Chapter 26: Alive

Monday, 7:14 a.m.

I am standing in the lobby of a physical therapy clinic in Silverlake that is not the one I go to, and I am wearing a lanyard that says Park, E. - Assistant, and I am about to start my first day back at work in a real, professional, not-Sophie, not-Aiden capacity, and I am terrified.

The clinic is called Silverlake Movement Lab. It is the same clinic where I have been doing PT with Carlos, except now I am on the other side of the room, behind the front desk, with a clipboard, doing intake, and helping Carlos, and not being a patient, and the small, specific fact of being a person who is working is making me very emotional in a way I am going to have to deal with later, in private, probably on the couch, probably with the candle lit.

Carlos is here. Carlos is wearing the same resistance band around his wrist. Carlos is in a good mood. Carlos is the kind of man who says things like "Let's get you warmed up, Park to patients and to me in the same voice," which is the most Carlos thing in the world.

He looks at me.

Okay, Park. Rule one. Do not lift anything over ten pounds. Rule two. Do not do any of the exercises with the patients. Rule three. Do not push yourself. Rule four. If you feel any pain, you sit down. You tell me. You are not a hero. You are a person with a shoulder that is at ninety per cent and a knee that is at one hundred per cent and a back that is going to be angry by lunch.

My back is going to be angry by lunch?

Welcome to clinic work, Park.

I start at eight. I do intake. I do paperwork. I do the small, normal things that a person does when they are a person who works at a clinic, which is a thing I have not been in six weeks, and which is a thing I am very good at, because the small, normal things are the things I have been missing.

By ten a.m. my back is angry. By eleven a.m. my back is very angry. By noon my back is the kind of angry that wants to file a complaint with HR, except I am the only person in HR, which is the small, sad, very specific fact of a person who is working at a clinic that has two people in it and a fountain in the lobby.

At lunch, I sit on the small back bench, the kind of bench that exists in clinics for the people who work there, the kind of bench that is too small and too hard and too small again, and I open my lunch, which is a sandwich I made at six a.m., which is the kind of sandwich a person makes at six a.m. when they are a person who is going back to work and who is nervous and who is not going to admit they are nervous.

I checked my phone.

One text.

alive. I hope day 1 is okay.

-A

I stare at it.

I stared at it for a long time.

He remembered.

He remembered on a Monday. He remembered on my first day back at work. He remembered at whatever time it was, which was twelve oh three p.m. on a Monday, which is the time a man who is in scrubs and who is on a long shift texts the woman he is dating to tell her he is alive, because he made a deal on a Saturday, in a kitchen, in sweatpants, that he would text her, and he is keeping the deal.

My eyes are wet. I am not crying. I am a person who is not crying. I am a person who is sitting on a small bench in a back room in a clinic in Silverlake, eating a sandwich, looking at a text that says alive, and who is not crying.

I am crying a little bit.

I texted back.

Day 1. Alive. Tired. Back is angry. But good.

Thank you for remembering.

Two minutes.

I said I would.

Eat lunch. Take your break.

I'll be here at 5.

I read it. I read it again. I read it a third time. I am going to read it a fourth time, except Carlos is calling me from the front because we have a patient, and I have to go be a person who works at a clinic.

The afternoon is harder.

I am tired in a way I have not been tired in a long time. I am the kind of tired that is not just body tired, that is also the kind of tired that is six-weeks-of-emotional-turmoil tired, the kind of tired that lives in a person's shoulders, the kind of tired that I am going to be feeling for a long time, the kind of tired that is worth feeling because the alternative is not feeling it, and not feeling it is the alternative I have been choosing for six weeks, and I am done choosing that.

We have a new patient at two p.m. A guy in his mid-twenties. Athletic. Knee injury. He is sitting in the waiting room with a small ice pack on his knee and the kind of impatient face a person has when they are twenty-five and have been told they can not run for six weeks.

I do the intake. Name. Date of birth. Insurance. The small, normal things.

He looks at me.

Wait, he says. Are you the girl from that hospital video?

