Hello again! So apparently it's going to keep taking me about 2 weeks for each chapter. Sorry about the wait!
Disclaimer: As much as I wish it was, Twilight ain't mine. But the ideas here are, so please don't steal 'em!
Amputated. Amputated. Amputated. Amputated
The word plays in my head on repeat.
I'm trying to pay attention to what this girl is telling me and my parents because I get the feeling that it's important, but I can't seem to get past that word. Amputated. Amputee. I know what it means but I can't seem to merge my understanding of it with my understanding of myself. The two do not go together.
I'm Edward Cullen. I'm a solider. I'm an athlete. I'm a man.
I can't see how having one fucking leg can go along with any of those.
"… working on positioning and a few other important things to keep up with in the remaining joints." I catch back on to what the physical therapist is saying as she lowers the rail on the side of the bed.
"We need to make sure that you keep the left leg in a specific position so you don't get a contracture. Basically we want to keep the limb out of a position where the muscles might shorten up on you."
She reaches for my leg and I flinch instinctually. The movement causes a freakishly terrible pain to shoot up my leg and I hiss.
"Don't fucking touch me!" I yell at her.
"Edward!" My mom reprimands me while my father stands up out of his chair.
"Now son," he says, "I know this is a lot to take in, but that's no reason to speak to anyone that way. She's here to help you."
"A lot to take in? A lot to take in would be my unit being involved in a blast. A lot to take in would be getting injured. A lot to take in would be one of my fellow soldiers dying." My arms are flinging and I feel my face getting hot as I continue yelling.
"This is more than a fucking lot to take in! This is totally fucking ridiculous. I wake up in a hospital and I don't even know where the hell I am, my parents are here and you tell me I was involved in a blast where everyone else died and I lost my fucking leg!"
My mom covers her mouth as I see tears run down her cheeks. My father moves towards me but the physical therapist puts her hand up to stop him.
"Edward, I know this is a scary time right now, but you need to calm down. Your rehabilitation needs to effective starting today for it to be successful." She tells me in a soft, calm voice that I know is reserved for moments with difficult patients. She sits down on the side of the bed and reaches for my leg again.
"Seriously, you need to get the fuck away from me right now." I see her eyes widen at my low, threatening tone and she gets up.
"Okay, I'll leave you alone. I'm going to have to come back tomorrow, alright? You don't really have an option at this point. And that's only because it's the end of the day already."
Seriously, this is ridiculous. There is now way this shit is actually happening to me. Who the fuck does she think she is, telling me what I can and can't do? I can't even remember her goddamn name right now.
This whole situation is seriously pissing me off.
"The fuck I don't have an option. Who the fuck do you think you are, telling me I don't have a choice? I'll make whatever choices I want to about whatever I want to make them about !"
Just to prove my point, I decide to make the choice to not be an amputee. I can do that right? If I refuse to acknowledge it, there's no way it can be real.
She opens her mouth to say something, but I quickly cut her off, moving to sit at the side of my bed, trying to ignore the burning pain in the remainder of my left leg.
"I'm done with this shit. I'm getting the fuck out of here." I move to stand up and feel something pulling at my arm. Looking down, I see an IV and pull it out.
"Edward, you need to calm down. You're right, you don't have to do anything you want to do. But you need to be safe right now. Just lay back down and I'll get your doctor, and we can all talk about this." I can hear the panic evident in her tone. Serves her right, thinking she can tell me what I can and can't do with my life right now.
"Fuck that. I'm leaving this bullshit hospital."
I grab the table at the side of my bed and pull myself up to a standing position, a triumphant smile on my face. Take that bossy-know-it-all-physical-therapist-bitch.
"No, no, no, no, Edward, no." She takes a step towards me again, moving like she's going to help me or something.
"I said, leave me alone!" I yell, releasing my grip on the side table as I fling my arm out.
At which point I promptly face plant onto the hospital room floor.
Fuck, that really wasn't what I was going for.
xxx
Once the nurses have come and helped the therapist get me back into bed, my mood is worse than ever.
I can't believe I couldn't even stand up without fucking falling down.
As I'm laying back in bed, continuing with my self pity fest, the door opens and a man with a definite hard edge walks in wearing a white coat.
"Hello Edward, Esme, Carlisle." He says, addressing me and my parents like he knows them.
"You weren't awake when I was here previously, and I've heard it didn't go over so well when Bella came by earlier to start with your PT." He addresses me.
