feels to be moving at my own free will. With my own doing, I’m able to move forward and go where I want without the assistance of others. It’s like I’m gaining back a piece of myself that my dad took from me, and that puts a smile on my face. A small one, but it’s a smile nonetheless.
Once I get to the side of his truck, Easton helps me in before loading the chair into the back. He installed a ramp back there shortly after I got home, and it comes into extra use now because this motorized chair is heavy as fuck.
He hops in, starts the truck and heads out. “Check the glove box.” He nods his head towards my legs.
I reach forward, popping open the glovebox and seeing a nice, fat blunt rolled to perfection. It takes a minute, but I’m able to grab the blunt and pull it out of the glovebox.
It’s been an adjustment. Trying to relearn how to do things is a struggle, but I’m improving. Even though my feeling was gone on my upper half for a little over a month, the process to relearn your mobility is like starting from square one. I’m weak, and somedays is hard to get a grip of things.
“Want to light it up?” He asks, pulling a lighter out of his pocket.
“You do it.” I know there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to flick the lighter. Passing him the blunt, he lights it up and passes it back to me.
“My bad.” He says through a cough.
I shrug. “So, what’s the meeting about?” I take a pull of the blunt, relishing in the burn in my chest as I exhale through my nose.
“Aziel and Lynx got in the other night. Gonna meet with them.”
I nod, and we drive silently the rest of the way to the warehouse.
When we get there, I’m way more blitzed then I should be when I head into a meeting. Easton unloads the chair and helps me into it. Hugo meets us at the door, giving me a massive smile when he sees me. “Jackson.” He reaches down and grabs my hand, and I give it a little squeeze. “I’m so glad to hear your improving. How do you like the chair?”
“It’s sweet. Thank you, Hugo.”
He smiles, and Easton holds the door open for me. “We’re meeting in the conference room.”
I give him a nod, and make my way over to the conference room on the north end of the office. I see a few workers on my way through, and they all give me a nod. I haven’t spoken to any of them before, and I think they realize just because something happened to me doesn’t mean I’m going to start have an unnecessary chat with them.
Hugo makes it to the door first and opens it up, revealing three men in the middle of a heavy conversation. When they hear the door open, the stop what they’re doing and turn around. Rich is the first to stand, coming over to me and putting a hand on the back of my neck. “Jackson, glad you could be here today. It hasn’t been the same without you, son.”
“Thanks.” Some weird emotion builds in my throat, and I clear my throat to rid the feeling.
Lynx comes up behind him and gives me a heavy stare. “How’re you feeling, Jackson?”
“I’m here.”
He nods. “I’m sorry this is how things ended up for you. I never knew…”
I shake my head, not wanting to get into the mechanisms of me and my childhood or my relationship with my father.
“I’d have killed him, you know. If I knew about it.” He says, running his hand down his face as he walks back to his chair.
When he sits down, I see Aziel sitting there, staring at me. His face is expressionless, but I can see the fury in his gaze as his eyes look me up and down, stopping at my useless legs as they sit there thin and motionless. They are the one thing about me that I’m ashamed of.
Yes, I’m ashamed.
They’ve lost their muscle mass. Although I wasn’t that beefy to begin with, not using my legs has made them look ridiculous, and I hate it. It infuriates me as I look down at them and see the useless limbs unresponsive and dead.
Aziel shakes his head, saying nothing but giving me a look of complete sadness. He’s another brother to me, and I completely understand his emotion. We