In that way, she really was like me.
“When you’re ready we’ll go to the waiting room. You can wait for her surgery to be over with her parents.”
I hadn’t thought it was possible before, but I quickly learned I could, in fact, be more nauseous.
I knew it was better to get it over with quickly though, so I pushed to my feet, swaying only slightly when ambushed by a wave of lightheadedness.
“She’s gonna be fine, Nik,” she comforted, naively thinking I only had one thing to worry about.
God, I didn’t even know her name.
“What’s your name?”
She smiled and patted my arm. “Shirley. And if you need anything you can ask for me.”
I wanted to ask her more, like why she spoke English and anything and everything else I could think of about Callie. Her mental state and her spirits and how’d she’d been feeling besides the lack of feeling in her legs.
But before I could utter a word, we rounded the corner and came face to face with Frank and Sonya Nickleson.
His face warmed at the sight of Shirley but quickly turned to stone when he realized I was the one on her arm.
“What are you doing here?” he barked, surprising Shirley significantly.
She was the only one.
My jaw hardened along with my resolve. The only way he was getting me out of here was by shooting me first. And even then, I’d make sure to request a room right fucking next door to his daughter.
“I’m here to see your daughter,” I told him. My words were steel fact.
“Like hell—”
“Frank!” Callie’s mom broke in, looking from my face to Frank’s and back again.
“He’s not going in there,” he told her turning to look directly at her in order to issue the order.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I am,” I corrected without waiting for his cold eyes to come back to me. “I already was, but now I’ve heard that Callie was asking for me herself. And if she wants to see me, you couldn’t keep me away no matter how hard you tried.”
My chest ached and heaved with each word as I fought to keep control of my volume. I wanted to yell and curse and punch him right in the nuts while I was at it, but the pesky rational voice in my head told me that wouldn’t be a good idea or help anyone involved.
Scratch that.
It would help me. At least emotionally.
But not anyone else. Least of all, Callie.
And this was all about her.
His voice shifted to an angry whisper, the threat rolling easily off his tongue, “I’ll have you physically removed—”
“Frank!” Sonya yelled loudly, startling us all.
My chin pulled back into my chest as I looked at this completely unknown version of Callie’s mom with caution.
“Jesus, Frank, just stop. For Christ’s sake, don’t you think you’ve done about enough?”
As surprised as I was, Frank was mystified. It was astoundingly clear that Sonya Nickleson had never talked back to Frank a single day of their married lives. And maybe before.
But she was sure as hell talking back now.
“We’re in goddamn Brazil, waiting on our daughter to come out of back surgery so we can find out if she’s still got the use of her legs. Nik obviously traveled here as fast as he could, and Callie’s asking for him, and by God, Frank, if she wants him, she’s going to fucking get him.”
The knot in my gut eased, the notion that I wasn’t the only person here fighting to reunite me with Callie just barely lightening the burden.
I wasn’t sure I trusted it enough to thank her verbally, but I met her eyes with my own and did my best to express my gratitude.
I looked from her to Frank and back again, and then watched as Shirley scooted quietly out of the room unnoticed. The other families looked on with interest, but no one said anything.
Not me, not Sonya, and most surprisingly, not Frank.
Shock painted his face as he backed over to a chair and sat down.
I kept a few chairs between us, but ultimately sat down on the same wall and waited.
Waited for news.
Waited for Frank to threaten to kick me out again.
But mostly, I waited to see my girl’s chocolate brown—
Eyes.
They were the last thing I saw in my dreams and the first thing I saw when I woke up. Brilliant blue and surrounded by lush, dark eyebrows, lashes, and hair, they smiled at the corners, shimmering with a wetness beyond their normal pools of water.
I was groggy and confused, but I knew those eyes, and most of all, I knew who they belonged to.
“Nik?” I croaked, my throat scratchy and sore.
My focus zeroed in, and the fuzziness of his face started to clear.
“Right here, Cal,” he whispered, leaning forward to kiss the very apple of my cheek.
“Are you really here?”
He laughed and smoothed the loose hair back off of my face.
“Pretty sure.” His thumb moved from the corner of my mouth to my ear and back again. “Otherwise the ten hour flight was a really god awful dream.”
I tried to smile, curving my lips up and holding them there as long as I could.
“Rest,” he whispered, rubbing at the corners of my eyes until they fully closed. “You’ve been through a lot, my little Pea. And I swear on my life I’ll be here when you wake up again.”
“Good,” I murmured just as I was drifting off to sleep. “Cause if you’re not here, I’ll kill you dead.”
“Calia. Caliaaa. Come on, sweetie, wake up for me.”
Warm fingers rubbed at the hair on my arm, pulling it from one side to the other and back again. It was easier to wake up this time, but I still felt way more fatigued than I was used to.
“Mmm,” I mumbled, not quite knowing what I was saying or who I was talking to yet.
“Hi, Calia,” a female nurse chirped, and with the blur of her face I couldn’t tell if I recognized her or not yet. “I’m Shirley.”
“Hi, Shirley,” I responded, simply because it felt like what I was supposed to do. And then I had a flash of something from the first time I’d woken up.
“Nik?”
“Nope,” I heard his voice call out from the other side of the room. “You killed him good and dead.”
“Huh?” I groaned, shaking my head to try to help clear it.
He chuckled, coming into my line of sight and resting his hand on my leg. “I guess you don’t remember what you told me before you fell asleep.”
Slowly things started to come back to me in pieces, my routine and the fall, and a whole lot of hours spent wondering when I could see Nik again.
I hadn’t known he would come, and I hadn’t expected it.
But I had sure as hell hoped.
Then being wheeled into surgery on my back, an effort to try to restore feeling to the lower half of my body, which no matter the outcome meant the end of my ability to do gymnastics ever again.
And as if the wound needed a little more salt rubbed in, my fall cost our team the gold.
Three Olympics. Three Team Silver Medals.
I thought I’d feel unsatisfied by that. That is would really burn and grate that I made all this effort, all of these sacrifices, and still hadn’t managed to do better than before.
But I didn’t feel that way at all. I felt like three Silver Olympic medals was still really fucking good. And most of all, I felt like I got what I really wanted out of that work, sweat, and blood—a life changing reward that changed the meaning of my life and filled my life with even more guts and glory.
I wanted to feel like I had everything I’d always wanted. I wanted that feeling of fulfillment.