He had been good about caring for his injury too. He had been a fucking angel over it. He'd iced every night after they worked too hard at a practice. Sometimes he found if he used the TENS unit before a practice, he had better movement, so he stocked up on pads and gave the muscles on his neck and up high on his shoulder a good buzzing before they started to work.
He'd found some other fun things to do with clips he'd ordered online instead of pads, but that was another story altogether.
The bottom line was that he had worked really, really hard to take care of himself. And in the week before the recital when things had started to turn south, he got aggressive. He rested whenever he could. He had Duon come in and do most of the lifting as he got things set up for the show. While the others worked, he went upstairs and hung out with Vicky, who was, as always, poring over her ledgers.
“You know,” Ed said as he settled into a chair opposite her desk, “you could maybe hold off until the benefit. Maybe it will take care of everything.”
Vicky grimaced and rubbed at her cheek. “Yes, well, I still keep thinking that if I move things around, I wouldn't need their help.”
“I thought the board approved everything.”
“They did,” Vicky admitted. “But we're going to have to accept outside help. And I swore I was never going to do that. I know it's Laurie, and I know Laurie would never betray us, not on purpose but—” She sighed. “Well, I hate it. That's all. I hate that I need it.”
Ed smiled ruefully. “Hear you there.”
He really did get it, because despite letting Laurie take care of him to a degree, he kept trying to be as independent as possible. And as his savings began to dry up and no other job materialized and even that faded away, Ed tried to take care of his injury instead, to make sure that it at least didn't get in the way.
God, but he was Tim's model patient now. He medicated, and he stretched. He saw a massage therapist three times a week. He did the pool every day. And as they came up on the benefit, he was even more rigorous. The day before he stopped all activity and lay in bed as much as he could, even skipping the final dress rehearsal. He didn't want anything to go wrong.
Laurie had noticed this and got worried. “Are you all right? Is everything okay?”
“Just making sure I'm rested,” he said. “So nothing goes wrong.”
It had been a good plan. A foolproof plan. Which was why it was so fucking unfair when the day of the benefit came and Ed woke in sharp, screaming pain.
There was no reason for it, none at all. He'd done everything right, fucking babied the neck like crazy, and still this. He tried to tell himself it was a fluke, that he could work through it. He took the full monty of drugs. But they hardly registered. He used cold compresses. Hot compresses. He used the TENS for an hour. Nothing worked.
He tried ignoring it. He tried pretending nothing was wrong, tried soldiering on as he helped Laurie set up, fought the bite of pain as he sat with Laurie through a rushed and nervous lunch. Laurie was a mess, a ball of nervous energy, and Ed tried to put his own pain aside and steady him.
At six, the guests began to arrive at the center. Ed was backstage with the other performers, swimming in denial. Even Vicodin refused to cut through the pain. It shafted across his brain, cut across his entire consciousness. And he realized what he had known, to be honest, since he'd gotten up that morning.
He was not going to be able to dance today.
For a few seconds he stood there, the din of preparation crashing around him, mixing with the fog of pain. The denial, the refusal he'd clung to all day, the determination that he would be bigger than this, that it would not claim him, that pain would not take away his life—as he stood there, watching the able bodies whir around him, his facade cracked. The truth he had been dodging for almost two years now came home.
The pain wasn't trying to take away his life. The pain was his life.
It was a ridiculous moment in which to mourn. The moment to come to terms with pain was not backstage at a gala event. Not surrounded by family and friends and community members and kids who looked up to him like he was God. This was not a public moment; this was a moment for the dark. This was for the middle of the night, alone in the cocoon of a bed. This was for a bathtub or a shower, or for the quiet of a chair with the television in the background. But Ed had run from those moments. The pain had tried to talk to him then, but he had run away, had slammed all the doors, had put his fingers in his ears and sung. He'd even manufactured a false sense of acceptance. He'd told himself he was okay.
Though he wondered if there ever really was a golden moment of crossover. He wondered, the heaviness of it all dragging him further down, if the journey of a life with pain was simply finding more and more layers of acceptance, that at best the most constant tether would be that he would never really find the bottom, that the bottom had different levels, and that no matter how good he tried to be, sometimes he would sink into a hole.
