I almost felt a moment of pity for the doctor grabbing the chair from across the room and pushing it toward me . . . then I noticed he was looking at me with the same expression. I saw pity and something in his eyes that led me to believe he was counting his blessings that he could still move. Pity and relief. That was the way people would look at me from now on, I guessed. Pity for me, relief for themselves.
That realization made me glare holes into the ceiling tiles.
“I’m Doctor Payton, the spinal trauma specialist here,” he said as he settled into the chair pushed up next to me. “How are you doing this morning, Mr. Black?”
I huffed, continuing to glare at the ceiling. “I’m feeling fucking on top of the world.”
Doc Payton sniffed, leaning back in his chair. “Happy to know you’re in good spirits. Most patients in your situation find themselves depressed and pissed off at the world, so your outlook is a nice change of pace.”
I gave him a sideways look. “I was shittin’ you, Doc.”
He scrolled around on the tablet in his lap. “I was too.”
Great, I had a smartass for a doctor.
“So when can I bust out of here?” I asked, though I continued to focus on the ceiling. During the course of the night, as a handful of nurses had come in to check on me, I’d found it hard to look at people who could still use their legs and bodies, as if they were to blame for what had happened to me. The bitterness and resentment theory was already holding up.
The doctor looked up from his tablet. “You’ve sustained a serious injury to your spinal column. You won’t be released for a few more days. We’ve still got to run tests, schedule an MRI, some more X-rays—”
“Hold up.” My eyes cut in his direction. “Did you just say more X-rays? As in I’ve already had some done?”
“We did X-rays immediately after you were admitted. It’s standard when we’re dealing with anyone in your kind of situation.”
“My kind of situation?” My brows lifted—at least they could still move. I’d have to get really good at using them.
“Your kind of situation being the potential to have injured or severed something in your spinal column.” The doctor’s voice was calm, as though he was used to having this kind of a conversation every day. I felt as though my life was ending, as if I was waving good-bye as it floated away, and he was talking to me like he was discussing the weather over a cup of coffee.
I felt the blood in my veins heat. At least the veins from my neck up. “Why did my friends tell me no X-rays had been done yet then?” I didn’t say “girlfriend and friends” because the sooner I stopped thinking of Joze like that, the sooner I could embrace my bright future of being paralyzed.
“Maybe because the results were inconclusive and they guessed I’d be better at explaining that to you than they would.” Doc Payton was back to messing with his tablet. If I could have used my arms, I might have grabbed it and tossed it against the wall.
“Is my back broken or isn’t it, Doc?” I asked a bit more sharply than I’d intended.
“In the way you’re asking, no, it isn’t.” I was just thinking about exhaling a hell of a lot of relief when he continued. “But there is some serious trauma, or swelling, to the middle part of your spine, meaning there could be some serious nerve damage.”
I should have been relieved I hadn’t broken my back, but something about the nerve damage part and the uncertain note in the doctor’s voice gave me pause. “Well, does that mean I’ll walk again? Does it mean I’ll recover from this?”
He typed a few more things into his tablet before looking at me again. “It’s too early to say.”
I shook my head, wanting to shoot up in bed and punch something. Putting my fist through that beige wall I’d been staring at all night would have been a good start. “Will I walk again?”
The doctor was looking at me as though he was waiting for me to return the favor, but I couldn’t do it. Hearing him tell me my life might be over would be bad enough without seeing the same message in his eyes.
“Maybe,” he said at last. “Maybe not. Like I said, it’s too early to tell. After some more tests and your body has some time to heal, we’ll be able to answer that question, but for now, I don’t want to offer false hope. At the same time, I don’t want to offer no hope.”
“Aren’t you just a regular ray of sunshine,” I muttered.
“I’ve been accused of worse.”
The sun had risen high enough to stream through the window, bathing the whole room in light. I wished the curtains were drawn. I wished there wasn’t a window there to begin with. I didn’t want the light, because it reminded me of the dark . . . the place I was retreating into.
“When’s the soonest I can be discharged?” I asked. “It’s not like I packed anything and got comfortable, so it shouldn’t take long, right? Think you can find someone to wheel me down to the curb? I’ll hitch a ride home from there.”
The doc let out a sigh as long as it was loud. “If you want to guarantee you’ll never walk again, that sounds like the way to do it.”
I finally made myself look at the doctor. He wasn’t as old as I’d originally thought from just seeing his eyes. I guessed being in his line of work, seeing lives ruined, must have had a way of aging him in other ways. He stuck his hand in the air and waved when he noticed me looking at him.