“Amber, I’m not trying to sound pushy, but I think you need to see the doctor. At least address the skin issue if nothing else.”
I rubbed my temple and leaned back on the couch, my frustrations spilling over onto my cheeks. “Haylee told me tonight I can’t go back to work until I do,” I said, swiping at a tear angrily. “She doesn’t have that right—”
“No, but she’s concerned about you. Brady is beside himself. He says he hasn’t known you as long as Haylee has, but even he can see the drastic change in how you walk. From what he tells me, Haylee is out of her mind with worry.”
“Tonight has been,” I paused, looking for a word that encompassed everything, but there wasn’t one. “Hard. I’m sure that’s a lame word to use in front of an English teacher, but I can’t come up with anything else. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t ever think you need to apologize about something just because I’m a teacher. You can’t walk around using words like arduous and toilsome all the time. It just doesn’t work.”
Laughter spilled from my lips, and I shook my head on the back of the couch. “You always know how to make me laugh. Thank you.”
“Anytime,” he said, laughter filling his voice, too. “Besides, I think hard was the perfect choice to use. I felt it here.” He pointed to his stomach. “Because I understand hard.”
“I wish my mom were here for a hug, but at the same time, I’m glad she’s not. She’s been bugging me for months about this, and she’ll just say I told you so.”
“Moms can be like that. I am happy to offer a hug without the I told you so.”
He shifted just enough to pull me over onto his shoulder, where he wrapped his arms around me. “All the little kids at school say I give pretty good hugs.”
I rested my hand on his chest. I liked the way I fit into him perfectly, almost like he was made for hugging me. “They’re right. You give pretty great hugs.” We sat in silence for a few minutes, and then I sat up, his arms dropping from around me instantly. “I suppose I should go home and wallow in my self-pity over there so you can get some sleep. It sounds like the storm is over.”
“I’m not in a rush to go to bed. I’d rather help you sort out what to do about the bakery. What does Haylee want you to do?”
I shrugged and rolled my eyes to the ceiling. “So much more than I expected. To begin with, she wants me to get the leg treated. She says I can’t continue with it the way it is.”
“I would argue that she’s correct there,” he added, just to rub it in.
“I know, but it costs money, Bishop. Lots of it.”
“You don’t have insurance?”
I made the so-so hand in the air. “We do, but it’s a high deductible. You pay everything up to the first ten thousand. Since we’re young, that’s a pretty safe bet, but as we learned with Haylee last year, when you get hurt, it gets expensive. We carry special insurance, so if we get hurt on bakery property, they cover it. I didn’t get hurt on bakery property this time.”
“This time?” he asked with a brow in the air.
My head barely nodded in response to his question. “I was in a situation in February.”
His hands rubbed up in down on his thighs with frustration. “Let me translate that. Some asshole tried to take things too far in February.”
I tipped my head in acknowledgment. “I got away from him and asked him to leave, but he kicked me in the leg before he did. I suppose it was payback for me kneeing him in the nads.”
“Good for you,” he said vehemently, “I just wish he hadn’t decided to pay you back. Did you have him arrested?”
“I tried, but they can’t find him.”
“They can’t find him?” he repeated, and I nodded.
“I guess he moved on immediately upon leaving my place since I sent the cops the next day. It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing I can do about it now. I tried to give it time to heal, but it doesn’t appear to be happening.”
“Well, it can’t heal by magic,” he said, shoulder bumping me again.
“I know, but the cost of fixing the entire situation is out of my league, Bishop.” He opened his mouth to speak, and I held up my hand. “Let me explain. This kind of brace isn’t working anymore. I used to be able to walk almost normally when I wore it. Now, I just drag the leg around behind me. If I don’t wear the brace, I can’t stand on the leg at all. It won’t hold me up.”
“Do the doctors have a solution?”
“Oh, they do,” I said on a chuckle. “A seventy-thousand-dollar solution.”
“Come again? I didn’t pay much more than that for this house.”
“You just made my point,” I said, shaking my head in frustration. “My insurance won’t pay for the kind of brace I’m wearing, much less one that expensive.”
“Why is it so expensive if I may ask?”
“The brace is computerized, from what I understand. The doctor likened it to one of those prosthetic knees that runs on a computer. The microprocessor adjusts your gait for what kind of terrain you’re walking on and that kind of thing. I have a very rudimentary understanding of it because I will never have one, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Okay, that explains the expense. Why do the doctors think you’ll benefit from it?”
“Honestly, I tuned out after he told me how much it cost. It wasn’t going to happen, so I didn’t worry about the explanation. I do remember him saying if I got the new brace, the leg would be functional again.”
“And if you don’t?”
I gave him the palms out. “Probably end up on crutches, then eventually a wheelchair.
