The Way We Feel

Chapter 22

       

There was literally nothing on telly. It didn't help that I'd watched just about everything you could watch over the last four days. Or the fact that I wasn't used to being home for such long periods of time. Or the fact that I only really stood up a handful of times a day because of my stupid ankle, and because Mads insisted that if I was only going to be home a week, I needed to rest said stupid ankle as much as possible.

I practically stabbed the buttons on the remote, taking out a little bit of my frustration on it as much as I was actually trying to find something decent to watch.

Mads and Lila had gone to the grocery store. Mads had been hoping to go when Lila went down for a nap so that she could leave her with me, but Lila seemed wide awake for longer than either of us counted on, so Mads just took her along.

I'd tried to tell her to leave her—figured she could get a little bit of a break from both of us for an hour or so—but Mads had insisted.

"What if she starts crying?" she'd asked from the other end of the couch where she sat putting her sneakers on.

I'd felt my eyes widen. "I'll pick her up."

"But you can only pick her up and hold her when you're sitting down," Mads said pointedly, and I had to bite my tongue because I was too annoyed with the situation, with my stupid ankle and the stupid crutches that made holding my daughter while standing impossible, to respond. "Why argue about it? I'll just take her."

I'd watched her walk back and forth across the room, gathering Lila's blanket, and then her dummy, and then her favorite little stuffed monkey—all of them scattered around the living room—before collecting Lila herself, whose blue eyes stayed on me as her Mummy walked into the kitchen and grabbed her bag before saying goodbye and heading out the front door.

They'd only been gone about half an hour, but I was already so bored, I wanted to toss the remote at the TV.

I shut it off instead.

There was only so much telly-watching I could do anyway. Angling myself to grab my crutches, I let my foot come to the floor. I still had it wrapped in the splint, but after icing it a lot and a few days of rest, it was already much better.

I'd done it a few times already without good result, but when I stood up with the help of my crutches, then held them both in one hand and set some weight on my foot, the small twinge of pain was just that—small. Manageable. It still hurt, but I felt a bit better.

I was dreading returning to work next week. We'd filmed a huge chunk of the action sequences already, but I hated the thought of having to sit out for the rest of them. The good news was, I didn't think they'd be too strenuous, and we'd more than likely be doing a lot more of the seated scenes anyway. I still had the little bit of romance scenes ahead of me, too. 

Vanessa wasn't the only one from set I'd heard from over the last few days. Chris had called the day following my accident to check in with me, and Cillian texted wishing me a speedy recovery as well. Jeff had been in and out over the last few days, too—he and Glenne brought dinner over the other night to give Madelyn a break from cooking.

Still, I was starting to go stir-crazy, so it was nice to feel like my ankle was progressing some. But when I tried to take a step forward without my crutches, the twinge of pain was intense enough that I wasn't ready to push it, so I brought the crutches back beneath my arms and propelled myself into the kitchen.

But I was bored of this, too—staring into the fridge, finding something I didn't want and stuffing my face with it anyway. This time it was even more pathetic--Mads had gone to the store because the fridge was practically empty with the three of us home for the last few days, and there I was... looking anyway.