“I guess now,” she said, “you’ll just have to work hard for yourself.”
“I guess I will,” I said.
And that was true—whether I was lying or not.
*
THE BIG-TOE MIRACLE turned me into quite the celebrity. Doctors who had lost interest were suddenly popping by several times a day. Other patients on the floor wanted to get the story firsthand. Kit even drew me a homemade card that read, “Toe-tally excited about your big breakthrough!!”
It was such a busy flurry that the shenanigans with Ian seemed distant very quickly. I had bigger fish to fry, I let myself think. I’d get walking again, and then I’d grow my hair out, and then I’d pop by the hospital one day, pretending to look for—what? A lost earring? A book I’d lent out?—and he’d behold me in the hallway, tall and fierce and perfect and invincible. He’d say a sad hello because he’d know he’d missed his chance, and I’d give him a little wow-we-really-could-have-been-something smile, and then I’d flip my hair, walk away, and let him choke on the dust of his own regret.
I will never, ever divulge how many times I partook of that particular fantasy. But I will confess that for some reason, in it, I was wearing the exact same shiny hot pants and high-heeled Dr. Scholl’s that Olivia Newton-John is wearing in the grand finale of Grease. And I had her fantastic butt, too.
All to say, when I saw Ian again in the therapy gym for the first time since our trip to the lake, the sight of him took me by surprise. He was back in his usual blue scrubs, with his hair in its usual slightly spiky configuration, but what caught me off guard was his new demeanor. He wasn’t the hostile, sullen Ian I’d first met, but he sure as hell wasn’t the warm, goofy Ian I’d allowed myself to swoon over.
This new Ian was just not there. I couldn’t quite find the word for it, but he was just gone. His posture was blank. His shoulders were blank. His eyes were blank. He was like a pod person.
He still did everything he was supposed to. He still walked me through all my paces. He showed up on time. He even went the extra mile to bring in experts to consult and make sure we were doing everything possible. But he never smiled. He never relaxed.
And not once after we came back from the lake did he call me Maggie again.
*
BY THURSDAY, WITH exactly a week to go until my insurance ran out and I had to go back to live with my parents, I couldn’t stand it anymore.
We’d all been on Toe Watch for days now, waiting for some new development—that hadn’t come. If anything, that one superstar big toe had become less reliable. Was my improvement stalled because Ian was being weird? Either way, it couldn’t be helping. Time was running out. I didn’t want a robot for a PT.
That night, when Ian came to tutor, I told him I wanted someone new.
I’d hoped for some kind of reaction—a flash of disappointment across his face, some human curiosity about why, even irritation would have sufficed. But nothing.
“Okay,” Ian said, with all the emotion of a glass of milk. “If you think that’s best.”
“I should probably change trainers in the gym, as well,” I added.
No reaction there, either. “I understand,” Ian said. “If you wouldn’t mind letting me arrange the switch, it might give Myles one less reason to fire me.”
“That’s fine,” I said.
“I’ll find you someone good.” His poker face broke my heart.
“Great.”
Ian headed toward the door, but I called his name. He turned back.
This might be the last time I’d see him. I couldn’t stand the idea that he’d always remember me as a pathetic, lovesick, delusional girl. I didn’t want to be the only one who cared. If he could be a robot, so could I. “Thanks for your restraint at the lake, by the way. I cannot imagine what I was thinking.”
Ian gave a sad smile. “What restraint at what lake?”
And we left it at that.
*
LATER THAT NIGHT, with a week minus one day until Kit’s first-of-April Valentine’s Day party, I asked her to call it off.
“I can’t,” she said. “I’ve rented a karaoke machine.”
I held my hands out, like, So? “Unrent it!”
She mirrored the gesture. “Nonrefundable deposit!”
We were eating enormous taco salads in bowls made of taco shells.
Kit went on, “Plus, I’ve got a batch of kids popping in early to cut construction paper hearts, I’ve got a guy named Rodrigo bringing his garage mariachi band to play for free, I’ve bought the decorations and over a hundred heart-shaped cookies, I’ve invited everybody on the floor and all the nurses, and I frigging love Valentine’s Day. And so should you.”
“It’s not Valentine’s Day,” I said.
“That’s a bad attitude, right there.”
“Damn right it is.”
“You don’t have to like it,” Kit said. “You just have to come.”
“I’m not coming.”
She stopped chewing. “You have to!”
I shook my head. “I have one week left. There’s no time for parties. I am not screwing around.”
“But it will be my last night—and yours!”
“That’s why you should cancel the party and spend it with me.”
*
SHE DIDN’T CANCEL the party. I spent the following days meeting my new PT, working with my new PT, and doing tutoring in the evenings with my new PT—and Kit spent them cutting heart decorations out of construction paper.
The new PT was Rob-with-the-Man-Bun—the one I’d wished for early on. Without a doubt, he was the perkiest and flirtiest of everybody. He had huge energy and a laugh like a trumpet blast. I’d heard it a million times in the background in the gym, and I’d always assumed he was laughing like that because something was wildly funny. I had often wondered how he and his patients had managed to generate so much comedy from activities like riding the stationary bike, and I confess I’d mentally criticized Ian for being so serious.
But now, in this final week, working with Man-Bun-Rob, I came to realize something: That laugh was fake.
He was overlaughing. He was pretending things were a thousand times funnier than they were. I’d crack the tiniest little nonjoke, and he’d throw his head back and absolutely bellow. That was worse—far worse—than not laughing at all.
Within hours of first starting to work with Rob, I grew to hate that laugh so much, it drove me to silence. I didn’t want to do anything to provoke it. But even that didn’t work. When he couldn’t get anything out of me, he’d turn to other patients and other trainers—and pretend to laugh at their unfunny jokes.
Out of the frying pan into the fire.
But at least I wasn’t tragically, unrequitedly in love with him. At least he had never given me a life-altering kiss and then said, “You know what? Never mind.”
At least I knew I didn’t like him.
Simple.
I could just concentrate on my recovery. Or lack thereof.
Every time I went to PT now, I worried Ian would be in the gym. Usually, he was, working with someone else—which, no matter if it was an elderly bald man or a postmenopausal lady, made me jealous. I’d steal glances at him over and over, but he never looked at me or even seemed to notice I was there.
I guess that’s what happens when you push people away.
Though, to be fair, he pushed me first.
The person in the gym who did notice me was Myles.
He checked on me much more often now that Ian was across the room.
“Doing all right?” he’d say, materializing from behind a post.
“Fine, thanks,” I’d say, not making eye contact.
Sometimes he prodded me about Ian. “Didn’t work out with you two, huh?”
Was he tricking me when he did that? Was he trying to goad me into getting Ian in trouble?
“It worked out great,” I said, thinking fast.
“So well,” Myles pressed, “that you requested another PT?”
“It was Ian’s idea,” I said. Lying.
Myles tilted his head like I was the biggest liar ever. “Really?”