AN: I'm ashamed in myself that it's taken this long to update. This chapter's been half written on my harddrive for the last month, but I got so wrapped up in everything else that I haven't had the time or inspiration to finish. Turns out it's much easier for me to write plot-driven things than emotional character-driven stories like this one. But I promise I won't abandon this, and it will be finished before Christmas. Hopefully long before that, but I'll be realistic and give myself some wiggle room just in case. The last big hurdle is soon and then this story will be winding down to its conclusion.
Chapter 11 – Finding the Middle Ground
Hayden is twisting his cane in his hands and he keeps staring at the middle of the floor. I can't really figure out his face, 'cause he looks sad and mad and scared and happy all together, and that just doesn't make any sense.
"Hey Artie," he says. "How, uh, how are you doing?"
"I'm okay," I say, slow-like 'cause I'm still kinda confused at what's going. 'Cause I'm mad at him, and he's mad at me, but he's still here.
"Cool," he says and he's moving all nervous-like. "Cool. Well that's good."
"Uh, yeah."
"Cool," he says again. "Um, well I'm glad you're better. I'm gonna go." He just walks away. And then walks back. "And I'm sorry. For fighting, and the piano thing and 'cause you got hurt. That – that wasn't 'cause of me, was it?"
"No," I say. Why would it be his fault? "The doctor said it was from my surgery and it just got real bad."
Hayden's shoulders go down and he nods. "Oh, good. Well, uh, night." And then he walks away again, and this time he doesn't come back. I just kinda stare at the doorway for a little bit, feeling real confused, and then I just give up. 'Cause I'm still tired from all the medicines I have to take, and right now I think maybe I just want to sleep. So I put my book away and turn off the light and go to bed.
Gary wakes me up again in the morning for breakfast and I grumble lots 'cause I'm still kinda sleepy and I was having a really cool dream about flying dinosaurs before he made me wake up, but now I can't remember all of it. The day feels kind of normal again, 'cause after breakfast we go to the gym and we do stretches and exercises just like on a normal day. 'Cept I don't have to stretch as hard 'cause Gary says we gotta work me into the exercises again from being hurt.
Then after lunch we gotta go to group therapy. I don't wanna go 'cause I never do, but Gary won't let me skip it and he follows me all the way to the big empty room where the little circle of chairs is all set up. I push my chair into an open spot where there ain't no chairs, and Gary sits down in a chair back against the wall and pulls out a book. "Hi there, Artie, how are you doing today?" Dr. Mary says in that voice people use to talk to little babies that makes me feel crazy and angry.
"Good," I say just so she will stop staring at me with those creepy huge grey eyes. They're like ghost eyes or something, 'cause they're way scary looking, and when she smiles they kind of make her look like a crazy person from a Halloween movie.
"That's wonderful to hear," she says and she does that way big smile that looks like that bad guy clown from the Batman cartoon I watch at home. "It's so good to have you back with us again. We missed you on Tuesday." And I just kinda nod 'cause I really don't think that the other peoples cared that I was gone, 'cause it's just group and people don't show up lots of times.
Just before we start the group, Hayden comes in with his nurse Maggie, and today he finds a chair to sit in by himself instead of her taking him to one. He's 'cross the circle from me and I kinda watch him. It's still confusing that he comed by my room last night. I shoved him and he was way mad at me and I didn't think we're gonna be friends no more 'cause he lied to me and I pushed him. But then Gary says Hayden was way scared when I was hurt and then he was sorry last night. It don't make sense.
Still, it don't mean I wanna say sorry to him and be friends. 'Cause he still lied about the piano and I'm still mad about that. I'm still a freak.
I don't say nothing during group again, but I never do so that's normal. Hayden don't neither, just stares at the floor and rolls his cane in his hands. Dr. Mary talks a lot about goals and how they're super important, and some of the other people talk about goals they make to get better. I don't listen much. I wanna make a goal so I can walk, but that won't work. I guess my goal just gots to be getting better enough to go home.
When Dr. Mary says we can all go, I sit and wait for the lots of people to move out of my way. It makes me way surprised when I hear someone say my name, and when I look up it's Hayden, and he's walking across the room to me with Maggie leading him. "Artie, can I talk to you for a sec?" he asks and I can tell he's super nervous 'cause he's playing piano on his leg really fast.
"Yeah, I guess so," I say, 'cause I'm still mad at him but he's being weird and things are confusing and now I'm kinda curious.
"Okay cool," he says and he kinda smiles a little bit. "Well I'm sorry about the thing with the piano, and I kinda wanted to make it better, 'cause I guess I shoulda told you but I didn't think about it and now I feel bad. So I got a bit of a surprise for you. Come with me?"
"Uh, sure," I say, real curious now. He got me a surprise? Like a present?
Hayden lets go of Maggie's arm and he grabs the handles on the back of my chair. "Okay, lead us to my room then, would you?" he says and I start pushing us out behind the last of the other people leaving. Gary and Maggie walk behind us a little ways back and I go down to the hallway I know Hayden's room is in, 'cept I don't know which room is his. "Oh, room twenty-six," he says when I slow down to ask. "It's the third door on the right side. I forgot you hadn't been to my room yet."
