Free Wide Awake by Shelly Crane

if I do remember everything…I'm not sure I even want to be the person I was before."
    She looked pale before, now she looked positively like she was about to hit the hospice linoleum. She pushed her hair back, her eyes drifting to the spot above my bed and not on me. Not my eyes. "We'll talk about this with your father. I have errands to run for the church since the secretary had her baby and I'm filling in, so Mrs. Betty can give you your sponge bath, if that's OK?"
    "Sure."
    She finally looked at me. "I love you, honey. I know that you don't know that yet, but it's still true." She kissed my hair and left without looking back.
    I sat soaking in a puddle of doubt. I thought that my decision to focus on therapy hardcore and then figure everything else out later was a great one, but now I was learning it may not have been something that would be conducive for family closeness. Was I more interested in figuring out who I was, or trying to please my parents and figure out who I used to be?
    Mason did come in later at lunch to watch Springer, but he sat in the chair and though we laughed together, I could tell that a heaviness had settled over him since he'd left my room that morning. When it was over, he said he had rounds to do and that he'd see me at my session later that afternoon. I thought maybe he was just tired, but when session time rolled around and he decided that instead of real therapy I was back to squeezing the therapy balls…with him leaning on the back wall looking dejected, I knew something was up.
    It made me feel like I was living that saying, two steps forward, three steps back. My progress with my therapy was slow but steady. My progress with Mason was confusing and pretty much nonexistent, because it wasn't really progress if the person couldn't even look you in the eye, and his heart was practically laying on his shoes it was so heavy.
    I wanted to ask him what happened, but I had a feeling — a really, sinking feeling — that his answer would make me feel worse and make him feel guilty. So I settled on stewing in self-pity that night. I wanted him to want to explain things if he was having a problem with us, but I assumed it had something to do with Isabella…my mom…and the look she gave him. In fact, I would have bet on it.

    Useless Fact Number Seven

    The first couple to be shown in bed together on television was
    Fred & Wilma Flintstone.

    The days passed in a hectic blur. Mrs. Betty was fast becoming my best friend, whether she realized it or not, and my parents were still the same old, same old. Of course, my mother was a little more chipper these days because Mason had backed off considerably. I had whiplash from the boy, but seeing as how I knew his reasoning for backing off, it was hard to blame him. He was one of the good ones, and the good ones wanted to be respectful and do the right thing and…all that stuff. Even though they seemed like they were helping you, it was still breaking your heart.
    I tried to cut him some slack, and we found a good work pace and a sense of normalcy to our relationship that consisted of sarcasm, Springer jokes, and working our butts off to get me out of there. Mason's renewed vigor to the task only led me to believe that he hoped things would change once I got out—once I was not his patient, once I was not off limits. It wasn't exactly wishful thinking. It's like when you go to the zoo and you see the panthers. They prowl and stare at you from across the fence, sniffing and eying you. Make no mistake, that panther wants you for supper, and if that fence wasn't there, you would be. But he knows the fence is there. So he settles on prowling and longing looks. Mason was the panther and this place was the fence. He'd practically said as much. His longing looks when he thought I wasn't looking were obvious. He probably caught me in my own daydreaming about him, dreaming of the day when the gate opened and the panther was set loose to devour me.
    It made my