It was almost lunch time, Sarah and Jack had been working for over two hours. Jack was exhausted, but tried to hide it. Sarah was worried but knew not to tell him in those words, it would only frustrate him more.
"You know," she said matter-of-factly as she watched Jack wince in pain, "I think I may have been misled by your friends."
"What do you mean," Jack grunted, still laid on the mat on the floor, wanting to do another set of exercises.
"I was painted the image of a very smart man, thought you were quite the intellectual. Now I'm thinking you're just plain damn stupid."
Rolling his eyes Jack slowly lowered his leg to the floor and pushed himself into a sitting position, leaning against the bed. He closed his eyes for a moment as he tried to catch his breath. He was angered by the fact that such a simple task could be so tiring, he would never get back into shape. As he spoke he wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Is it a crime to want to get better?"
"No but some would argue that self harm is a crime." Without realising it she had hit a nerve, a very deep and painful nerve.
"I wouldn't say I had a hand in what happened to my foot," he snapped, "in fact," he added, even louder, "I'd say me entire condition was out of my God damn hands."
Quieter now, Sarah spoke again. She refused to apologise, knowing that it would not help him. She had to be firm otherwise he could hurt himself. "Jack do you remember when we brought you back to America?"
"What's that got to do with anything," he growled.
"Do you remember? When you first woke up and were cohesive?"
"Yes," he admitted quietly, his eyes fell closed once more.
"The first thing you thought about was your foot, right?"
Jack shook his head in agreement.
"I was there Jack, I saw you and how worried you were. When we helped you up and you were able to see it was still there at all, you were almost drowning in relief. If you keep doing this to yourself you're going to lose your ability to function it, and possibly damage it even more. Is that what you want?"
"You know its not," he said softly, angry at himself and everything else, his head was a mess.
"I know how much you want this to get better, but take it easy. Your doing better physically, almost all your wounds have healed perfectly, even your ribs are fine and you know how much trouble they were causing the doctors," she chuckled. "The cuts and bruises are gone, even the scarring is minimal and we both know how lucky you were with that."
Again Jack nodded, remembering how unlucky he had bee with the first bout of torture he had endured, the burns still marked his skin, over two years later.
"We even sorted your knee out for Gods sake! You know how pessimistic the specialist was about recovering the knee cap, he wanted to take it out! But he took the risk and it worked out perfectly, movements back up to 100 and, quoting yourself, the pain is bearable. Few weeks tops and it will be gone."
She paused hoping Jack would say anything, show some sign that her encouragement was working but he stayed silent.
"Jack this foot is all that's holding you back. I understand that its getting you down and I will do all I can to help you, but if you push it you will damage your chances of walking unassisted again. That's not what we want. If we slow it down, you'll be moving about easier, in no time."
Jack looked up at her, his eyes slightly red.
"I'm sorry for being so bad tempered."
"Hey! Don't apologise for anything. Your emotions are all over the place - its natural. Once we do more work your foot will feel better, and so will your mood. Just take it slow."
"Do you really think I'll regain all function, like with my knee?"
"There's no true answer to that," she said softly, not daring to lie to him.
Jack set about pulling himself up from the mat, and then hopped on his good leg painfully slowly over to the chair with the help of one of the crutches. Sarah knew her help was not wanted, but she took his use of the crutch as a sign that he had accepted her pleas and smiled.
"I hope so," she added, feeling sorry for him.
"Me too," he muttered, dropping the crutch to the floor with a defiant clatter.