Read Online Recovering by J Bennett - Free Book Online

are digging into my ankles anyway, but
really it’s because my legs feel like they got stuck in a tar pit.
    Mandy makes
to sit with me, but I can tell she wants to be on the ice, so I order her back
out to the rink. She skates around for a few lackluster laps. When she comes
back around, I stand up and stop her.
     “Do what you
want to do,” I tell her. “All of these people are just background noise. Props.
Plastic.”
     Mandy nods,
her corkscrew curls bouncing. I put my gloved hand over hers.
    “Show me what
you got.”
    She laughs,
but I see a glint in her eyes that I like. She finds a rounded corner of the
rink out of the flow and spins on her skates. She even hikes her leg up like
one of those fancy skaters on TV. I sit on the bench and watch. As Mandy spins
and smiles and her orange curls whip around her pink cheeks, she really is
beautiful.
     The day goes
by like water rushing out of a spilled cup. After ice skating we make it back
to her place, and because we can’t think of anything else to do, we build a
snowman together. We have to pack the fine snow together hard to get it to
stick. But it’s one of those things where it’s the journey, not the
destination. The destination turns out to be a small, lumpish pile of snow with
embedded pebble eyes, a carrot stick nose, and mismatched twig arms. Mandy loops
a pink scarf around his no-neck but can’t find a top hat. She names him Tyrion
Lannister.
     Afterwards,
I take her out to dinner, because Mandy’s probably bought out a whole grocery
store feeding me these last two days. If my credit card was really as beefed up
as I’ve implied, I would have ordered six entrees. As it is, I go with a
cheaper pasta dish. Amanda just wants to order an itty bitty salad, insisting
that she’s on a diet, but I call BS all over that. She can go on a diet next
week.
    We laugh. We
eat. I try to find out how many different ways I can make her blush and giggle
(answer: a lot). The big dessert I order for us includes a brownie and ice
cream and probably other stuff that would have tasted real good if I hadn’t
inhaled it. Mandy manages to get a few spoonfuls in and makes a happy little
moan with each bite.
    On the way
back to her place, I feel the quicksand of exhaustion pulling me down.
     “This has
been, like, the funnest day of my whole life,” I say to Mandy and rub her thigh
when she stops at a light.
     “Me too,”
she says. “It’s so cold.” She cranks the heat higher.
     I hadn’t
even noticed. Actually I’m sweating. I know what that means. “I have to leave
tomorrow,” I tell her.
     “Oh.” She’s
looking down at my hand.
     “Doctor’s
appointment.”
    “Of course.”
     “You got the
green,” I tell her just before some asshole honks behind us. With the heat
rumbling in the vents and some girly music pulsing through the radio, I lower
my eyes and that’s it for me. I only barely remember taking zombie steps up the
stairs and collapsing on her bed.
     I wake up to
her whispering something in my ear. “Lee? Lee?”
     “Who’s
that?” I mumble.
     “Amanda.”
    “I know,” I
say.
     “What?”
     My eyes are
sinking shut. I couldn’t prop them up with steel two-by-fours.
     “Lee, I know
you’re tired. But can I…can I…” Her voice is a whisper, so far away.
     “Yeah?”
     “Touch you?”
    “Sure baby.
Do whatever you want.” I’m about to fall asleep again, but the touch of her
cold fingers jolts me back. She hesitates.
     “Go ahead,”
I tell her, “S’ okay.”
     She lays her
hands on my lower back, under my t-shirt, then slides them up across my
shoulder blades. That’s the last thing I remember before going dark for the rest
of the night. I have no idea what she did or how far she went, but I hope she
got some pleasure out of my chicken bone body.
     When I wake
up the next morning, it’s early. Too early. I’m shivering, and my bones ache
like someone used them in croquet practice. Sick. Again.
     Mandy