Full Strength

Forty One-Logan🏒

        "And you're about this?" I asked, looking in Lillian's eyes for any sort of hesitancy. There was none to be found.

        "I'm positive.  And I'll be less than an inch away the entire time," she said gently, still gripping my forearms for support. 

        Glancing down, I still couldn't help but cringe. The rainbow of colors blooming across my leg was still pretty bold. My knee, while looking more like a knee and less like a tortured basketball, was the worst, rivers of white scars crossing the green and purple areas of skin. I looked humanoid, but any smart child would run away screaming at the sight of me.

        She caught me looking. "You don't even know how good it looks," she said gently. "I promise."

        My lips twitched. "Is this you flirting? Saying I have sexy legs?"

        "Very sexy," she agreed, biting back laughter.

        For moral support, I looked at my other leg. The one that looked completely normal and wouldn't send anyone screaming. The one that was currently holding all of my weight-and shaking because of it.

       "Just remember, you have to tell me how it feels," Lillian said. "Every little pinch, every ache, every part of you that feels tired. I can't just look and see that it's going well, even if you're upright."

         I nodded. "Promise."

         Her smile was adorable. "Whenever you're ready, then."

         Slowly, I set my toes on the laminated floor. So far, nothing. While my knee had taken most of the damage, I'd still been greatly worried about all of my broken toes. And my ankle, which held up as I put my foot flat on the ground. It felt strange, to have anything other than bandages or cloth on my skin after wearing the cast for so long.

        I looked up at Lillian, who was watching intently. "Okay. Just...be ready for me to fall," I said anxiously.

        "Don't worry, I have secret cameras planted to record," she said, which was such a bad joke I couldn't help but laugh.

        Her expression turned serious again as I tightly gripped her arms, my fingernails close to digging into her skin. While I weighed a lot more than her, I was hoping that at the very minimum, she would prevent me from cracking open my skull. I didn't need to bring back my concussion.

         Exhaling, I shifted my weight, evenly standing on both feet. For a moment, I couldn't believe it. I felt normal. Completely normal. Nothing hurt, nothing ached. My leg didn't even feel weird. Shaking, I looked up in surprise. 

        "Are you okay?" Lillian asked, noticing that my grip on her had gone limp. "Does it hurt?"

        "No," I murmured, still in shock. "No, I feel great."

        "What? Logan?" But it felt like she was in another world. I was standing on my own accord. Nothing hurt. Even my hips had decided that standing was perfectly acceptable. Letting go of her, I looked around in amazement. I'd forgotten how tall I was when I wasn't hunched over or on crutches. Lillian seemed ridiculously short, even though she was only a few inches shorter than me.  Shelves that had been left alone for months now were at eye-level. My floors looked perfect for dancing on, or maybe doing cartwheels on. I thought about the rugs I'd stored in the closet that I could bring back out.

         "Logan?" Lillian asked again, this time her voice soft and sweet. "Are you okay?"

        Tears had budded in my eyes. "Yeah. I'm okay," I said, quickly wiping them away. "Wow. I just...wow."