Whatever Chains (Sequel to Where Your Heart is - A Harry Styles fanfiction)

Part Thirty: My life, my love, my drive.

June, 2016.

"Can we give it a rest with the pity party?" Jasper comes to join me at the table, placing my ice tea right in front of me and then sliding on the seat in front of me. "You did just fine."

I roll my eyes and hang my head backwards, resting it against the padded backrest of our booth.

My hands meet the cold, sweating glass, curling my fingers around it and feeling how the small beads of water soak my skin as they roll down.

I am too tired and sore all over to even attempt to lift up the glass and take a sip, no matter how parched I actually am. Not to mention that I am so demoralized right now, I could curl into a tiny, pathetic ball, and let myself dry out into oblivion.

Today was the day. After almost a month of meeting with doctors, physical therapists, and the school board, today I finally made my triumphant return to the old life of Lea Matheson.

And it was all around awful.

"And if just fine is what we all aim for, then I am bloody goals." I grumble, lifting my arms above my head, and waving them dramatically before wincing at the pain such movement causes me.

Jasper cackles loudly, forcing me to look at him with daggers shooting from my eyes, and in his direction.

"You know what I mean." He leans forward, propping his elbows on the table, and looking back at me disregarding my foul mood and silent threats. "You went through a lot this past year and you're just coming out of it. Baby steps."

Baby steps. What an appropriate way to describe what I did back there.

Never, in my whole life, have I felt so inadequate and useless. So helpless and small.

It literally felt like I was a toddler who somehow managed to sneak in a room filled with highly trained professionals without anyone noticing it, and kept trying, and failing miserably of course, to imitate their every move.

I knew it was going to be tough, getting back up on the saddle and picking up the rhythm I used to so easily jump into before, but I never expected it to be so humiliating.

Even with Jasper by my side, rooting me whenever I felt like I was losing my strength, and my mind, or actually messing up a few moves of his own to make me seem and feel less stupid, I was constantly at the verge of tears and actually sprint my way out of that room never to be seen again.

And I was on that verge, all right. I made that verge my home for the entire hour and a half that torture lasted. And I would have run away, if only my legs weren't so wobbly and weak.

All eyes were on me, or at least that is how it felt like, and every time I would lock eyes with another classmate that wasn't Jasper, I would have to quickly divert so I couldn't read the mockery in them.

Granted, it was more likely that they didn't even noticed me at all, let alone have a single thought about me or my performance, but still. I just couldn't get out of there fast enough.

"It was tragic." I sentence, unwavering in my opinion. "I was tragic."

He sighs, defeated, going back to rest against the seat and sipping his orange juice, reminding me that my throat feels like sandpaper, and finally gathering the will to drink my beverage.