You Get Full Credit For Being Alive

Chapter Fifteen

It got better, better for all of us. By the end of our first week together we had a tentative system in place. Margot and Shawn both settled in, we got a schedule together for therapy that all of us could live with, and Della stuck her nose into everyone's business with impunity. It took Shawn and me four days to build those damn parallel bars, but once they were up he and Margot started him weight bearing almost immediately. It was... painful to watch. His arms were stronger than his legs at this point, but that didn't mean they were up to supporting his whole weight yet. The first few attempts were exhausting and resulted in Shawn standing for all of, oh, ten seconds total. His failure annoyed him, and Shawn being annoyed went one of two directions: self-recriminating or irritably petulant. Margot just ignored his mood swings, claiming they were exacerbated by his medications and circumstances, but I couldn't ignore them.

On rough days, I'd make sure to take the time to talk to Shawn after lunch, just talk, not about therapy or anything concerning his health. I asked him what project we should start next, and he decided on a coffee table, because apparently, "Everyone has one. Drug dealers have coffee tables. You need one."

"I have no fucking clue how to build a coffee table that doesn't involve the use of milk crates," I told him honestly.

"I can." And he could, without having to look up a plan online, getting the list of stuff I needed to buy straight out of his head. Of course I didn't have the right tools, and I needed this type of wood and this type of finish... I took the list he gave me and bought everything on it. It was worth it to give him a project that he was enthusiastic about, and more than any other way of killing time I'd suggested, Shawn liked to build things.

"Aren't kids these days supposed to be all about video games?" I asked him, marking out where we were going to stick the nails. Shawn rolled his eyes and punched me in the shoulder. It actually kind of hurt.

"Not a kid," he typed. "And you're not old. I like carpentry." Building furniture had been the family business, one that started with Shawn's great-grandfather and was eventually passed down to his father. Shawn's brother had opted to go into the navy instead of making tables and chairs, and so the mantle of responsibility had passed to Shawn. Only Shawn hadn't turned out the way his parents had wanted.

Being a cop hadn't been Shawn's first choice, but despite his constructive inclinations he didn't have the heart, not to mention the funds, to go into business for himself. Drugs had been easier. When his arresting officer had offered him a hand getting into the police academy he'd taken it, and when Shawn got out and partnered with Doug, he'd actually enjoyed being a cop.

"What kind of person was Doug?" I asked as we clamped down the pieces we were gluing together.

Shawn was getting better at typing, faster. "A good guy. Older. Hot. My type." He smiled a little. "But I wasn't his type. Wanted to be, but wasn't. Still had to leave when he died. I got him killed."

"You were the one driving, but you didn't kill him."

"Close enough," Shawn said. "And everyone knew it." The look he gave me showed that he knew more about my situation than I'd told him personally. There was something of comradeship there, a familiar feeling of having fucked up too far to escape the inevitable consequences. I didn't know what Margot had told Shawn about Dom, but whatever it was, it hadn't turned him off of me. Maybe the opposite, actually.

"C'mon," I said, distracting him from whatever he was thinking. "What's next?"

He glanced down at my handiwork and winced. "Loosen the clamp. It's biting into the wood."