Hard Rider

I was in my office looking over patient files and getting prepared for the day when my boss, Larry Steadman, walked in.

“Good morning, Larry,” I said. He sat across from me and smiled, staring deeply into my eyes for a second before speaking. His brown suit was meticulous, his black loafers polished and shiny. He’d lost all his hair long ago and he was twenty years older than me, but that didn’t stop his daily attempt at a mating ritual. Larry had been trying to get me to go out with him for six months now, and I always refused by telling him it wasn’t appropriate to date people from work. The truth was, he just wasn’t my type, whatever my type was. I didn’t really know, because I’d had no time for a social life while going to school and raising Maddy. Now that I was out of school and settled into my normal work hours, I had a little more time… But I still hadn’t dated much. I spent all my time with Maddy, sprinkled with occasional visits from my best friend Eddie.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in dating. I longed for adult conversation, adult outings…sex. But I felt like such a fish out of water in those situations, and nothing much ever came from the few dates I had gone on. To say I was discouraged with the whole thing would be an understatement. If there was a good man left in Denver, I hadn’t found him yet, and I damn sure wasn’t going to find him in this office.

“How was your weekend?” Larry asked. “Do anything fun?”

“No, not really. Took Maddy to the aquarium downtown, did a little shopping. Nothing too exciting.”

“You know, Maisie, I’d love to take you and Maddy to the zoo or something sometime,” Larry said.

He was persistent, I had to give him that. Lately he seemed to think the key to my heart was through my daughter.

“Larry, I’ve already told you that I don’t mix business with pleasure,” I replied, forcing myself to smile through my irritation.

“Yes, I know,” he said, a hint of disappointment in his voice. “I just keep hoping you’ll change your mind.”

“I won’t,” I said. I hated saying no to people, but the last thing I needed was to create drama at work and lose my job. “You know how much I value this job, Larry.”

“I know, I know,” he replied. “I won’t ask again.”

He’d said that before and I knew he would break that promise again next week. It seemed like every Monday he was in my office trying to make small talk and wear me down. He’d been doing this for six months, but since he was co-owner of the clinic, there wasn’t really anyone I could complain to.

Not that I would. I wasn’t one to rock the boat like that.

“Thank you,” I said, smiling again, hoping that I’d found that balance between firmly turning him down and keeping my job.

“So,” he said, with an exaggerated sigh. “It’s going to be a busy week. All the usual suspects will be back for their regular therapy but I hear we’ve got a special guest coming in today. Guess we’ll be seeing a lot of him. Somebody really did a number on his leg.”

“A lot of who?”

“Didn’t you hear? You know the Denver Mustang that got hit by a car? Blew his knee out, along with some other minor injuries?”

“No, I didn’t hear about it,” I replied slowly, my heart slightly accelerating.

“It was all over the news,” he said.

“I try not to watch television,” I replied, the hair sticking up on the back of my neck. Something wasn’t right. My stomach flipped, just like it always did when I heard a football player was coming here for treatment.

“Don’t you read the internet?” Larry asked.

“Not if I can help it,” I replied. “Unless I’m doing research or something…”

“What about the radio?” he asked “You trapped in some kind of time warp? This is the biggest news of the whole year.”

“The radio in my car is broken,” I replied, my voice laced with annoyance. “Who’s coming? What happened?”

“Oh, man, it was bad. He was running downtown, ran into an intersection, and BAM!” Larry slammed his palm on my desk loudly and I jumped. “Some kid was texting, didn’t see him, plowed right through the light and slammed into him. Busted up his knee, ACL’s torn, gonna be in rehab for a while. Hell, he’s lucky to be alive. Thank God it’s off-season so he has a few months to heal up, but we’re going to have to work fast if he’s going to make it back onto the field…”

“That’s terrible,” I replied, starting to recite a little prayer in my head that my gut feeling was wrong this time.

“Sure is. I’m going to assign you to his case. You’re my best PT, Maisey. But you gotta perform some serious magic if this guy’s going to be back at full force by September. I have faith in your skills. You’re really great,” he said, smiling that creepy smile at me again. It didn’t bother me this time, because I just wanted the answer to one question.

“Who is it, Larry?”

