Chapter 16

Jess's Point of View
The first thing I did when I got to Sid’s house from the hospital was open the door of his Range Rover and puke. “Oh God,” I moaned to myself. Sid got out of the car and stepped over my puke to rub my back.
“Dr. Carr said that you’d be nauseous.”
“He could have warned me beforehand,” I said, anger and frustration filling my voice.
“Don’t worry,” Sid said, his voice washing over me and soothing my rigid body. “Now come on, sit up, let’s get you inside eh?”
“Can’t I just sit here?” I whined, sitting back in the seat.
“We have the couch all set up and everything inside, come on.”
“Fine.” I ran my hand over my mouth to wipe up any excess vomit on my face as Sid handed me my crutches. I grabbed my leg and swung it out the door to leg it clunk against the side of the Range Rover. Sidney grimaced as I stepped down with one foot onto the pavement. I got the crutches in place and attempted to get up his front walk, but couldn’t. My right leg just dragged along the ground, making it difficult to move forward. “Sid, I can’t do this,” I said, defeated.
“I can carry you,” he offered. I thought about it for a second, but that seemed too hard.
“Do you have like, a roll-y desk chair or something?” I asked, slightly dizzy from my attempts at movement, grabbing his mailbox for stability.
“Yeah, hold on.” He ran in the house and returned seconds later with a huge office chair. “Here, sit down and hold your leg up, I’ll push you inside.” He got me all the way up the walk to the stairs, where he had to stop for a break. “You know, you’re not light,” he said, and sat down on the steps.
“Imagine carrying me. Now get me in the house. I’m getting woozy,” I snapped. These meds did not have a nice side effect on my attitude. He seemed to be sympathetic to my needs because he picked himself up off of the steps and proceeded to drag me up them in the chair. We must have been a sight. Him pushing me in one of the biggest chairs I’ve ever seen in my life, and me holding my right leg out straight in front of me. Attractive. He managed to get me to the couch where I promptly collapsed and fell asleep courtesy of the medications that were still wearing off.
When I woke up it was around 7:00, there was a blanket draped on top of me and a note taped to my forehead. I pulled it off, dazed and confused. In a quick scrawl, it read:
Hey baby, I hope you’re OK. I had to leave for my game. The remote’s on your lap. I’m on FSN. I talked to Melissa and she agreed to be on call in case you need anything. I’ll be home around 11. Your pain meds are on the table near your head and your crutches are lying on the ground in front of the couch. There’s bottled water next to the pills.
-Sid
I looked around. Everything was exactly where he said it would be. The water and pills were on the end table. The crutches were on the floor, and the remote was in fact, in my lap. I taped the note onto the closest wall I could reach, to remind me that someone would always be looking out for me. My next move was to grab the remote and switch on the TV to FSN. The game was just starting. I made it through the first period before dozing off again to be woken up by Sid slamming the door.
“We lost,” he said upon throwing down his bag.
“How do you know I didn’t watch it?” I asked groggily.
“You look like you just woke up,” he said, coming over and sitting in the desk chair used as my means of transportation.
“Yeah, that could be a clue,” I managed before letting my head fall back onto the pillow. “I’m hungry…” I started, but he cut me off.
“Should you be eating? You threw up as soon as I got you home…”
“I feel fine. I’m really hungry!” I complained, putting as much emphasis on really as possible.
“Fine. Do you want apple sauce?” he asked, walking over to the kitchen and rummaging through the pantry.
“YES! That sounds amazing!” I said, rearranging my leg on the pillow it was propped up on. He grabbed the apple sauce and a spoon and brought it over to me. “Thanks,” I said, ripping the top off and shoveling it into my mouth.
“Slow down,” he said, leaning back in the desk chair. He looked extremely tired.
“So, how was your game,” I asked warily.
“Horrible,” he said, eyes closed, head back in the chair. I left it at that, not wanting him to blow up at me. For the past few days, he’s been blunt and to the point. There hasn’t been any joking or having fun, but then again, it was Sid. His lack of participation in extra curricular activities annoyed me sometimes and I found myself pressing him to go out and have fun.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said suddenly, staring at him, and more importantly the chair. He opened his eyes and brought his head forward, but it took him a second to process what I needed him to do.
“Oh, OK, here, sit. I’ll push you,” he said, scrambling out of the chair. I butt-hopped my way into the chair with the help of my arms and he pushed me through the kitchen to the bathroom. About halfway there, I started to get extremely hot, my skin got clammy and my head began to spin, and I don’t think it was due to the medications.
“Sid,” I said, panic filling my voice.
“What?! What is it?” he asked, stopping my forward motion and coming around to look at my face which I could imagine was like a ghost. I had that horrible gut feeling and my lips began to tingle.
“Get me a bag,” I said, trying to keep my mouth closed.
“What?” he asked, clearly confused.
“A plastic bag. I need a bag,” I said as quickly as possible. He whipped one out of what seemed to me, his back pocket, and the second my hands opened it, I had my head in it and I was throwing up all the apple sauce I had just eaten. I hunched over myself, right leg straight out on the floor in front of me. I groaned and sat up. Sid was there with a wet paper towel to wipe my face. “Thanks,” I mumbled into the towel. He didn’t say anything about the fact that he told me not to eat the applesauce; he just took the towel out of my hands and pushed me the rest of the way to the bathroom.
“Can you do it yourself?” he asked, hovering beside me as I hopped on one foot into the bathroom using the doorframe and the bathroom counter as support.
“I think I’ve got it,” I said as I plopped myself down on the toilet, with my sweatpants still on. “I just need to figure out how to get these off…” I said, looking down at my legs before looking back up at Sid. His eyes were gleaming and I realized why he was so mopey the past few days.
“You’re mad because we won’t have sex for awhile,” I said matter-of-factly. His face burned a bright red and he looked at the floor.
“That’s not why…” he said, clearly embarrassed.
“Yes it is. We can’t do anything physical until I can walk,” I stated as I began to shimmy the sweatpants off.
“No! Well, that is playing a part,” he admitted. “We’ve been losing, and you and I can’t do anything, you know, fun, for awhile.” I had the sweatpants to mid-thigh by the time he was done talking and looked up at him for help. I decided to ignore the “fun” comment for now. “But I can always help you undress,” he said, his normal tone coming back.
“You’re so horrible. Just get my sweatpants off.”
“You got it,” he said and leaned in to kiss me. I pulled away from him and he stopped, puzzled.
“Are you forgetting I just puked in a trash bag?” I asked, slightly amused.
“Oh, I well… I’m tired,” he stated as he yanked my sweats down to my ankles, revealing a huge knee brace with a water bag underneath it to ice my knee.
“Oh God,” I moaned, taking in the contraption for the first time. “This doesn’t even look good! I look like I just had my whole leg repaired!”
“Don’t worry,” he said, repeating a phrase of mine I had been telling him lately. “You’ll get through this. I’m here for you.” He placed a kiss on my cheek before backing out of the bathroom and leaving me alone.
How was I going to manage this? I asked myself, still staring at the huge ominous brace that now resided on my leg.