Disclaimer: As before

Author's Note: This seems to be the way I start all of my updates lately (ha, I say that like I have actually been updating lately!) but I am so sorry it's been such an enormously long time since I've last updated this. Life has just really run away with itself and on the rare occasions I have had ten minutes to sit down, I've been too exhausted to write. However, here's a chapter now – consider it a slightly early Christmas present! I would absolutely love it if you have the time to leave me a review but completely understand if you don't!

Baton Rouge

July 14th 2007

To My Roomie

Before I start, I'd just like to say sorry that it's taken me so long to reply to your last letter – two weeks is damn poor I know, although in my defence, I have called you three times so it's not all bad! Still, even though I love hearing you, there's nothing like the kick I get out of seeing an envelope with your handwriting on it hit the mat, so I'm sorry that I've deprived you of that for a fortnight!!

I know I said so on the phone, but Brett coming to visit for Fourth of July was awesome; thank you so much for organising that surprise for me. Mom was out and I couldn't believe it when I answered the door and he was standing there. Admittedly he lacks a few of your rather more feminine charms, and it was a kinda hot day and he'd been sitting on a plane for hours so he didn't smell exactly like a bunch of roses… haha, I'm not really selling it, am I? But it was as you might say, bloody amazing (I love it when you say "bloody") and having him there almost made up for missing out on seeing you.

We didn't exactly tear it up, but we hit a few bars – with disabled access of course, not quite good enough on the new legs to add alcohol to the mix!! Even though I was in the chair, just being out in a bar, drinking with Brett (in moderation sadly; I'm scaling back on the meds now but there's still a few that you wouldn't want to mix with a bottle of tequila) made me feel so normal again.

Not entirely as if none of it had happened because there's always one dickhead who's going to give you a funny look, but I was in a bar, there was a baseball game on a big screen and a bottle of Bud in my hand and I was me again. It was such a simple thing, but finally, after all this time, I was sitting there and I suddenly realised I was Ray Barnett again. I was who I remembered myself to be a long time ago before everything got so fucked up. I was just a normal guy spending a Friday night hanging out in a bar with his best mate drinking a few beers and talking about sport and music and all sorts of meaningless crap and it felt fantastic.

Which, of course, was down to you. I've spoken to Brett quite often on the phone and stuff, but he said he wouldn't have thought to come and visit so soon without you calling and suggesting it. I think he was quite surprised actually how much progress I'd made. He was still shocked at the stumps, although he did a pretty good job of hiding it (I know him too well though) but I think he was expecting me to be some bedridden invalid so I'm glad he was pleasantly surprised.

The weekend was kind of a turning point for me though. I knew I was getting my head together with regards to the amputation, but I knew that I'd still lost myself somewhere along the way these last couple of years and wasn't quite sure where to go looking. Well, I think I'm there now. It's been a mixture of things – talking, well, writing through the stuff with you, getting away from County, spending time with my Mom again, and now this weekend with Brett. But I'm there now. I'm back. I'm me.

Naturally, all that has made me even more impatient in my PT sessions. It's all still going well, but now I feel like what I want, who I want to be, is within my grasp, it drives me mad that my body isn't quite there yet. I'm inching closer though. I can walk the length of the bars now without too much pain and it doesn't make me as puffed as it used to. I want to have a go with crutches but they're making me hang fire a bit. I know they're right, but… (I shrugged there, you probably didn't get that from just reading!) Oh, and what you said in your last letter, about imagining that you're there – I do, all the time. It's what gives me the strength to drag myself out of bed to the gym, to PT, to the dozens of different doctors and specialists I seem to have to see.

I know what you mean about the closeness. I know there's always been something between us, call it what you will, but it was always unspoken, never quite out in the open although we both knew it was there. And now it is right out there, on paper, in black and white, and that feels so damn good. I don't know what you were scared of either to be honest, but I'm glad that you're not anymore. There isn't anything to be scared of. Not with me, not ever.

You said that you hoped Dubenko would give you some time off when you'd finished your internship – that would be around the end of August right? Do you want to organise to come down here yet, or wait for a bit? Whichever, just let me know the dates, flight times and stuff and I'll organise things this end (and by that I mean go out and hire every single devil movie at the video store) Promise me it won't be too long!

You asked me where I read your letters. The first one I read in my room. Mom gave it to me after I'd got home from a really long hard PT session and I didn't think I even had the energy to hold the piece of paper in my hand so I got myself into bed and read it there. My whole body ached and every muscle was screaming in agony, but as I read your words and heard your voice, it all seemed to fade away. Now I can get about a lot more, and I like to read them outside. There's a park a couple of blocks away and if I have the time and it's not too hot, I wheel myself down there and sit by the lake so I can pretend it's a slightly warmer version of Lake Michigan and I'm there in Chicago with you and not hundreds of miles away. I have read a couple out on the back porch, but as the post tends to arrive in the morning Neela, the sun isn't normally setting – sorry to burst your bubble! If you want, I'll save the next one til the evening so I can fulfil your little fantasy! (If there's any other fantasies you would like me to fulfil, just let me know and I will be more than happy to oblige!!!!)

I hate to say this but I'm kind of pressed for time right now. My Dad's meant to be calling in soon – not sure whether he will or not, but he's in the area and when he is, he usually manages to stop by, so…

I know there's heaps of things that you brought up in your last letter than we haven't really talked about over the phone, and I wish I had time to now, but for the moment, this will have to do: Let's make this an 'us'. It's our decision after all. If we think we're ready, then we are. Personally, I think we've wasted enough time. If someone asks me, do you have a girlfriend, I want to be able to say "yes" rather than "well, there is a girl, but things are complicated between us because she married someone else, I didn't have the guts to tell her how I felt then after a lot of pain and loss and messing things up we missed our chance because I ended up under a truck"… Haha, see why I just want to go for the "yes"?

So anyway, just so you know, next time someone asks me, I'm gonna go for the "yes".

The rest of it I promise to get round to next time.

R