The Comeback

Chapter 6 - Top Gun

Chapter 6 - Top Gun

I don’t know if Cassidy notices there’s something off with me or not, but she tries to cheer me up on our way to the gym. I don’t mind physiotherapy, it’s exhausting, but I’m good with exercise. However, I can’t stop thinking of that dream and how I got to know things I have no reason to know. I’m scared, I must admit. I’m scared that I may be losing it, that I’m going crazy and the coma caused something in my head and it doesn’t work anymore. Maybe I’m going mental and I’m just hallucinating things.

I can’t make sense out of this and that scares me. Not understanding something that is happening to you is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced. I wasn’t this scared when I realised that bloke stabbed me in the club. As the days pass, the memory of that night is clearer, and I know I wasn’t this scared when I saw the knife buried in my stomach. I knew the knife in my flesh was bad and that it hurt like hell, but I knew what it was happening. Now I have no clue and neither do I know whom to ask. If I tell Cass, she’ll freak out as much as I do because, how can I know those things about her? Why do I dream of a life with her I never had and will never have? It’d have more sense if I’d dream of a future with her.

Nevertheless, she helps me to get distracted a bit by pushing my wheelchair as fast as she can, running from nurses who caught us running. Probably we’re taking twice longer to get to the gym, but it’s fun. It’s the most fun I’ve had since I woke up, telling her to go faster or they’ll catch us.

She may be petite and with the body of a girl, but she is strong. She pushes my chair really fast and she really knows the hospital because I’m completely lost. I have no idea where we are.

“Can you see her?” She asks me as she keeps pushing and I look back over our shoulders. I can’t see the nurse who was following us.

“No. I think we lost her,” I tell her and she slows down a bit. I pay attention to her and only then I notice her big smile and how her whole face lights up with joy. She is panting, but she is smiling so brightly.

I guess she likes adrenaline.

“I’m gonna get in so much trouble for doing this,” she says but she is still smiling. “But it was fun, so it’s okay. I just hope they allow me to keep doing volunteering.”

I panic when she says that and stop the chair with my hands in one second. She is surprised and blinks confused at me. “You’re joking, right?” I ask and she still looks confused, but then a smile comes to her lips.

“Of course I’m joking, it’s not that terrible,” she says and laughs, and I try to do the same, but it’s a nervous laughter. “It’s fine, Liam. I do this a lot with the kids in the hospital. The nurses are used to us volunteers doing these kinds of things,” she adds with her cute smile.

“So you treat me like a kid, uh?” I tease and her face goes serious in one second, she even looks concerned.

“No, I just… you looked down so I just… I just wanted to make you laugh and—”

“Cass,” I cut her off. “I was just teasing you. That race was fun and you’re fast!”

She smiles again, her eyes lighting up once again as she starts pushing the wheelchair, this time in the gym direction. I hope. “I was in the tracking team when I was in high school,” she tells me and I’m not looking at her now, but I notice how her voice doesn’t sound as cheerful as before.

“You okay?” I ask looking over my shoulder, trying to meet her eyes. She smiles at me, but that gesture doesn’t reach her eyes. I can notice that. Cassidy is one of those people who smile with all their face and you can tell when it’s not honest, when there’s something off. She is transparent, I guess. She is not the kind who hides things. She looks like the kind who always expects the best from society, a good soul.