Hidden Seams

4| The Debate Club

Hello again guys, welcome to chapter four! Also FYI, I actually don't know much about spinal injuries, so I'm not sure if this is totally accurate.

You cannot pretend that I am a nobody, because I am not.

I WAS RIGHT to not look forward to monday. The weekend passed all too fast, and once again, all too soon, I was turning my alarm off and rolling out of bed tiredly. Quickly, I dressed in soft purple exercise capris and a blue Under Armour tank top. I slipped on ankle socks and a pair of pink Adidas running shoes, and stepped out of my house.

As I ran, I thought about physical therapy. Cole was right when he said that I went to physical therapy on tuesdays and fridays. When I was little, I had fallen off of the monkey bars playing with Cole, and landed halfway on a raised concrete platform and halfway on the grass. My spinal cord had been strained, causing it to be harder to lift my legs. I could no longer do basketball, because the cord was too weak to take so much jumping and impact.

Even with physical therapy each week, I knew it was only a matter of time before my spinal cord actually snapped. I'd always been a leader on the court, but I decided to focus on education. Cole never talked to me after the incident, I'd never understood why, as he'd been my best friend. After that, I never had any friends.

Occasionally, my mom brought up Cole, but we pretended that he hadn't been practically a part of our family before. We all pretended that I hadn't spent a year crying over him. And he was different now. Still a basketball star, but a cocky, arrogant jerk, too. He was not the Cole I used to know and love.

The thought of being in a wheelchair or using braces for the rest of my life was terrifying to me, despite the fact that I'd had years to get used to the idea. I was terrified that any day, something would happen that would break my spinal cord completely. That was the reason I didn't do anything but learn and run. Of course, I shot baskets, but I couldn't play basketball.

When I finished my run, I did a quick workout as well as my physical therapy exercises, and then headed up to my room and took a shower. My room was a master bedroom because my parents didn't want to be woken up when I was showering in the bathroom beside their room.

After the shower, I changed quickly into a blue jean shorts jumper and a pale green t-shirt. I brushed my hair and tied it quickly into twin french braids that I then folded into braided buns. I applied a minimal amount of mascara, eyeshadow, and blush(not in that order of course), and made sure it was balanced on each side.

When I walked downstairs, Mom was already making breakfast. "Morning," she greeted me, smiling warmly as she slid a plate of eggs onto the table.

I sat down, "Morning, Mom. How'd you sleep?"

"Oh, you know, the usual," she took a seat across from me. "I'm going to call and see if I can reschedule pt meetings for weekends."

I shook my head, "They're not there on the weekends, Mom. I can't miss more than two nights of school, either, I have too much going on. I think that it's just gonna have to be put on hold for a while, at least until this tutoring is done."

"But Haylee-"

I cut her off, rising from my seat. "I'll do my exercises Mom, everyday. I promise," I told her firmly.

She nodded uncertainly, and watched with baleful eyes as I strode from the room.

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