Grey Skies

Chapter 25

Note: The song above is Almost Lover- A Fine Frenzy. I thought I'd share it for anyone who wants to especially be in the feels while reading this chapter. Another great one is Ashes and Wine by the same artist. Enjoy!

Chapter Twenty Five

My surgery was scheduled for two weeks after my accident. I wore a brace to protect my foot as I waited. My armpits were sore from my crutches. I refused to go anywhere, except class and my clinical internship, and I needed someone to drive me everywhere. Unfortunately, that meant that my mother or father drove me most of the time. I would have let Max use my car and drive me around, but he wasn't old enough. Instead, I was stuck with my parents who tried to force me to talk during the ten-minute drives. Dad's approach was more subtle. He'd ask me what I did that day, what I planned on doing, and so on. After I continued to respond by saying nothing, he slowly stopped bothering me. Mom on the other hand never shut up. She would ask me if it hurt, if I regretted my decision to play again, and why Davis hadn't been around lately.

My chest hurts when I think of Davis and my last words to him. Are they my last words to him? It feels like they are. I remember him pulling away from me and slowly getting up. I never turned around to know if he had left or not, but he was gone by the time that all the girls and Coach Serris and White came to visit me. When I told him about my ankle, we all understood that my season and my position on the team were over.

"Is that thing gonna itch," Max asks. He snaps me out of my thoughts.

I look over to him. He is sitting across from me at the table. We are both eating cereal, and my leg is propped up on the chair to the right of me. My crutches are against the wall behind me. Max continues to stare at the small dark blue cast that reaches the middle of my shin. I don't mind being around Max because he is the only person that isn't looking at me differently since the accident.

I shrug my shoulders in response. The cast doesn't bother me so far, but I have only been in it for two days. Max scrunches his nose and shoves a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

"You're gonna stink more than usual." I pretend to laugh and grab one of my crutches to hit him underneath the table. He starts to scream that it hurts and then jumps out of his chair. "You better watch it before I break your other leg."

After he eats, Max runs up to his room to get ready for his soccer game. He seems much happier than before. He spends less time in his room and interacts with us all, sometimes even when we are tired of him and wish he wouldn't. But I would rather have this Max than the Max that refused to speak or smile. The old Max wouldn't have even noticed my ankle.

I leave my bowl on the table because I am unable to pick it up. The first time I injured my ankle, I ignored instructions to stay off my foot and so I didn't use my crutches past the first day. I never had to deal with the difficulty of sleeping, showering, getting dressed, and basically anything else that required movement. I even had to move my room to the guest room downstairs because it was too exhausting to go up and down the stairs whenever I needed something.

This time I don't want to miss any steps. I have already tried my luck so many times and I am sure that if I test the universe any more it will come back to get me.

The doorbell rings and I slowly swing over to it. I put all of my weight on my left side as I reach with my right to unlock it. I nearly fall over when I see Sarah standing in front of me. She looks me over and then goes to pull me into a hug but stops when she sees the crutches. I blink rapidly and step aside so that she can come in.

"What are you doing here!" I ask. We go into the guest room and close the door behind us. Once I put down my crutches and sit on the bed, Sarah leans over and hugs me tightly.