“Oh, I didn’t say?” he asked. I shook my head, resisting the urge to jump across the desk and strangle him.

“No, you didn’t,” I replied, my voice sounding like someone else’s suddenly.

“It’s Colorado, Maisey! Jesse Colorado!” Larry was as excited as if he’d won the lottery.

My mouth dropped, my heart dropped, and my ass almost dropped right out of the chair, too. I gripped the arms of my chair and bit down on the inside of my cheek hard to keep from fainting.

Here it was.

My worse nightmare, my worst case scenario, my greatest fear was coming to life right before my eyes.

I wanted to run. I was good at running. I’d run from him before…

But this time, I was trapped. There was no where to run to, no where to hide. I’d built this life for myself and I couldn’t unwind the threads that bound me to it.

I would have to face this demon head-on now, and all I could do was hope my world didn’t get turned upside down in the process.

JESSE

After surgery, my knee was the size of a fucking football and stained yellow from whatever weird stuff the surgeons used on it. I looked down at what I was now calling my ‘frankenstein leg’ and tried to move it.

Nope. Nothing.

No movement, but no pain either. The Vicodin were doing a good job of masking the pain, but I was ready to be done with them.

I hated the way pain pills made me feel. Sleepy, groggy, my head all fogged up. That wasn’t my game. I preferred having laser-sharp focus. My life required clarity and for me to be as clear-headed as possible. Instead, I felt like a pile of fucking mashed potatoes or something. I could barely move the parts of me that still worked, let alone the pieces that were broken… I felt like my head weighed a ton and my limbs were limp and useless.

I was laying here like a weak little kitten and I hated every fucking second of it.

I wanted to smack that stupid texting kid upside his stupid fucking head for what he’d done to me. My left ACL was torn, my thigh was deeply bruised, and I had a groin sprain to go along with it. His car had hit me so hard I’d bounced a dozen feet away. The surgery had repaired my ACL by putting in pins and grafts but I still had a long road of physical therapy ahead of me if I was going to recover fully.

And if I didn’t recover… I didn’t even want to think about that…

I’d been in the hospital all weekend and today they were sending me home. Grady sat in the corner of my hospital room reading the newspaper and I was sitting up in bed scrolling through the dozens of well-wishing text messages I’d been sent from my friends and teammates over the weekend when my nurse walked in.

Nurse Peggy was hot in that way that only nurses can be. They always look so healthy and clean, don’t they? I’d been flirting shamelessly with her all weekend - it was the only thing I could do to take my mind off my miserable situation. Luckily, she’d given as good as she’d received, and it felt like we were old friends by now. It was pretty clear on day one I wasn’t going to be fucking this one, but maybe that was for the best. I needed more friends and les

s ex lovers…

“You ready to go home, Colorado?” she asked.

“I thought you’d never ask, Peggy,” I replied, winking at her.

“Your home, cowboy. Not mine,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. “Not that I wouldn’t mind having a piece of you… If you’re not careful I’ll ask the doctor if he’s got any bits of that shattered knee still laying around the office.”

“Oh, Peggy, you’re a twisted woman, aren’t you?”

“The best kind of twisted,” she said, as she pressed a cold stethoscope to my chest.

“Maybe you need a good man to straighten you out,” I said.

“Talk about unicorns,” she replied wearily.

“Touche!” I said, laughing.

“This guy harassing you again, Peggy?” my coach, Will Fox asked as he walked in the door. He’d been checking in on me everyday since the accident and I was glad to see him.

“Does he ever stop flirting?” she asked.

“Nope,” he replied. “I’ve even seen him sweet-talking the football before he throws it.”

“I’m not surprised,” she quipped. “Does it work?” she asked, turning back to me.

“Better than it does with you!” I replied.

We all laughed as Will sat in the chair next to my bed.

“You ready to get out of here, Champ?” he asked.

“God yes, I can’t wait to get home to my own bed!”

“Not so fast, Romeo,” Peggy said. “Doc said you have to go straight to rehab.”

“Today?”

“Yes, today,” Will replied. “There’s no time to waste. You’ll be spending most of your days at rehab, you can go home at night, but you gotta get right back there every morning. You have about six months of healing to do in three months time.”

“I was hoping for at least a day to rest,” I replied.