Read Online Wildflower Hill by Kimberley Freeman - Free Book Online
Authors: Kimberley Freeman
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time with Josh, missed rehearsals, lost form.”
“You’ve never missed a single rehearsal, Em. I manage your diary. I should know.”
“I could have attended the extra ones.”
She snorted a cynical laugh. “For God’s sake—for your
own
sake—go home.”
Home. To the empty flat that I couldn’t afford much longer. “One more hour.”
Adelaide hitched her bag onto her shoulder and huffed away. I pushed down my guilt and headed for the barre. Calves aching.
Up.
I worked particularly furiously that night. Didn’t notice at first that I couldn’t hear Thomas’s vacuum cleaner. When Iwas done, working through some cooldown exercises, I slowly started to realize that I truly had the theater all to myself. I went to the door and peered into the hallway. Usually, the wooden panels and wide stairs were lit by soft downlights. But it was pitch-black. Either Thomas hadn’t come, or he had taken off early and forgotten me. I was probably locked in.
A war took place inside me: whether to laugh or to cry. I did neither. I needed to get to my locker for day clothes, so I left the door of the studio open in hope that some of the reflected light would follow me to the changing rooms. I’d never be able to get the key into the locker in the dark, so I decided instead to head downstairs and see if I could open the door from the inside. If not, I guessed I’d be curling up to sleep on the floor for the night and I wouldn’t need to get changed. The idea somehow suited my miserable, lonely mood. I thought about my mobile phone in my locker but knew it would be uncharged. I hadn’t laid eyes on it in a week.
I walked down the hallway. The light ran out near the stairs, but I found the railing with my right hand and slowly felt my way down to the next step. And the next. And the next.
But the one after that wasn’t there. At least I couldn’t find it with my toes, and something strange happened in the dark. My muscles, tired from a week of punishing practice, were off duty and simply couldn’t compensate for the sudden change in terrain. I had a moment to remember that the stairwell curved to the left just at this point, but it was too late for my falling body.
It all happened horribly quickly, though later, I wouldremember it as taking forever while I watched outside myself. I skidded down the stairs and landed on the rough carpet like a doll that had been dropped by a careless toddler.
No immediate pain. Not so bad, then. Though why was my heart pounding so urgently, as though it knew something my brain did not? I tried to stand.
And my right knee buckled beneath me, almost as though there were no knee there at all. The pain came from everywhere at once, making me cry out. And the joint began to fill, just like a balloon filled with water.
What have I done? What have I done?
This couldn’t be happening. My blood pounded in my ears, nausea filled my stomach. I collapsed to the ground, clutching my knee, calling out for help in the dark, empty theater.
SIX
F rom one specialist to the next, day after aching day, and each wore an unbearable expression of serious consideration and sympathy. I had heard the story a hundred times by the end of the first week, a thousand by the end of the second. The angle of the fall had torn my ligaments. Not just ice-pack-and-rest torn. Torn-to-shreds torn. The pain was mediated only by heavy painkillers. The specialists were already muttering darkly about a “mixed” prognosis. One orthopedic surgeon opened up my knee and then closed it again only to refer me to another orthopedic surgeon. This time the operation went ahead, but the outcome was “not as we’d hoped.”
It took a full three weeks—because of the painkillers and the shock and the stupid euphemisms the surgeons used—before I realized they were telling me that my knee was beyond repair. I would be able to walk, though as I got older and weaker, the pain might increase to the point where it would be better
“You’ve never missed a single rehearsal, Em. I manage your diary. I should know.”
“I could have attended the extra ones.”
She snorted a cynical laugh. “For God’s sake—for your
own
sake—go home.”
Home. To the empty flat that I couldn’t afford much longer. “One more hour.”
Adelaide hitched her bag onto her shoulder and huffed away. I pushed down my guilt and headed for the barre. Calves aching.
Up.
I worked particularly furiously that night. Didn’t notice at first that I couldn’t hear Thomas’s vacuum cleaner. When Iwas done, working through some cooldown exercises, I slowly started to realize that I truly had the theater all to myself. I went to the door and peered into the hallway. Usually, the wooden panels and wide stairs were lit by soft downlights. But it was pitch-black. Either Thomas hadn’t come, or he had taken off early and forgotten me. I was probably locked in.
A war took place inside me: whether to laugh or to cry. I did neither. I needed to get to my locker for day clothes, so I left the door of the studio open in hope that some of the reflected light would follow me to the changing rooms. I’d never be able to get the key into the locker in the dark, so I decided instead to head downstairs and see if I could open the door from the inside. If not, I guessed I’d be curling up to sleep on the floor for the night and I wouldn’t need to get changed. The idea somehow suited my miserable, lonely mood. I thought about my mobile phone in my locker but knew it would be uncharged. I hadn’t laid eyes on it in a week.
I walked down the hallway. The light ran out near the stairs, but I found the railing with my right hand and slowly felt my way down to the next step. And the next. And the next.
But the one after that wasn’t there. At least I couldn’t find it with my toes, and something strange happened in the dark. My muscles, tired from a week of punishing practice, were off duty and simply couldn’t compensate for the sudden change in terrain. I had a moment to remember that the stairwell curved to the left just at this point, but it was too late for my falling body.
It all happened horribly quickly, though later, I wouldremember it as taking forever while I watched outside myself. I skidded down the stairs and landed on the rough carpet like a doll that had been dropped by a careless toddler.
No immediate pain. Not so bad, then. Though why was my heart pounding so urgently, as though it knew something my brain did not? I tried to stand.
And my right knee buckled beneath me, almost as though there were no knee there at all. The pain came from everywhere at once, making me cry out. And the joint began to fill, just like a balloon filled with water.
What have I done? What have I done?
This couldn’t be happening. My blood pounded in my ears, nausea filled my stomach. I collapsed to the ground, clutching my knee, calling out for help in the dark, empty theater.
SIX
F rom one specialist to the next, day after aching day, and each wore an unbearable expression of serious consideration and sympathy. I had heard the story a hundred times by the end of the first week, a thousand by the end of the second. The angle of the fall had torn my ligaments. Not just ice-pack-and-rest torn. Torn-to-shreds torn. The pain was mediated only by heavy painkillers. The specialists were already muttering darkly about a “mixed” prognosis. One orthopedic surgeon opened up my knee and then closed it again only to refer me to another orthopedic surgeon. This time the operation went ahead, but the outcome was “not as we’d hoped.”
It took a full three weeks—because of the painkillers and the shock and the stupid euphemisms the surgeons used—before I realized they were telling me that my knee was beyond repair. I would be able to walk, though as I got older and weaker, the pain might increase to the point where it would be better
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