I freeze. I freeze the way a person freezes when they are a person who has been a person in a hospital video. I freeze the way a person freezes when they have not thought about being a person in a hospital video, because the last six weeks have been the small, specific, very private fact of Aiden Black, and not the small, public, very public fact of a hospital video.

I do not know what you are talking about.

The 405 thing. The car spun out. There is a video. It went kind of viral. Some news station picked it up. You were on the news, like, three months ago. They did a whole thing. The girl who got hit by a truck and survived.

I do not remember that.

You do not remember being on the news?

I was on a lot of morphine. I do not remember most of June.

He looks at me. He looks at me the way a person looks at a person who is on the news, with the kind of look that has questions in it, the kind of look that has follow-up questions in it, the kind of look that is not going to be satisfied with the small, normal, very professional answer I have just given him.

The hot doctor, he says. The one they interviewed. The surgeon. Did you guys, you know.

We did not.

Are you sure? Because my cousin is a nurse at Cedars, and she said there is this surgeon, Dr. Black, who had a thing for a patient, and they got in trouble, and the patient transferred to a different clinic, and

I am going to get Carlos for you, I say. My voice is very professional. My voice is the most professional it has been in my entire life. He is going to do your assessment. I will be right back.

I go to the back room. I sit on the small bench. I put my hands on my knees. I breathe. I do the small, normal breathing a person does when they are a person who has just been told that the small, private, very specific fact of her and Aiden Black is a thing that other people know about, that other people have been talking about, that other people's cousins have been telling them about, in a hospital in Los Angeles, in a way that is going to follow her around for the rest of her life.

My heart is pounding. My back is angry. My hands are shaking. I am a person who is shaking on a small bench in a back room in a clinic in Silverlake, and I have four more hours of work, and I have a boyfriend who is going to be outside at five, and I am a person who is going to have to tell him about this, except I am not going to tell him about this, because I am not going to add one more thing to the list of small, private, very specific things that are very specific.

I work the rest of the afternoon. I am very professional. I am the most professional I have been in my entire life. I do not think about the patient. I do not think about the eyebrows. I do not think about the cousin who is a nurse at Cedars.

I think about it anyway. I think about it the entire afternoon.

Five p.m.

I am packing up my bag. I am putting on my jacket. I am walking to the door. I am a person who is done with day one, who is tired, who is hungry, who is going to go home and light the candle and text Sophie and tell her everything, including the part about the eyebrows, because Sophie is going to be furious with the eyebrows, and I am going to need her to be furious with the eyebrows on my behalf.

I open the door.

I see him through the window.

He is leaning on his car. He is in jeans. He is in a black T-shirt. He is in a dark grey jacket. He is not in scrubs. He is not in a white coat. He is not in a hospital badge. He is just Aiden. He is just Aiden, leaning on a black car, in the late afternoon light, in Silverlake, holding two coffees, looking at the door like a man who has been waiting for a person to come out of a building for the small amount of time it takes a person to come out of a building.

I stop.

I stop in the doorway. I stop because he is there, and he is not in scrubs, and he is not in a break room, and he is not asleep. He is here. He is here, in jeans, with two coffees, at five p.m. on a Monday, the way a person is here when they have made a deal on a Saturday and they are keeping the deal.

I get in the car.

He hands me the coffee. Our fingers brush.

You said text me, he says. So I am here.

I did not expect you to come.

I know. That is why I did.

I look at him. He looks at me. He is not asking me how my day was. He is not asking me what happened. He is just here, in a car, holding a coffee, looking at the woman he is dating with the small, tired, very specific look of a man who is here because he is here.

I take a sip. It is the right coffee. It is the exact right coffee. It is the coffee I have been drinking for six weeks, the coffee with caramel drizzle and oat milk, the coffee that I described to him in a recovery room while on morphine, the coffee that he has been ordering for me, in paper cups, with foam hearts, in the small, private, very specific way that is the entire thing.

I lean back in the seat. I close my eyes for a second. I think: day one was hell.

I think: but coming home to this makes it worth it.

I think: I am going to be okay.

I am going to be more than okay.

To be continued...