Free Westlake Soul by Rio Youers Page B

as I’m better, we’ll go dancing. We’ll—
    I move more frequently when Yvette is with me. I’ll push out my neck or roll my jaw. One time I raised my hand and my fingertips brushed across her cheek. A random, unconscious movement, perhaps, but it reinforced that feeling of connection. Yvette took my hand, squeezed my fingers, and smiled. I floated for the rest of that day. Neither in nor out of my body. It was like dreaming.
    In a normal relationship, two people get to know each other (primarily) through interaction. A privilege I cannot fully realize. The alternative is to follow her, like a private investigator, and so I do—more frequently than I should, but I’m helpless to resist. I have learned where she lives (a one-bedroom apartment on Lilywood Drive), what she listens to when she drives (CHUM FM), what she has for breakfast (vanilla yoghurt and a granola bar), the TV shows she has set to record on her PVR (too many to mention). I have browsed her books and DVD collection, listened to her talk on the phone, watched her workout at the gym, studied the way she interacts with her other patients (always kind, but—I’m
certain
—without the connection she has to me). All this and more, getting to know Yvette by violating her privacy. Not something I’m comfortable doing, but what choice do I have?
    Obsessive? A smidge, perhaps. But I draw the line. Same as with Mom and Dad, I never jump into her mind, even though I’d love to know what she’s thinking. I don’t snoop through her underwear drawer or watch her in the shower. I use my superhero talent to discover only the things I would if I were able-bodied.
    Believe me, I’d prefer a more traditional method of getting to know her. Talking, dating, and kissing. Gathering protons prior to collision. My process, while effective, lacks the personal touch. But that’s what comes of being unseen, unheard. Although it is not without reward; I hovered over Yvette’s shoulder while she Googled me, clicking on countless hits, reading about my surfing achievements and, of course, my accident. She brought up numerous pictures of me riding waves, or posing with my board, tanned and cut. I looked into her glittering eyes as she tried to collate the young athlete on her monitor with the broken man she was being paid to care for. Maybe she was Googling me out of curiosity, but I like to think it was because of the bond we had so quickly formed. We were, in a way, touching each other.
    And just last weekend she was talking to her mom on Skype. I didn’t realize Yvette was Québécoise until her mom’s voice floated through the laptop’s tiny speakers: “
Salut, Yvette. Comment va ma belle petite fille?
” I suppose her surname, Sommereux, should have given me some clue, but I had only ever heard her speaking English, even to herself, and was too preoccupied to register the accent.
    “
Bonjour, Maman
,” she said, waving at the webcam. “
Ça va bien. Toi? Et Papa?
”
    French was never my language. Had real difficulty with it in high school. But now, of course, I’m as fluent as Céline Dion.
    “
Tout va bien ici, ma chérie. Mais tu nous manques tellement!
” Yvette’s mom said, but what I heard was, “We’re both well, sweetheart, but we miss you like crazy!”
    “I miss you, too,” Yvette said. Her smile was real, but touched with a wistfulness that pulled it down at the corners. Her eyes shone, though. As always. “I’m enjoying myself, but I do get lonely sometimes.”
    “You can always come home.”
    “I know, Mom.”
    The conversation was long, and I should probably have given Yvette some privacy and zipped out of there. But I couldn’t. Not because I wanted to learn more about Yvette’s life (although I did), or because I wanted to stay close to her (I did), but because I was feeding on the energy between Yvette and her mom. They were
conversing
and
laughing
and
loving
. Interaction that had been absent from my family for so long. I ached for