Owen

Where I Stood

I hated days where all I did was go from one health care facility to another, listening to people discuss the list of maybes and ifs about my injury.

Could that shit get anymore depressing?

No.

It couldn't.

And then I had to spend therapy looking into Sarah's toothy grin. I swear the worse my mood got the more she turned up hers. I think she had been literally trying to kill me with kindness. I wondered if she knew it was just a saying. She couldn't actually kill me with kindness. If she could I'd probably embrace it more.

I didn't mean that.

Maybe I did.

Some days, today, yeah.

I just couldn't see the rest of my life like this. Stuck in a wheelchair. Useless. I couldn't imagine five years, much less the rest of my life.

But every time I had to go in for a check up and listen to all the bull shit spewing out of everyone's mouth, my thoughts couldn't help but go there. What kind of life was this? Take away the fact that I wasn't able bodied anymore, I was still so fucking angry and I didn't know how to expel the anger. I didn't have an outlet for it. I didn't want to feel angry all the time, every fucking day. But I couldn't see the light either. It was like someone had turned the lights down just enough so I could still kind of see shit but I couldn't make anything out.

It was frustrating.

And to add to my frustration, I also had to deal with Mina. Which don't get me wrong I was up for the challenge. It'd at least keep me a little preoccupied but today. God today. She fucking hit a nerve. It was probably because I was already wound up and pissed off. But it took all I had in me not to call her out.

I didn't get why she didn't like me.

I'd never seen her before. Ever.

What could I have possibly done for her to look at me like I was the scum on the bottom of her shoe?

I wasn't that bad.

A bit of a dick, especially now that I was pissed off all the time. But shit, if she was going into this field, she'd better toughen up and figure out how to get that business smile looking a little more genuine or she wouldn't ever have a job.

I didn't mind it usually. The fact that she didn't hide what she was actually feeling. Even if it was completely unwarranted. But she could also cut me some fucking slack.

I'd had a rough day.

Which was also why I was running out of patience with my dad as he helped me through my nighttime stretches.

"So Jase said there's a girl at therapy..."

I wondered how feasible it would be to kill someone when you're a quadriplegic, I was about to try my hand. Jase my victim.

"There isn't a girl."

"He said she was your age?"

"There isn't a girl." I repeated, my voice tight as I tried to keep my agitation from rearing its ugly head.

He switched legs, rotating my hip joint around as I stared at the ceiling. My dad never seemed to get phased by it though. Sometimes I wondered if he even noticed what was going on around him, what people were saying or if he just lived his life in the haze leftover from my mom.

"Is she a volunteer? Can you volunteer at places like that?" He asked.

"I don't know and I don't care."

"Maybe she's a little older than you. Already in college, that'd make more sense."

I was pretty sure he wasn't even listening to me. Normal.

"Jase said she makes you laugh."

I looked at him, my expression flat. He was watching what he was doing though. I was definitely going to have to kill Jase. What was his damn problem? Was he purposefully trying to make me more miserable than I already was?

Mina hadn't made me laugh. She was a pain in the ass. She might have got a smile out of me solely for the fact that I found it a little amusing how sure she was that she hated me. Talk about someone quick to judge. I must have breathed wrong in Mina's presence the first time I saw her. There wasn't anything else I could have done in such a short amount of time. But beyond all that, she didn't make me laugh.

"He's fucking crazy."

Not even cussing like a sailor garnered any sort of reaction from my dad. Not an eye roll, not a sigh, not a shift in posture.

"School starts Monday."

His change of subjects wasn't any better.

"I don't want to go back dad." I knew it was futile but I had to keep trying.

"It'll be fine."

That was all he'd been saying. And I still didn't believe him. It would not be fine.

I had no idea where I stood, ha that's funny, where I sat now. Drew and I hadn't talked since he came over and let's be honest that hadn't gone well. Jaelyn, I mean I still loved her but I couldn't help but feel like something was starting to shift between us. My doing probably. For as popular as I was only Alec had stayed the same, had showed up. I was going to go back to school, in a fucking wheelchair, at the bottom of the barrel. I'm gonna say it again, kids are mean. And I was banking on, several years of being at the top to come raining down on my head now that I wasn't the Owen Savas that everyone knew. And I wasn't looking forward to it.