Come Lie With Me - Linda Howard [24]
“Would it matter so much to you if you walked with a limp?” she finally asked. “I’m not the way I would like to be, either. Everyone has a weakness, but not everyone just gives up and lets himself rot because of it, either. What if your position were reversed with say, Serena? Would you want her to just lie there and slowly deteriorate into a vegetable? Wouldn’t you want her to fight, to try as hard as she could to overcome the problem?”
He flung his forearm up to cover his eyes. “You fight dirty, lady. Yes, I’d want Serena to fight. But I’m not Serena, and my life isn’t hers. I’d never really realized, before the accident, how important the quality of my life was. The things I did were wild and dangerous, but, my God, I was alive! I’ve never been a nine-to-five man; I’d rather be dead, even though I know that millions of people are perfectly happy and content with that kind of routine. That’s fine for them, but it’s not me.”
“Would a limp prevent you from doing all those things again?” she probed. “You can still jump out of airplanes, or climb mountains. You can still fly your own jets. Is the rhythm of your walk so important to you that you’re willing to die because of it?”
“Why do you keep saying that?” he asked sharply, jerking his arm down and glaring at her. “I don’t remember heading my wheelchair down the stairs, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No, but you’re killing yourself just as surely in a different way. You’re letting your body die of neglect. Richard was desperate when he tracked me down in Florida; he told me that you wouldn’t live another year the way you were going, and after seeing you, I agree with him.”
He lay in silence, staring up at the ceiling that he had already looked at for more hours than she could imagine. She wanted to gather him into her arms and soothe him as she did the children she worked with; he was a man, but in a way he was as lost and frightened as any child. Confused suddenly by the unfamiliar need to touch him, she folded her hands tightly in her lap.
“What’s your weakness?” he asked. “You said that everyone has one. Tell me what torments you, lady.”
The question was so unexpected that she couldn’t stop the welling of pain, and a shudder shook her entire body. His weakness was obvious, there for everyone to see in his limp, wasted legs. Hers was also a wound that had almost been fatal, for all that it couldn’t be seen. There had been a dark time when death had seemed like the easiest way out, a soft cushion for a battered mind and body that had taken too much abuse. But there had been, deep inside her, a bright and determined spark of life that had kept her from even the attempt, as if she knew that to take the first step would be one step too many. She had fought, and lived, and healed her wounds as best she could.
“What’s wrong?” he jeered softly. “You can pry into everyone else’s secrets, so why can’t you share a few of your own? What are your weaknesses? Do you shoplift for kicks? Sleep with strangers? Cheat on your taxes?”
Dione shuddered again, her hands clenched so tightly that her knuckles were white. She couldn’t tell him, not all of it, yet in a way he had a right to know some of her pain. She had already witnessed a lot of his, knew what he thought, knew his longing and despair. None of her other patients had demanded so much from her, but Blake wasn’t like the others. He was asking for more than he knew, just as she was asking him for superhuman effort. If she put him off now, she knew in her bones that he wouldn’t respond to her anymore. His recovery depended on her, on the trust she could foster between them.
She was shaking visibly, her entire body caught up in the tremors that shook her from head to foot. She knew that the bed was vibrating, knew that he