but I didn't have the time for it in-season. That was a this-summer type of gig. I get out for the season, I make the opener appointments, I deal with forming and shaping and developing and all that. Fresh off the injury I needed a new socket at an incredibly frequent rate, eight years later, it's only about once every few years. It's still annoying. When it started, I was gaining weight after being too skinny to handle too big of a staircase, then losing weight again because I was so inactive for so long because of the amputation that I got overweight. Plus the muscle definition took a hit and then the PT messed with that so more often than not I was blistering or having a rough time keeping my leg in the socket, then I evened out but wear and tear and slight changes means new fittings every 3ish years. I'm gonna go back to Canada for it, though, it's too expensive otherwise. I don't have the money for it. I can float a lot of things, but $77,000 every three years to stay on my feet? No.

Today is the day we got Jessie moved into my parents house. That's why I'm blistering. I've been lifting and moving and on my feet for hours, close to seven-ish, trying to set things up just right and taking the car back and forth to the barn, plus the additional meeting in the middle of all of it for Chicago East so I can start work.

By the time Jessie manages to corner me at the end of the day, I'm close to passing out.

"Jorgen." She shuts the door behind her. I'm sitting, leg stretched out, tingling in my nerves but not the type that's making me nervous for a PLP episode.

"Hi," I respond, looking up at her. She's pretty, ponytail and ratty t-shirt for moving things around all of today to get the old office equipment out of what will be Connor's room starting tonight.

"Listen," she puts the heels of her hands over her eyes, focusing. I've noticed that. She can't focus on what she's saying if she's looking at me while she talks. I scan her body language, wondering what she's about to say, figuring out what I can from that. She's nervous but not closed off, her body is facing me. Her toes are somewhat pointed in, her legs are rocking her ever so slightly back and forth.

"I'm listening," I urge her on, placing my two fingers at the crease of my thigh to press in and hopefully move my skin away from where I'm blistering in the slightest bit.

She puffs out air through her cheeks, looking out the window now, "I don't want to do this."

"What do you mean?"

"Move in with you," she chokes out.

"Oh, okay, we can mov-"

"No!" She cuts me off, clearly very nervous. "No this is a good decision, I just don't like it."

I nod, confused slightly to where she's going with that.

"I'm," she clears her throat, feet itching to pace. "Uncomfortable with it. Most of this. All of it."

She lets herself start to pace and I don't stop it, sometimes you need to get out jitters, "alright, how can I help?"

"I don't know," she still doesn't turn to look at me, keeping her eyes on the window of the little bedroom that will be hers as of tonight. I'm sitting on the edge of her bed, watching her.

Jessie tries again to explain, clearing her throat and trying to smooth back the flyaway hairs coming out of her ponytail, "I just, I don't know you. I don't know you at all. I didn't then, either, and you, you don't seem easy to get to know, and if, if this is how this is going to shake out, I have to get to know you like the back of my hand so I know how much I can trust you with Connor and I just don't, and I don't with your parents either, and I don't want to back out of this one or two days into it because I don't like the environment here or because you guys are scaring me or any of that," she breathes out, relaxing now that she's said what she needed to, or most of it.