He wanted to shout. He wanted to scream, wanted to make all these happy, well people stop being so fucking happy and try to make them feel, to let them know, to show them how fucking unfair it was that this was his day, his big day with Laurie, and now it was going to be gone. He wanted to show them how lucky they were, to make them feel this too.
He wanted it to go away. He wanted his old life back, his life when he could have lifted Laurie up and bench-pressed him over his head with hardly a thought. He didn't want the life where he was so weak and unstable that he couldn't dance with Laurie at his special show.
He wanted to scream that this was unfair, to appeal to God, to anything and anyone, to say that he didn't deserve this, to demand a recount, a refund—to get someone to tell him that, yes, this had been a mistake.
But it wasn't. It wasn't a punishment. It wasn't a gift. It just was. His pain was his life. It wasn't all his life was, not always. But today, despite his best efforts to keep it from being so, was going to be about pain. It was rain on a picnic. It was the blizzard that kept you at home. It was the hailstorm that took out your roof.
It was the pain that would keep him from dancing his routine with Laurie today. It wasn't about fair or how good or bad he had been, either in life or preparation.
It just was.
Acceptance, sad and bittersweet and yet oddly calming, wrapped around him. He felt heavy, though. Heavy and tired and sad.
He felt the hands of others on him as they saw his distress, felt their fingers brushing at his tears—his mother—and he felt Laurie's hand even before he saw him, felt his concern.
Felt his love.
He squeezed his hand. “I'm sorry,” he slurred.
Laurie kissed him and drew him close. “It's okay. It's going to be okay.”
Ed thought, sinking into Laurie's shirt, yes. No, it wasn't okay yet. Right now, frankly, everything completely sucked.
But with Laurie here, with Laurie with him, eventually it would be.
Chapter Nineteen
enganche: hooking, coupling. Follower wraps leg around the other's leg; leader displaces follower's feet from inside.
Laurie took Ed to the emergency room.
Annette fussed, saying she wasn't quite sure that was necessary, but the fact that Ed wasn't arguing with him scared the pants off of Laurie, and so he took him anyway. As he suspected, it came to nothing. There was nothing wrong with Ed's neck—nothing new, anyway. They gave him some heavier painkillers and a steroid because of some swelling, and they sent him home.
Laurie missed the entire benefit. The dinner hadn't even started when he left with Ed, and to be honest, he didn't even look back. He assumed they had cancelled the show and that Vicky had run the rest of it. He had no idea, not until the next day when she and Oliver came by the apartment to visit.
“It was a huge success,” Vicky said, beaming. “And the show was great. Probably a bit less polished than if you'd been there—lots of missed cues and wrong music—but I think in the end that became part of the charm.” She let out an unsteady breath. “And you were right. The donors were wonderful. I really, really liked them.”
“It was quite a success,” Oliver agreed. “Without anyone specifically intending it, the quaint clumsiness drove home the need for the funding and for the center itself. It left the space between the community and the donors: They could see what was needed, and thanks to your framing and to Vicky's, they believed they could be what was missing. Everyone left feeling warm and positive, as if for once they'd actually made a difference.” He smiled. “And the kids were fantastic. When they came out for their performance, they said, ‘This one is for Laurie and Ed,’ and they gave it their all. Everyone was charmed.”
Laurie smiled, but his smile was weak. “Good.”
Vicky glanced back toward the bedroom. “How is he?”
“Better,” Laurie said.
Oliver squeezed his shoulder. “Give him our best.”
Ed was up later in the day. They had lunch with his mother, and a few times he even smiled. But he was still tired and very drugged, and before long he went to lie back down again. This went on for another week.
For Laurie, the weeks after the center benefit went by in a blur. He kept working at the center, and he kept coming home to Ed, and Ed, though tired, wasn't half as down as he had been, but he still seemed removed, and Laurie couldn't shake the feeling that something had broken somehow. And he was terrified this time there would be no way to fix it. Vicky's center was saved, yes. And he had a new studio, and it was finally doing well.
He didn't care about any of it. All he wanted was Ed. He would trade it all, everything he had, to have Ed back again.
