Falling Fast (Falling Fast #1) - Tina Wainscott Page 0,32
and third-degree burns on twenty percent of my body. I was in the Atlanta burn hospital for a month, then they transported me home to Minneapolis to continue treatment. I had several surgeries over the next year—skin grafting, physical therapy. And counseling. I started getting tutoring for my senior year of school, desperate for something to focus on besides the next procedure.”
He couldn’t imagine her daily life during those months. The pain she’d gone through. It twisted in his gut, tore at his heart. Nancy hadn’t gone into a lot of detail about that time, patting his hand and telling him that she’d survive because she was a strong girl. But he had done online research and knew the grueling process burn victims endured.
“Were you not able to return to school?” he asked.
“I wasn’t ready to face the kids who knew me as I looked before. The thing was, I didn’t know a lot of people anyway. I missed a bunch of school during my cancer treatments. When it came back the second time, they decided it would be best to have me homeschooled until I was clear. I had a stubborn cancer; it took a while. I’d only just returned to school the year before. I never really fit in, you know. The kids saw me as ‘that poor girl who has cancer,’ and I sort of withdrew, because, in reality, I was the poor girl whose cancer could come back again. There weren’t the books and TV shows about kids with cancer back then. It scared people, like maybe it was contagious.”
“I screwed up your senior year.”
“You didn’t. That asshole did. Raleigh, you need to make that distinction. I watched you race many times. You were careful. And an excellent driver.”
He blinked at her curse word. He’d never heard her use language like that. “I was proud of you, walking across the stage.”
“I wanted the symbolism of having made it.”
“Then you went to college.”
“University of Minnesota. They have a mix of online and actual classes, so it was a good way to step out into the world a little at a time.”
“You’re a nurse now. Is that because of your experience in the hospital?”
“Yes. I had some amazing nurses who made the ordeal so much better. I feel like I was spared twice for a reason, and maybe that reason is to help others who are going through what I did. I’ve been working with burn victims at a hospital in Minnesota since graduating last year.” She gave him a dismissive wave. “But you knew that. And probably about my new job, too.”
“At Hennepin County Medical Center, specializing in pediatric burn care.”
She emitted a soft sigh. “Yep, you know about me.”
“I liked hearing about your life.” He started to tape again. “You must have dated. A little, at least. Don’t feel weird about telling me. I’d like to know that I didn’t totally ruin your life.” He didn’t want her to have dated, either, which he knew was psychotic. Unfair, at the very least. “I mean that Cassidy didn’t ruin your life,” he added when she frowned at him.
“I joined a support group for disfigured people where I met a guy who’d been burned in the service.”
I met a guy…it sounded serious. Was she still seeing him? Was he, even now, back in Minnesota waiting for her? Did they talk every evening, conversations that went late into the night?
She tossed the tape onto the tarp-covered couch and moved closer. Looked up at him, two steps up. “It was different than with us. We were, like…” She shook her hands and shot them up into the air like fireworks. “Madly crazy. Like love was our drug, and we were high all the time. With Stewart, well, I doubt he’d check himself out of the hospital and drive, bleeding and in pain, for hours to see me. I doubt he’d cause a ruckus in a hospital lobby.”
The words registered one by one, along with the soft way she’d said them. “Oh. That.” He came down the steps to her level, not wanting to tower over her.
“Oh, that,” she mimicked. “Like it was nothing.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh, it was something, all right. I think I went a little insane. Eight hours in the car, stopping to sleep when I couldn’t take the pain anymore, then pushing myself, scared to death I’d get there and find out…no, I couldn’t think about that. I just needed to see you,