Winter Love Songs by Eliza Andrews

Author:Eliza Andrews [Andrews, Eliza]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-11-03T06:00:00+00:00

14

Early December, Part 1: “Scar Tissue,” Red Hot Chili Peppers

“Three more,” I told Hope after I adjusted the resistance band around her ankle.

She glared at me as if I’d said something to offend her.

“Come on,” I said. “Just three more and you’re done.”

“I hate you.”

I laughed. Laughter had come easily to me over the past couple weeks. “No, you don’t hate me. Now let’s see those three reps.”

She grunted and did a single rep, hanging onto the porch pillar for dear life while she abducted her left leg outward.

“Breathe out,” I reminded her.

She clenched her teeth together. “No, I really do hate you,” she said, but she breathed out anyway.

“One to go.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“I know you can,” I said.

“You know shit.”

“Okay, fine. I know shit. But do one more anyway.”

Hope rolled her eyes at me like a teenager. “Fine.” She completed the final rep.

I bent down, undid the resistance band. “That’s it. Let’s stretch you out.”

Hope hobbled inside, her limp more pronounced than I’d seen it in a few days. The gunshot wound itself had healed fairly well, but she’d been left with complex regional pain syndrome, or CRPS, a chronic pain issue due to nerve damage from the bullet. Even if she regained all the strength in her leg, she wouldn’t be able to go on tour or perform on stage again until the pain diminished.

She laid down on Mel’s couch.

“How’s the pain been?” I asked.

“Bad.”

“Bad like what? On a scale of one to ten?”

“Somewhere between eleven and thirteen,” she said.

“Okay,” I said, trying not to let my concern show through. If I stopped believing in her rehabilitation process, she would stop believing, too. And that was the last thing she needed.

We’d been working together every day since Thanksgiving, and I had already resigned myself to the idea that some of the pain Hope had might be permanent. I could help her strengthen her leg, reeducate her nervous system, get her to regain the muscle that had atrophied from disuse after the immediate aftermath of the gunshot, but the more I researched what happened when a bullet from a high-velocity rifle struck a body part, the more I doubted that she would ever feel one hundred percent again.

I hadn’t told her that yet, but I suspected she already knew.

I knelt down beside the couch, reached for the bad leg. It was swollen again, I noted, which didn’t surprise me. My first instinct was to ice it, but CRPS often came with temperature sensitivity, and the ice might only make the pain worse.

As gently as I could, I started to massage her thigh, starting high, just below her hip, and working my way down. She sucked in a sharp breath when I got close to the place she’d been shot.

“I’m sorry,” I said, easing up. That was another problem with CRPS — even light touch could trigger pain.

“Not your fault,” she replied through clenched teeth.

Hope had on a loose dress with spandex shorts underneath. As I lifted her leg a little higher, the dress fell back, revealing two thick white scars on either side of her leg.

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