Dee had bought me a ring light for Christmas the year before. She had complained that when I did video calls with her from my dorm that it was impossible to see me because the lighting was so bad. I had laughed then, thinking it was silly to have something I would only use for calls with her, but I had found it quite useful. I wasn’t big on earbuds or headphones unless I was trying to buckle down to study and needed music to drown everything else out. Being able to put the phone on the ring light stand and hit speaker made things easier for a while.
Now it was going to be used for its intended purpose.
I hopped over to my closet, digging around in the corner for the stand that the light was on.
Unhooking the stand lock, I adjusted it so that it was tall enough that my phone camera would get me in the frame, showing my face as well as my leg, so long as I was sitting at the desk chair. I turned the light and the camera on and took a look. It was just right.
I figured a lot of my vlogs would just be my face but being able to show the leg would be important from time to time too. Especially once I got the prosthetic and I could describe how well I was adjusting to it. Ideas started to flood my mind. I thought about all the different ways that I could try out the new leg and review it. I might even be able to do product reviews on things like clothes and shoes and how well they worked with amputees. It would provide sponsorship opportunities if I did it right.
For the first time in a while, I smiled when thinking about my future. I was down but not out, and if I could turn the negative into positive, then I could be an example for everyone else too. It would be sublime. It could help when it came time for me to audition for jobs as a sideline reporter, since I could point them to my social media presence and my videos on it.
For now, I was content with having created the channel and tested the camera and light. My appointment in Nashville wasn’t too long in the future, and until then I could probably work on creating small content that I could use to debut the channel once I had the prosthetic. I wanted to start with a bang and several videos at once, as well as maybe advertising it a bit on day one.
Feeling a lot better, I shut the laptop down and grabbed my crutches. Staying in my room all the time was probably not going to be good for my mental health either. With Dee out to work, I should probably spend some time in the rest of the house, even if it was just vegging on the couch and watching television.
Making my way into the kitchen, I paused. One of the things I’d enjoyed before the accident was learning to cook. I thought that I should test myself and cook something simple for Dee when she got home as a way of saying thank you to her for being such a good sister. Smiling, I took the pot out and put it on the stove.
Today could be a good day, after all.
6
GERRY
It was probably silly to still be bugged by the interaction with the girl on crutches, but there I was, still bugged by it. Bugged enough that two days later, I was still thinking about it, going over the whole situation in my mind and wondering if there was something I could have done better that would have diffused the situation. Something that wouldn’t have offended her so much.
Nothing came to mind, which just bugged me further. I did what I thought I should do. I helped her up and then steadied her when she almost fell again. Holding the door open for her shouldn’t have been offensive, at least as far as I was taught. Tennessee was the south. It was expected for a man to hold the door open but even that seemed to annoy her.
It bounced around in my head all day for two days, and finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. The chances of this girl not being the one Wendy knew so well were extremely small, so I figured I could at least ask Wendy about it. Maybe she would have some insight, or at the very least make me feel less like I did something wrong.
I texted to make sure she would be okay with me dropping by and then clocked out. Heading over to her place from the office didn’t take too long, and I decided to drop by Sergio’s to grab us all a pizza before I came in. When I arrived at her front door with an extra-large pizza and two two-liters of soda, I didn’t know who was more excited—Olly or me.