"I'm Dr. Eleazar Denali, the rehabilitation doctor who is overseeing your case. I know this is a big change for you, but this will all work a lot better if you can attempt to cooperate and be an active participant in your own care." He says.
I just look at him, trying to make my stare blank. He goes on, telling me about how lucky I am to be alive after an accident of the magnitude of the one I was involved in and the risks of infection after a traumatic amputation such as mine.
That makes me want to puke. I may be medicated but I'm alert enough to understand he's telling me that the amputation of my leg occurred out there in Afghanistan. I hate feeling like I've literally left such an important part of me back in that country.
The focus of my gaze moves down to where my left foot should be. Dr. Denali continues talking about the procedures that were performed and my prognosis and such, but I can't find it in me to care enough to really pay attention.
"Edward, I won't lie to you," he sighs, gaining my attention again, "this is not going to be an easy process. I won't pretend to try to know how it feels, but you do need to realize how fortunate you are that you are alive. Try to keep that in mind in the next few days."
With what I am sure is supposed to be a reassuring pat on my arm and a handshake with my father, he leaves.
I just continue staring at my foot, as if it will somehow magically reappear.
"Son, your doctor is right. I know you're feeling a lot of terrible things right now, but you are alive and that's the important thing." My father tells me.
"Your mother and I are here for you, okay? Whatever you need from us, that's what we'll do. The hospital has already started helping us look for a temporary apartment around here."
"We're here for you, Edward. You're not alone." My mother's voice is still heavily laced with tears, as it has been all day.
"Honestly guys? I really just want to be alone."
"Alright, Esme, let's run down to that cafeteria and see just how bad the coffee is."
"No guys,"' I say, my exasperation evident in my voice, "can you just please leave me alone for the night? I-I don't know, I just need all this pressure to go away."
"Oh, honey, nobody's trying to pressure you into any-"
"Esme, come on. If he wants to be alone, let's leave him alone." My father cuts my mom off mid-sentence. She opens her mouth like she's about to protest, then decides better of it.
She gives me a tight smile and a nod, and with hugs from both my parents, they're gone.
XXX
After a not so restful night which included frequent wake up calls courtesy of my nurses, alarms and my racing thoughts, I'm woken up by a nurse I haven't seen before.
"Alright kiddo, time to get up and at 'em."
She introduces herself to me as Maggie, and I instantly like her. She's short and a little chubby, most likely in her late thirties or early forties. Her Brooklyn accent is thick, but instead of sounding harsh, she actually sounds like the first person I want to hang out with around here.
"So what do you say to breakfast in the lounge this morning?" She asks me following an extremely embarrassing sponge bath.
"Lounge? I didn't know hospitals had such fun establishments."
"Oh sweetie, the lounge is where it's at. And honestly, I think it would do you some good to quit holing yourself up in this room of yours."
Although it's less embarrassing than the sponge bath, I still cringe when she has to give me an incredible amount of help moving from my bed to a wheelchair. The wheelchair has a little platform for the stump on my left, keeping it straight up and highlighting the amputation for anyone who didn't notice it already.
She wheels me down a few hallways before pushing me into a large room lined with tables full of soldiers in varying states of disability shoveling food in their mouths.
Even though it's slightly different, this is finally a scene I'm somewhat familiar with.
She parks me at a table with some room available and is met with a raucous chorus of jovial greetings from the soldiers already seated there. Apparently I'm not the only member of the Nurse Maggie fan club.
"Alright boys, this here is Edward and he's a newbie. Try not to scare him too much for me, huh?"
"Well seriously Maggie, then you shouldn't have sat him over here if you wanted to keep him out of trouble." The guy sitting to my left jokes with her, his voice heavily with a Texas drawl.
As him and a few other soldiers continue to joke with her, I take a moment to take them in. The Texas guy sitting next to me seems tall and lanky, with a long mop of curly dirty blonde hair almost as unruly as mine. He's eating extremely slowly with one hand, his other arm missing above the elbow.
Across from me is one of the biggest guys I've ever seen in person, tall and broad and just overall huge, even though he's sitting in a wheelchair similar to mine. One of his legs is also propped up, but it's in this cage thing with pins that look like they go straight into his skin. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm not jealous.
"Ok Eddie, I'm going to leave you here with these fools, against my better judgement." She says, handing me a paper. "Here's your schedule for today. I'll see you later."
I glance at the paper and see I have physical therapy in about an hour. Awesome.
