Part 6: Meeting with the Fair Lady

Colby rolled his way into therapy much easier than he had maneuvered the wheelchair earlier in the week. Getting used to a bulky wheelchair wasn’t easy, but he managed well in the wide halls following the glass doors.

Ahh, Colby Dickens, right? The room was empty of people, except for Colby and the receptionist. He eyed her from chest up, that being all he could see across the polished desk. Her button-up shirt wasn’t buttoned all the way, and the thin, white undershirt was the only thing keeping her cleavage from peeking out. A few strands of blonde hair fell out of place as she looked up, partially covering one of two beautifully resilient blue eyes. She smiled quaintly.

“Yea, are you Amanda?” he replied. His gaze was locked by her infectious eyes. All he wanted to say was lost. He forgot how badly he wanted to be fixed, how badly he wanted to be an able body again. His eyes outlined her image, tracing some soft dirty-blonde hair down her cheek, the rigid stop where her jaw ended, following her jaw line clear to her chin. Her skin looked so soft, a slightly darker mole was the only thing interrupting the landscape he was following. Her skin reminded him of what a timothy field looked like as he was flying overhead, same color and consistency throughout her complexion. His eyes followed her lip line. No lipstick, he thought, and proceeded to venture south with his eyes. He sat there, motionless as she stood. He sat still as she approached him, almost forgetting to offer his hand out for a friendly handshake.

“I am. I hear you got yourself in quite an accident, that’s unfortunate.” She said, referencing that she actually did a little homework. Colby was amused at catching the fact.

“Mmm. Lucky for you!” He meant it as to say she was getting business out of the deal, but the tone suggested more of a conceited innuendo, more to the tone that he was lucky that she was his therapist.

She curled one end of her lips up. “And unfortunate for you.” She turned away as the other half of her lips to complete a full-fledged smile. “Okay, we don’t have a lot to do today; usually I get to know my patients, as a way of developing the best plan for them. What do you think you want?”

Colby’s mind turned in thoughts. He knew what he wanted right now. It took a moment to get back to recovery. “I want…” His eyes took on a new shine and he began to smile. “I want what every other guy wants when they come in here!”

“Okay. There are several approaches to this. We have to start slowly, build you into a routine. After that, we can push it to the limit, or we can move on steadily. The faster we go, the more stress and exhaustion you will experience, also more risk. Which do you choose?” That tuft of hair fell back down, and she brushed it away carelessly with the slight of her hand.

Colby looked around the room. He saw the weight equipment and some odd structures, wondering what they were for, and if he was going to use them. Posters covered some of the white walls, some talking of courage and some talking of perseverance, along with some others that were harder to read. “I will take the fast way,” he replied, staring now at a large bench towards the corner.

“Okay, the first thing we are going to focus on is your upper body strength. It should improve your lung function along with cardiovascular output. We can’t do much of anything in your lower body, not until the doctor advises it.” She eyed Colby now, noticing that he was looking around the room. “Would you like to start off easily today?”

He snapped out of his daydream and stiffened in his chair. “uhh, uhh…” He stumbled, trying to remember what she said. “Yea, sure.” He didn’t know exactly what he was agreeing to, but her body language suggested that it was a good answer.

“Okay,” she smiled and scribbled something down on paper. She got up from her desk one more time. “If you will just come over here, we can get started. First, push-ups!”

“You first, show me!” Colby replied, taking the comment as a humerous gesture, not letting it ruin his good mood. And she laughed. Colby got his first look at an astonishing contrast between her dark pink lips and her polished white teeth. One was a little crooked, but he wanted to see more smile on this one.

She picked up two ten pound free-weights. “Hold these and oscillate repetitions, one with your right arm, and one with your left. Do it until you start to feel the burn, okay?”
“…Colby?” Again, he had to jerk his mind out of another daydream. He cursed his boneheadedness as he realized she was holding the weights at him.

“Oh, sorry. I was just admiring, uhh, your poster there.”

“Oh? Which one?”

“That one, with the golf course on it.”

“I love that one, so simple, but true. Dreamers and visionaries are very different things, you know.”

“Actually, I do. Dreamers are useless. If you want it, go the hell out an’ get it!” Colby replied, without thinking.

“Well, sometimes we can’t have just what we dream about, you know.”

The workout went smoothly after that and a half an hour later, Avery was back, and Colby was gone. Amanda went back to her desk. She should have gone home, but there was more here to think about than there was for stuff to do at her apartment. She turned off the main lights, and the lamp on her desk threw a dim light that was incompatible with the overcast cloudy light coming in from the front windows, it hurt her eyes. So she grabbed her overcoat and went out the door.

“You met with the Dickens boy today, he still all fucked up?” Amanda’s husband, John piped up. The stench of a redemption center was heavy in the apartment, the sink was half full of empties. The other half sat on the coffee table, some tipped over and still dripping alcohol on her carpet.

She went upstairs immediately. He would have followed immediately, but the floor was floating, and the stairs were moving, he sat back down as immediately as he got up. “Don’t walk by me, I asked you a god damned question! Get back here!”

The bedroom door slammed and locked behind her. His tantrum was muffled now, but remained audible for the next few minutes. A hot shower later, and it was all quiet again. Amanda sprawled out naked on her bed, then hid herself under the blankets, smiling.