Then one day he came home from the studio, and Ed was sitting up in a chair, looking serious. “Hey,” he said, a sad, nervous smile on his lips. “I've been waiting for you. There's something I need to say.”
It's over, Laurie thought, his heart in his throat, and let his bag fall like lead to the floor. “Okay,” he said, his voice rough and thick.
Ed motioned to the sofa next to him. “Come and sit.”
Laurie did, moving as if through a fog.
I don't want it to be over. I don't want it to be over, Ed
! He cleared his throat. “How are you feeling?”
Ed shrugged, “Okay.” He paused. Then he said, “To tell you the truth, it's been pretty good all week.” He grimaced. “Wish it would have gone that way a few Saturdays ago, but what are you gonna do, huh?”
Laurie drew back in surprise. “You haven't hurt all this week? But—"
Why are you leaving me?
Ed was silent for about half a minute. Eventually he reached over and ran his hand sadly over Laurie's. “I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. And talking with Linnet and with Tim. I applied for the disability, and I went on the antidepressant a few days ago. About the time I stopped hurting, in fact. They're why I've felt better, I'm sure. And I guess I needed the depression part too, because I feel a lot more myself ever since too. I look back at the past few months, and I realize—” He sighed and shook his head. “Well, I realize I've really screwed up.”
Laurie's head was spinning.
He doesn't need you. That's what he's realized
. Panic tried to choke him, but Laurie climbed on top of it. “You haven't screwed up,” he said quickly. “You're fine. You've worked so hard, Ed.”
So have I. Please let me try harder! Please don't go!
Ed shook his head. “I should have gone on the drug a long time ago. But I was in denial. I wanted something I couldn't have.”
No
! Laurie wanted to scream. “But you can have it!” he said desperately. “We can—”
Ed held up his hand and spoke sternly. “No, Laur. I know you mean well, but that's just it. I have to accept—I am accepting—that I'm not getting my old body back. That my new body could get worse. That's what I've been doing the last few weeks, I think. I've been mourning the fact that things have changed. Mourning that I'm not the man I want to be.”
“I like the man you are,” Laurie said a little hotly.
Ed smiled and bent down to kiss him. “I know. And I love you for that. But I have to do this. And I'm probably not done yet either. It's just going to take some time.”
“But I don't want to lose you!” Laurie cried, unable to hold back any longer.
Ed blinked and drew back. “What?”
Laurie rushed on, panic fully taking over now. “You make it sound like your life is over, and it's not! You can do so much! And Tim said you can get stronger! Don't give up, Ed!”
“It's not giving up.” Ed's tone had gone sharp. “It's being realistic. Don't argue this, Laurie. You need to understand. I'm not saying that I'm done trying to strengthen myself or that I'm going to spend the rest of my life on this couch. Not at all. But what I am done with is waiting for when things are better. I'm done waiting for the pain to be all gone. I'm done trying to keep it at bay.”
“But—” Laurie cut himself off this time, too afraid he might cry if he kept going. He didn't even know what to plead for anymore.
Ed went on, still calm and cool. “Tim had a new idea this week. He thinks I'm developing something like fibromyalgia, though he also says that's too simplistic. It's something to do with nerves, though. There isn't technically anything wrong in my neck, not beyond what is already known. But the nerves are misfiring, reading all sensation as pain. When they get ramped up, the more I try to calm them, the more upset they get. And last weekend I wanted so badly to perform, and I fixated on it, and I ramped all the way up to eleven, and my nerves came with me. That explains why the painkillers didn't really work and neither did the steroids, but yet Sunday I was pretty much fine. We're still working on the theory, and he has some weird body-awareness technique he's showing me.” He shrugged. “But the truth is, he might be wrong. And I think I've finally figured out what it is I need to do with this. I need to make peace with it. Some days I'll accept it and others I'll hate it. Sometimes it's going to get in the way. Bad. But sometimes it won't. And it just is what it is. And what it is, Laur, is my life.” Ed sat in front of Laurie and took his hands. “You need to get this too. You need to accept it too, if you're going to be with me. This is me, now.”