*
I don’t know how long I sat in the shower for, letting the water rush over me, but when I finally came out again Daniel was gone. I was alone in the gym. I went slowly back up to my room, hoping not to meet anyone along the way. I didn’t think I could handle human contact right about now.
These last few days had been so confusing. Here I had thought I would wallow in depression for the rest of my life. I knew I was never going to be happy again. I didn’t deserve to be happy, and I didn’t want to be happy. And yet, when I was with Daniel, my heart felt like it was going to burst with elation. I felt an unimaginable bliss just being with him, just being able to talk to him.
I didn’t know his entire history. I had gotten a glimpse of it when he told me about his knee injury. I hadn’t told him my entire history either, but I knew there was a connection there. Daniel understood me, and I understood him. I knew exactly where he came from when he told me the fire in him had disappeared.
And yet, we couldn’t be together. Not like that, anyway. Maybe it was better for me. After all, I didn’t want to be happy. I didn’t want to have those feelings of passion, of desire taking over me whenever I saw Daniel. But another part of me, I guess the human part of me, did.
I spent the next few days doing my best to avoid Daniel. I ate breakfast before anyone else was up and dinner after everyone else had gone to bed. I spent my days in my room, on the computer, reading, anything to avoid the common areas. For the first time in a while I pulled Gray’s Anatomy from the shelf, trying to read as much as I could about the human knee. I knew Daniel needed surgery and there was nothing I could do for him, so I wasn’t really sure why I did it, but it made me feel better somehow. I knew Daniel couldn’t come and visit me here, visitors of the opposite sex weren’t allowed in each other’s residential areas. In a lot of ways this center felt like high school all over again, where boys and girls weren’t really supposed to interact privately.
Unfortunately for my plan, however, there were still mandatory activities to attend. The first for me was sports. I had skipped so many sports sessions, making up so many excuses as to why I didn’t want to join in with everyone, that this time Doctor Emma wouldn’t accept it when I asked for yet another reprieve.
“Kylie, I know you’re going through a lot. But these sessions, this sports work is good for you. It’s designed to help you in every aspect of your life. Unless you have a physical problem hampering you from attending, I’m afraid I can’t let you skip yet another session.”
“It’s not physical, Doctor Emma. It’s a mental thing.”
“Sports are good for the brain. There’s a ton of science proving that. Please give it a shot Kylie. You aren’t going to heal if you don’t try.”
That’s why I ended up still having to take part in the group sports for the first time in nearly a month. Daniel was already there when I arrived, and again as soon as I looked at him I felt that pang of desire in my chest. He was so sexy, standing outside in the grass with the sun shining down on his face. Everyone else on the field looked so incredibly inferior, Daniel was like an Adonis, standing alone on Mount Olympus, his beauty and strength dwarfing that of the mere mortals standing around.
I had planned on ignoring him, on hoping Daniel wouldn’t come and speak with me, but I knew my body was going to have none of that. On top of that, when he saw me, Daniel came over.
“Hey, sorry about the other day,” he told me in a low voice so no one else could hear.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Can we talk after this? Maybe I can join you at dinner?”
“Yeah, sure.” I tried to keep my voice calm. I knew at dinner I was going to have to tell Daniel this wouldn’t work. That we couldn’t be together so long as we were in this situation, that neither of us could afford to get kicked out of this program. The thought of saying no to a man like that, a man who elicited such delicious reactions from my body absolutely devastated me.
We played soccer as our exercise for the day. It was fun enough, but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the day I had spent with Daniel in the gym. The entire time I could only focus on Daniel, who ran circles around everyone else in the group, until finally the trainer Adam banished Daniel to playing goalie so that the teams could play more evenly. Not that it mattered, Daniel had scored eleven goals for his team compared to the one we had managed to get through. I noticed him wincing with pain once or twice, and I wanted to scold him about refusing to get the surgery that would heal him, but I kept my mouth shut.
When the game finished and everyone headed, exhausted, back to their rooms, Daniel caught up with me.