Free Come Lie With Me by Linda Howard Page A

“Please tell me. Whatever it is, it’s interfering with your therapy. The gym is ready for you, but you aren’t ready for it.”
    â€œI could’ve told you that. Look, this whole thing is a waste of time,” he said, and she could almost feel the weariness in him, like a great stone weighing him down. “You may feed me vitamins and rev up my circulation, but can you promise that I’ll ever be exactly like I was before? Don’t you understand? I don’t want just ‘improvement,’ or any other compromise. If I can’t be back, one hundred percent, the way I was before, then I’m not interested.”
    She was silent. No, she couldn’t honestly promise him that there wouldn’t always be some impairment, a limp, difficulties that would be with him for the rest of his life. In her experience, the human body could do wonders in repairing itself, but the injuries it suffered always left traces of pain and healing in the tissue.
    â€œWould it matter so much to you if you walked with a limp?” she finally asked. “I’m not the way I would like to be, either. Everyone has a weakness, but not everyone just gives up and lets himself rot because of it, either. What if your position were reversed with say, Serena? Would you want her to just lie there and slowly deteriorate into a vegetable? Wouldn’t you want her to fight, to try as hard as she could to overcome the problem?”
    He flung his forearm up to cover his eyes. “You fight dirty, lady. Yes, I’d want Serena to fight. But I’m notSerena, and my life isn’t hers. I’d never really realized, before the accident, how important the quality of my life was. The things I did were wild and dangerous, but, my God, I was alive! I’ve never been a nine-to-five man; I’d rather be dead, even though I know that millions of people are perfectly happy and content with that kind of routine. That’s fine for them, but it’s not me .”
    â€œWould a limp prevent you from doing all those things again?” she probed. “You can still jump out of airplanes, or climb mountains. You can still fly your own jets. Is the rhythm of your walk so important to you that you’re willing to die because of it?”
    â€œWhy do you keep saying that?” he asked sharply, jerking his arm down and glaring at her. “I don’t remember heading my wheelchair down the stairs, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
    â€œNo, but you’re killing yourself just as surely in a different way. You’re letting your body die of neglect. Richard was desperate when he tracked me down in Florida; he told me that you wouldn’t live another year the way you were going, and after seeing you, I agree with him.”
    He lay in silence, staring up at the ceiling that he had already looked at for more hours than she could imagine. She wanted to gather him into her arms and soothe him as she did the children she worked with; he was a man, but in a way he was as lost and frightened as any child. Confused suddenly by the unfamiliar need to touch him, she folded her hands tightly in her lap.
    â€œWhat’s your weakness?” he asked. “You said that everyone has one. Tell me what torments you, lady.”
    The question was so unexpected that she couldn’t stop the welling of pain, and a shudder shook her entire body. His weakness was obvious, there for everyone tosee in his limp, wasted legs. Hers was also a wound that had almost been fatal, for all that it couldn’t be seen. There had been a dark time when death had seemed like the easiest way out, a soft cushion for a battered mind and body that had taken too much abuse. But there had been, deep inside her, a bright and determined spark of life that had kept her from even the attempt, as if she knew that to take the first step would be one step too many. She had fought, and lived, and healed her wounds as