I push my chair down to the door he said and then he walks around me to go in the room first. I follow him and look around curious like. It's the same funky green color like mine, but it doesn't have all the metal bars and stuff in the walls so it looks like a normal room 'stead of a spaceship. There's a book on the desk that's open, but it doesn't have no words on the pages, just the little bumpy dots that blind people read. When I stare at them, I'm real glad I'm not blind 'cause I can't figure out how those little bumps are supposed to be words. Normal words are confusing enough already.
"Alright," Hayden says and he turns around so he's kinda facing me 'cept he's looking way off to my right side. "So I feel really bad about what happened 'cause I could tell you really liked being able to learn music. And I like being able to share that with you, 'cause music is like the only thing that's keeping me from going totally crazy in this place. So I was thinking about it for the last couple days and I think I figured something out that will work. I had my mom bring it up for me this morning, if you wanna give it a try." He turns and goes to the dresser and then he pulls out a big clunky black case that's leaning against the wall behind it. It's a funky shaped thing, really big on one end and then kinda tinier on the other, but I don't make a guess at what it is before he lays it down on the bed and starts opening it.
And then he pulls out the most awesomest thing ever.
It's a guitar. Not one of the weird shaped colored ones you gotta plug into a box, but one of those shiny wood ones that looks like an old cowboy guitar. 'Cept this one's all a really shiny black with cool little white patterns around the hole in the middle of it. And the long skinny part where the strings go across is painted black and white so it looks like piano keys.
"I'm not quite as good at playing this as I am the piano," Hayden says kinda fast, "but it's an instrument you can play and you don't have to use your feet at all, so I thought that maybe if you still wanted to learn music then I could teach you on this. I figure you're not way too much smaller than me so you should be able to hold this alright. You know, if you wanna."
"You wanna teach me to play a guitar?" I ask, still staring at the guitar with my eyes all huge. I've only ever seen real cool people playing guitars. Cool people like rockstars. And I can do it without my feet, so even in a stupid wheelchair, I can maybe be cool like a rockstar too. "Awesome!"
Hayden smiles real big and I smile too, 'cause this is super cool. He puts the big clunky guitar case in the corner of the room and then I roll over to be by the bed. It's a lot higher up than my bed and I get a kinda sick feeling in my stomach. 'Cause there's no way I'm gonna be able to get up on that bed by myself. But I don't gotta, 'cause Hayden finds the chair from by his desk and pulls it over and he sits down by me.
"Okay, let's figure how we're gonna do this," Hayden says and he kinda sounds like he's talking to himself. He puts the guitar in his lap and says, "See how I'm holding it? How I got this part propped up on my leg like this? Think maybe we can do that with the arm of your chair?" He holds the guitar to me and I take it careful like, 'cause I don't wanna break it. I bump it on the arm of my chair when I try to turn it around and it makes a loud hummy sound, but when I say sorry Hayden just shakes his head. "As long as you don't put a hole in it we'll be fine," he says and laughs.
It takes a lot of moving it around and Hayden has to help me make it lay the right way, but then we finally make it look kinda like it did in his lap. The curvy-in part is propped up on the arm of my chair and I got one hand on the long part – neck, he says it's called – and my other arm hangs over the top of the big part so I can touch the strings. "It worked," I say with a big smile.
"Cool," Hayden says and he's smiling lots too. "So, wanna get started?" I say yes and he starts teaching me all the parts of the guitar and how I'm s'ppose to push my fingers on the strings and how to strum them so they make sounds. It's a little weird when he teaches me the notes 'cause he can't see to make sure I do it right, so he grabs my hand and puts my fingers in the right places, and then tells me what the note is that I'm making. It's all a little confusing, 'cause I only know a little bit about notes and the letters from when he teached me songs on the piano, but I try to learn them all and by the time Gary and Maggie come say it's time for dinner, I can remember all the notes on two whole strings and play them right most the time when he tells me to.
And when I put the guitar in the case like Hayden says to and I close it up, I smile real big and I feel really really good. 'Cause for the first time since the accident I know something for absolute certain.
Wheelchair or not, I'm gonna be a rockstar someday.
. . . . .
"So that's how you started playing?" Tina asks. Sometime during the last few minutes she sat up so she could face me, watching me with rapt attention. With her wide eyed focus, I honestly think she kind of reminds me of my little sister but I figure it's probably safer to keep that idea to myself.
"He knew how much music was helping him get better and he wanted to be able to keep sharing that with me, so he found something we could both manage," I explain with a small smile. "Sort of a middle ground. It was a challenge for both of us. He'd been studying music since he was five so he understood notes forwards and backwards, but I'd never even seen sheet music before. And he got frustrated with himself because he had a hard time playing the guitar without being able to see. Piano was second nature to him, but guitar was newer for him and he didn't have it down quite as well."
"Sounds tense," Tina says and raises an eyebrow curiously.
"Oh it definitely had its moments," I agree. "I think he got frustrated just as much as I did, and it led to a lot of fights. Never anything really serious like before, but we snapped at each other a lot and there'd be a night where we would be so mad at each other we wouldn't talk. And then the next morning we just got over it and went right back to work. I think it helped that we both understood what the other was going through, adjusting to our disabilities and all. And being the only young people living in this place full of adults."
Tina smiles and leans against the headboard beside me again. "It was good that you were there for each other then," she says. "What would it have been like if you hadn't met? That was some lucky timing that put you both there together."
I let out a derisive snort. "Oh trust me, luck had nothing to do with it."
