Owen

Nicknames

"Alright move it again." Hannah told me.

I wasn't sure what her official title was, nurse, therapist but so far Hannah was my favorite. There wasn't a particular reason why. She just hadn't pissed me off yet, I guess.

I raised my left arm, my fingers inching closer to the ball on the tray in front of me. It took more effort than it should have but I could manage the simple task. I set the ball down in the other tray.

"Good. Do it again."

I groaned, we'd been going at it for forever. Or at least it seemed.

"One more and we will do something else." She offered.

"Like what?" My curiosity peaked. I was so mind numbingly bored staring at the walls of the stupid hospital room.

"We can focus on your right arm." She said, flashing me a smile.

I shook my head. "Not cool."

"It will be if you start to regain some function." She countered.

I rolled my eyes, that stupid word "if" hanging out in the middle of her sentence.

"Keyword there is if." I muttered, going through the motions of returning the ball to the other tray.

Hannah ignored me. Something I noticed she did when I voiced too negative of thoughts. She had tried in the beginning, to console me, offer me words of encouragement, but she seemed to figure out pretty quickly I was sick of it. I didn't want people telling me I'd get better if I just tried hard. Because no one knew. I didn't want to have any expectations because I'd be devastated if I didn't make them.

It wasn't like before.

My limitations were only mental. I could run faster, harder, whatever, as long as I got over the mental block in my head and trained right. School was the same, I just had to sit down and study and bam, top of my class without too much sweat.

But now it wasn't just mental it was physical. And if I couldn't rely on my body to do its part I wasn't sure how to get over the mental block.

———————

As soon as the door cracked and I heard the whistling my mood soured. Not that it was great to begin with. I'd been listening to my dad and Jase go over options for what to do with me. Like I was some object they were trying to decide if they should keep or push off on someone else.

Dr. K, because his last name had too many vowels and weird ordering of consonants to actually be a word, strolled in, as chipper as can be.  I mostly hated him because he called me "kiddo". But I also couldn't stand the way his mouth was too big for his face or the fact that he was always so fucking happy. Like didn't anything bad ever happen to him? No one is ever that obnoxiously happy all the time. Not without drugs at least.

"Hey kiddo, how are you feeling?" I closed my eyes for a second trying to stop myself from rolling them.  "I got some good news for you bud."

I hated the nicknames.

And I doubted that it was good news. Unless he could tell me there was some magical cure or a rewind button on time, there wasn't going to be good news.

"Got your CT scan back, everything's healing up nice, the surgeon's work looks great. I think we can get rid of this thing for good." He gestured at his own neck with the tip of the pen he had in his hand.

So it was alright news. I was sick of constantly wearing the collar, the breaks I did get were never long enough.

"So I'm going to have a nurse come on in and pop it off ya and we will go from there unless you or your family have any questions." He glanced over his shoulder a little at my dad and Jase. Who for once were quiet. "Alright then, I'll be back to check in on you a little later kiddo."

The fucking nicknames.

No sooner did the door click shut, did my dad and Jase start back up.

"I think it's going to help a lot not being in that thing all the time." My dad commented. "It's gotta be a pain in the neck."

I wasn't sure if the pun was intended or not. But I didn't laugh.

"Yeah you'll start to feel like a real person again." Jase added.

My eyes snapped over to him, the anger and resentment that was stewing inside a full on boil.

"I'm already a real fucking person Jase." I seethed. "Incase you forgot."

"What? No, god." He backtracked, glancing at my dad alarmed. "Bad choice of words, that wasn't what I meant."

Before I could counter back, the door clicked open. A nurse appeared, either oblivious to the tension in the room or she didn't care.

"I heard you get to be all done with your collar so I thought I'd stop in and get it off ASAP." She said.

"Yeah, thanks." I muttered.

I found a spot above my dads head, too annoyed and angry to look at either of them as I waited to be free of the collar.

"Alright, there we go hun. Need anything else?"

"No, thank you." I answered politely.

The nurses were just doing their job. And even though I found the majority of them annoying and I was pissed off all the time, I still tried not to be a complete dick.

"Just press your button if it changes."

She was out the door a second a later. Sending me back into the room with just Jase and my dad. Them staring at me and me staring anywhere but back. I balled my hands into a fist, well my left one, wanting to send the anger somewhere. I was decently surprised when my fingers curled into an almost tight fist. But what had me actually surprised was the tick in my right hand. It was small, fucking tiny but it was a deliberate try on my part and my right hand had actually tried. Barely anything but it was something.