Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 21955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
“Come on,” he said.
“Whose house is this?”
“I was hoping it would be your wedding present. From me.”
I could feel my mouth falling open as I looked back at the house. The long lake-facing side of the place had a deep porch extending for its whole length. Wide stairs led up to it at the center, and also, on the end closest to where we’d parked, there was a ramp.
A handicapped ramp.
I pounded up the steps and waited for Nick to unlock the door. When he opened it, I noticed how wide it was, and how there was no bump between the porch and the floor inside, just a smooth transition. When you’ve spent time in a wheelchair, you notice these things. We entered into a foyer, but where I expected to see a staircase, there was an ornate set of what could only be elevator doors.
I looked at Nick, and I know my mouth was hanging open in shock. He shrugged his shoulders.
To the right of the foyer was a huge room with a stone fireplace and a whole wall of windows. There were polished, exposed beams and beautiful woodwork everywhere, but no furniture. We passed on to the kitchen, another big bright room, and I noticed that on one side, the granite countertops were lower than normal, with no cabinets under them. A person in a wheelchair could easily move close to one of those counters and chop vegetables or stir up cookie dough.
“Whose house is this?” I asked again.
“When I had it built, I hoped that someday it would be yours. Ours.”
“I can’t…. I’m not getting it. Tell me from the beginning.”
He led the way back out onto the porch, and we sat down on the broad steps. He looked out over the lake for a while before he started talking.
“When I left you in the ICU, I was a mess. I didn’t sleep, didn’t eat. Then I started taking double the amount of courses at school. Just threw myself into working. I studied all the time, and spent the rest in the gym. And it was just…nothing. I graduated and got a job delivering pizza while I worked on the fitness app. I thought, if I could just work hard enough, I could forget about you and how everything got snatched away from us.”
I took his hand. Just to be nice, you know.
“And then the app was done and it took off like crazy, but I couldn’t really feel it. Everything was empty. Once I’d made all the money, all these women just came out of the woodwork, and I thought, okay now I’ll find someone to help me move on. But they didn’t know me. They didn’t want to know me, as long as I stayed rich. Julia, all I could think about was you.” He looked across the lake, and sighed. A bird was flying across the lake, just a foot above the surface of the water.
“So I thought of a plan. How I could at least make you think better of me. Show you how much you meant to me. Maybe get to see you once in a while. Because all this time, no matter how crazy this sounds, to me we were still engaged. And even if I didn’t end up getting to marry you, just seeing you a little bit was better than life without you. But still I hoped. I dreamed that someday we would get married and have a family. And so I got the land out here where we had our only day together, and built this house. It was like a good luck charm.”
“Pretty big for a good luck charm,” I said, but I said it gently.
“This is what I mean, that I can prove it. That I didn’t care about you being disabled. When I pictured us living here together, having kids, all that stuff—I always pictured you in the wheelchair.”
We sat without saying anything for a long time, watching the birds wheel above the water in the sunset light. So many things were whirling around in my head. Could I really have been this wrong about him all the time?
“Wow. Nick, I don’t know what to say.”
“Say that you’ll give me a chance. Let me make it up to you for leaving like I did.”
“But wait! You’re leaving again—you said so back at the hospital!”
“No I didn’t!” He actually laughed, a big belly laugh. “Julia, I said something like I couldn’t wait to get started, or get going. I didn’t say I was leaving.”
“Then what was all that texting about?”
“I applied to the Physical Therapist program here at the university—it’s a master’s degree. I got in!”
“What? But you don’t need to work!”
“I don’t need to for the money, but I have to. For me. What am I going to do all day, for the rest of my life? I worked with a lot of PTs when I made the app—they wanted it for their patients. And I really want to do that kind of work, help people with their pain, that kind of stuff.”