"So what are you in for, man?" The huge one asks me. I'm surprised I can make out his words he's shoveling food in his mouth at such a fast rate.
"Ah, I got one of my legs amputated." I'm not really sure what the protocol is for discussing injuries here.
"Well that sucks. They thought they were going to have to chop off mine, but luckily I'm just stuck with this dumb ass contraption." He gestures towards his leg cage thing. "I'm Emmet McCarty by the way. The one armed wonder over there is Jasper Whitlock."
"Nice to meet you guys. Well, you know, even under these circumstances. I'm Edward, Edward Cullen." I'm not really sure what the proper greetings are when two of us are in wheelchairs and the other is missing an arm, so I just sit there.
Jasper gives me a smile between shoving food in his mouth. Suddenly a tray is placed in front of me, with absolutely nothing that resembles anything edible on it.
"Don't worry, it tastes better than it looks," Jasper tells me as I poke at a patty of what I think is supposed to be some sort of breakfast meat.
"Thanks for the advice," I chuckle. "Any other words of wisdom for surviving life in this place?" I ask, attempting to eat.
"Well man, it ain't no barrel of laughs, that's for sure. But don't piss of the nurses or the physical therapists and you should be just fine." Emmett says with a chuckle.
"Uh, why's that?" I say, scratching the back of my neck and trying not to look too sheepish.
"Cause they're the ones who can make your life hell." Emmett says, and I wonder how he can be in such a good mood in his situation.
"Oh. Okay." I'm not really sure what I should say to that.
"Hah! You already pissed someone off, didn't you?" Jasper points at me with the hand he still has intact.
Well, I mean, I don't think really, I just…" I trail off. "Yeah, I don't think my physical therapist is all too happy with me right now."
Emmett lets out a low whistle.
"That's bad news man. Who's been assigned to head up your torture?"
"Shit, I don't remember her name. Short, brown hair? She seemed pretty nice I guess." I still feel bad about what happened, and even worse now that I realize I can't even remember her name. I must have been a little more doped up than I thought the last few days.
"It's Bella, Edward, Bella Swan." A soft, female voice says from behind me. "And it's time for therapy."
"Ooh man. You're in for it." Jasper says between laughs.
"Sounds like you wanna be on my shit list too, Whitlock. We've got a session at 11:00 you know, plenty of time for me to come up with a new, harder treatment plan if you want." She says, still standing behind me.
"No ma'am."
"Calling me ma'am isn't helping your case." She tells him with a laugh, pulling my wheelchair away from the table. "Cullen and I are gonna head out now."
"Bye man! Good luck!" They call out to me as Bella wheels me down the hall.
She doesn't say much as we go, just asks me a few menial questions about how I'm feeling and how my stay was. I attempt to keep my answers as briefly as possible.
We end up in a huge room that looks like some sort of gym, but different than any one I've worked out in before. There are soldiers all around, in different states of injury, walking between railings, on exercise equipment and laying on mats.
"This is the main PT gym, Cullen. You're gonna get to know this place well while you're here."
I make some sort of noise as a response. I still don't see the point in working on anything, at the end of the day I'm still going to be missing my leg.
"Alright." She says, upbeat, though I can tell that's difficult for her to do. "We need to get started today with some education about what you're going to need to keep in mind during this process, then we'll get down and do some real work, okay?"
I sigh, any of the pleasantness of my earlier mood at breakfast completely gone. I didn't have to address this shit there.
"No, not okay. I don't want to do this. I didn't ask to do this. I'm not going to do this. Can't I just get healed up then go home?"
"For a grown man, you sure are acting like a child." She tells me, getting up and grabbing the handles of my chair forcefully.
"Where the fuck are we going now?" I ask, choosing not to address her earlier statement.
"Back to your room."
"Good." I say, glad someone's finally giving me what I want.
"Oh, don't be confused. We certaintly aren't done with this." She says, her voice taking on an authoritative tone I hadn't detected before.
We reach my room and she wheels my chair in, parking me just next to my hospital bed.
For what seems like forever, we just look at each other. She's still standing and I can't believe such a petite woman is making me feel so small in this chair. I can tell she's angry, and as I sit there staring her down I realize it makes her look hot. Like really, really hot.
"Well?" She asks. "Are you going to just sit there all day, or are you going to tell me why you insist on making my life so god damn difficult?"
Well there we go! Hopefully the longer chapter made up for the wait. Who's jealous of Nurse Maggie getting to give Edward a sponge bath? I know I am…
Please, please, please review!