Lost Without You/A Jordan Knight FanFic✔️

23

NOW

Alice: You need to come now. Lucy is in the middle of therapy and she's having a moment.

I stare at Alice's text. A moment? Did she have a setback? Alice usually refers to Lucy's "moments" as times when she has an emotional breakdown.

Me: On my way.

I jump out of my truck and jog into the physical therapy building, feeling an uneasy sense of urgency. Usually when Lucy has a breakdown, Alice does too. Sure enough, when I round the corner from the waiting room to the large open area filled with therapy tables and equipment, Alice's wiping tears from her face.

"What happened? Where is she?"

Alice nods behind me. I glance over my shoulder at Lucy walking toward me with nothing more than a single cane for balance.

"No need to load up my wheelchair anymore." Lucy beams ... she fucking beams.

I've never seen her smile so big. If Austin's death was the deepest depths of Hell, this is the absolute infinite height of Heaven.

"Chad said I've been ready to walk on my own for weeks; it's just been a lack of confidence holding me back. But yesterday at the skating park, I met this cute guy and he asked me out. Dad ... he asked me out, and I was in my wheelchair. No way am I going out on a date in a wheelchair."

Oh fuck ... that smile. It wasn't about simply ditching the wheelchair; it was about a guy. And our conversation comes back to haunt me. "If I can walk, I can have sex."

Alice will kill me.

"Luce ..." I shake my head. "I'm speechless."

When a hand touches mine, I glance down. It's Alice squeezing it. Tears in her eyes. And that "our baby is walking" look on her face.

My life is a mess. A complete shit show, but no one person knows all of it. Lucy knows things that Alice doesn't know. Alice knows things that Lucy doesn't know. And I'm the keeper of all the secrets. It's not a great job.

"Can we go shopping? Please? I want some new jeans since I've lost so much weight in my legs. Nothing I have fits me right."

"Of course we can go shopping." Alice releases my hand and hugs Lucy.

"I guess I'll head back to work."

"No! We have to celebrate. Cake pops after I find new jeans. Maybe Luke can come. Is he working?" Lucy asks Alice.

Alice shoots me a wary look, and I return a tight smile.

"Um ... I think he's working, but I can call him."

"Yes! Call him." Lucy takes off toward the exit with nothing but her cane and a new lease on life.

"Does she know about the engagement?" I ask.

Alice's thumbs slide over the screen of her phone, and then she curls her dark hair behind her right ear and holds the phone up to it.

"Nope." She gives me a slightly panicked look. "Hey, sorry to bother you, but Lucy had a good day at therapy, and she was wondering if you could meet us later for her favorite cake pops?" After a few seconds, her nose wrinkles. "Well, yes, us means me, Lucy, and her dad."

Her dad. I don't have a name anymore.

Jordan could be Tatum's friend or her dirty lover. Josh would never choose to be in the same room as Jordan, but maybe he'll deal with Lucy's dad for fifteen to twenty minutes of cake pops and celebrating Lucy no longer needing a wheelchair.