“Yes, I was there. I elevated your ankle. Cleaned the cuts with my water bottle. It felt good to look after someone. After that, I decided to become a doctor.” I probably sounded silly to Joshua—like I was a child pretending to nurse its teddy. But it wasn’t like that. The entire time I’d been tending to Joshua, I hadn’t thought about the accident and my lost future. It was like helping Joshua wiped my mind blank of anything else. I’d made a difference to someone in pain; I’d been useful.
Patrick had been next to useless—he’d told Joshua to walk it off. I’d been the one who knew what to do. I’d told my brother to get my parents and talked to Joshua about football to distract him. I let him lean on me so he could hop to a bench, then elevated his foot on Patrick’s equipment bag. It wasn’t until after my parents arrived and loaded Joshua into the car, my brother along for the ride, that thoughts of the accident rushed back in. And that’s when I knew I had to become a doctor. It would save me. The universe had given me a second chance. I took it, and had been running with it ever since.
“I thought I went to hospital?”
“You did. My parents took you.” I’d stayed behind. It would be months before I got in a car again. Even now, I didn’t drive.
“Yes, I remember that vaguely. But it turned out to be just a sprain.” A sprain that had changed the course of my life. “No hospital visits today,” he said, nodding at his arm that I was still holding under the water.
“You’ll live. Doesn’t look like it’s going to blister.” I released his arm and turned off the tap.
He leaned against the kitchen cabinet as he watched me dab his arm dry with paper towel. All of a sudden, the air shifted and I became very aware of just how close we were, how Joshua’s muscles bunched under his t-shirt, how when he flexed his arm, it tripped the switch on my galloping heart rate. He grinned down at me and I stepped back. Where the hell was my forcefield when I needed it?
“Where’s your cast?” Joshua said, glancing at my leg like I must have forgotten to put it back on when I went to the loo. “And you’re walking without crutches. When did that happen? How do you feel?”
I laughed. He’d finally noticed. “It came off yesterday. And I feel good. A little weak but I might venture into the hotel gym later.”
He stepped back, still focused on my leg as if it was incredible that I still had a limb under all that plaster. “Wait a minute. I have something you need.”
No, you don’t, I thought to myself. You absolutely do not.
He disappeared out of my flat, leaving the door on the latch as he left. Where was he going?
I set about cleaning up the mess we’d left. As I flipped up the door on the dishwasher, Joshua appeared behind me.
“Come and sit.” He put a hand at the small of my back and led me to the sofa. “Put your leg on my lap.”
I screwed up my face. “No, Joshua. What are you doing?”
He set a small bottle of something on the side table and pulled my leg onto his knees, rolling up the bottoms of my scrubs trousers. I braced my arms behind me, waiting for something dreadful to happen.
“I bet your skin is really dry from being in that cast.” He reached for the bottle and tipped it over, pouring cream into the center of his palm. “This stuff is the best. The eucalyptus is healing. The aloe vera moisturizes.”
Before my brain had time to process what was about to happen, I squealed as his hands smoothed up my leg.
He grinned. “It’s a little cold right? Just wait, this is going to feel really good.”
The screech of an alarm sounded in my head: Emergency. Forcefield down. Forcefield down.
“Relax.” Joshua lifted his chin. “Put a cushion behind you. You need to learn to take care of yourself. This cream is transformative. You’ll see.”
“Thank you, Estée Lauder.” I looked out of the window, trying to distract myself from the feel of Joshua’s firm touch. Despite myself, my body began to droop. It took everything I had not to sigh—his hands just felt so good. Too good. This was such a bad idea. It was as if he knew about my forcefield and had made it his mission to disable it.
“You’re a little dry, but the leg looks really good.” His voice was soft and he bent forward for closer inspection. “You can’t tell it’s been in a cast for weeks.” He stopped rubbing suddenly and I knew he’d seen my scar. “Did you cut yourself?”