He picks it up -- clumsy, the bandages impeding movement but somehow he manages.
I can't do this anymore.
Shaking arms don't lie like a straight face.
Hands envelope hand, the resulting warmth unlike that of frigid hospital air.
Without you, I can't either.
No tears, just torn hearts.
The hands that encircle the grip, nimble fingers that touch every memory of past mistakes and successes -- chipped plastic and shallow scratches were the souvenirs of those trips.
You have good hands, he says seriously, yet a small smile of doubt forms on the other's lips.
If I can't use them, his voice wavers but this fault is overridden smoothly, then it's nothing to be proud of.
A silence as both search for words, words which are hopelessly out of reach.
Actions, surely, speak louder.
I'm sorry, he catches the hand running down the side of his face from the wrist, stopping it.
Don't be, and faces come together and touch as they break free of the bonds which never existed in the first place -- it seems they have only just realized this.
The sheets of the hospital bed rustle like leaves, and the tennis racket falls to the floor.
He took his hands, and entered a whole new world.