Just Physical (35 page)

Crash had never wanted to hug anyone so badly. It was as if her entire body was pulled toward Jill, vibrating with the longing to hold her, to touch her, to establish some kind of contact. But she held herself back, not knowing if Jill would allow it. “Hi,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “It's great to see you.”

“You too,” Jill said, just as quietly.

Still not able to avert her gaze for even a second, Crash pointed at the T-shirt. “You look good in that.”

Jill tugged on the orange material. “It's a little too big.”

“You'll grow into it,” Crash said.

They were both silent for several moments, just drinking each other in.

“So,” Jill finally said, her voice cracking a little, “are you going to write something down?” She pointed at the black marker in Crash's hand.

Crash looked back and forth between her and the board. Should she really do this while Jill was watching?
Do it.
Jill had proven her courage by showing up, so she could be brave too. She inhaled deeply and then let the breath escape, as she did when preparing for a stunt. She lowered the tip of the marker to the board and wrote “Jill” into the bottom right corner, forming each letter with the utmost care until Jill's name was staring back at them.

Jill looked at her name as if she had never seen it before, then turned to face Crash.

Crash forced herself to straighten and hold her head up high. Jill might not like it, but she was the reason why all of their colleagues were here on the only day off they got this week. “Your turn.” She pressed the marker and its cap into Jill's hand.

Their fingers brushed, and the touch lingered for a moment longer than necessary.

“I'll do it later.” Jill capped the marker and tried to hand it back.

Crash refused to take it. “Showing up was the hardest part. You can do this.”

With an audible intake of breath, Jill turned toward the board. She uncapped the marker with a jerky motion. Her entire body stiffened as she faced the empty space on the board where she was supposed to write her reason for walking. The tip of the marker hovered over the board for a long time.

Her obvious struggle made Crash wince in sympathy. She barely dared to breathe while she waited for Jill to write something—or to walk away. If she did, she would be walking away from much more than just words on a board.

Finally, the marker touched the board, and after a few more seconds, Jill started writing. Her scrawl was almost illegible—either because her fine motor skills weren't the best today or because she wanted her reason to remain private.

But Crash had read Jill's comments scribbled in the margins of scripts often enough to be able to decipher the words.

Because I'm sick of being sick,
Jill had written.

A lump formed in Crash's throat. She trembled with the effort it took not to pull Jill into her arms.

Jill met her gaze. Gone was the spunky facade she displayed at work. Emotions that were too complex to name seemed to flow back and forth between them.

“Ah, you came!” someone said behind them. “So you didn't want to be set up with the mayor after all.”

Reluctantly, Crash turned away from Jill.

Lauren and Grace stood in front of them, both wearing the same orange T-shirts. Grace's world-famous blue eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses and her golden-blonde hair shoved beneath a baseball cap.

While Jill greeted Grace with a hug, Crash regarded Lauren curiously. “Set up with the mayor?”

“I threatened to include a sex scene between Lucy and the mayor in the script if she didn't show up for the walkathon,” Lauren said with a smug grin.

Crash looked back and forth between Lauren and Jill. Did Lauren really think a harmless threat could have changed Jill's mind?
Wow. She doesn't get it, does she?
Even Jill's friends had no clue what participating in this event meant for Jill.

Nikki, Shawn, Ben, Floyd, and several crew members joined them as they headed toward the registration tables. It took some time to get them all registered. Finally, they walked over to the starting point.

Crash fell into step next to Jill.

Jill turned her head and looked at her. They nodded at each other; then smiles crept onto their faces. “Save me a hot dog when you get to the finish line,” Jill said.

“I would if I got there before you.”

“Why wouldn't you?” Jill looked her up and down, causing pleasant shivers to course through Crash's entire body. “5k is nothing for you.”

Shrugging, Crash said, “I figure it's called a walkathon for a reason, so I'll walk, not run.”

Jill put her hands on her hips. “You're not just doing that to keep an eye on me, are you?”

“Maybe I like keeping an eye on you…both eyes, actually.” Crash gave a playful leer, wanting to lighten the mood.

Jill grabbed one of the long, orange balloons from the start line and pretended it was a baseball bat as she whacked Crash left and right.

Crash ducked one swing that was aimed at her head, grinning like a fool. The static from the balloon made her hair stand up in all directions, but she didn't care. All she cared about was that she and Jill had gotten their old, easy way of interacting back.

No, she corrected herself after a moment. At first glance, it might seem like everything was the same, but beneath the surface was a new understanding between them.

When Jill finally put down her balloon weapon, Crash lightly touched her arm. “Can I walk with you?”

Jill stopped laughing and looked at her, searching her face. After a couple of seconds, she nodded. “I'd like that.” Then, as if unable to stand the intimacy of the moment, she tore her gaze away and set off across the start line, following Lauren, Grace, and Floyd. “But only if you can keep up,” she called over her shoulder.

“Aye, ma'am.” Grinning, Crash hurried after her.

The loop around the Rose Bowl was paved and relatively flat, with only tiny inclines at some points. Two years ago, Jill would have finished the three miles already and would have been on her second hot dog by now. But running this distance was no longer possible. Not that it was required today. With the wheelchairs in the crowd surrounding them, it was slow-going and the entire loop would take them two hours.

Part of Jill wanted to charge ahead and leave them all behind, but she knew that doing this together was the point of the event. If she was honest with herself, the slow pace fit her just fine, allowing her to save her energy instead of exhausting herself trying to keep up. Besides, she was too busy looking around, observing the other participants, to watch where she was going.

Somewhere to her right, Lauren and Grace were walking hand in hand. Behind her, several of the stunt people were giving piggyback rides to tired kids. A lot of her colleagues had brought their families, so Jill was surrounded by people in orange. Even babies pushed in strollers were wearing the team T-shirts.

All of this because of me.
It was a weird feeling. Overwhelming, but not entirely negative. The most overwhelming of all was the woman walking next to her. She peeked over at Crash in her orange T-shirt with the
Team Shaken
slogan.

Shaken.
That was exactly how she felt around Crash, especially today.

Crash had written her name onto the board of reasons. It was solid proof that she was here just because of Jill. They all were, but with Crash, it meant more.

The young, magenta-haired woman in the motorized wheelchair directly ahead of them bumped over a crack in the pavement. The water bottle on her lap rolled off and landed on the ground. As much as the woman tried, she couldn't reach it.

Before Jill could think about it, she took a step forward, bent, and picked up the bottle. Wordlessly, she handed it back.

“Thank you.” The young woman beamed at her. Apparently, the little mishap hadn't clouded her mood at all.

“You're welcome.”

Just as Jill stepped back, a little girl came running, dragging a man by the hand behind her while clutching a balloon with the other. “Look, Mom! I got a balloon! Can I tie it to your wheelchair?”

Jill couldn't help staring. “She's got a kid?” she whispered. What kind of woman would have a child, knowing that she might not be able to care and provide for it as it grew older and her illness progressed, leaving her husband with the burden of taking care of her
and
the child?

“She's got three, actually,” Crash said next to her, “but I think the twins are with their grandparents today.”

Jill stumbled over the same crack in the pavement.

Crash caught her by the elbow, and Jill was too astonished to struggle against her gentle grip on her arm.

“You know her?”

“I know her husband,” Crash said slowly, as if hesitant to admit it. “Well, not really know, but I met him when I went to a caregiver support group meeting.”

Jill gaped at her. “You were…? You went to…?” She couldn't even finish the sentence.

Nodding, Crash directed her gaze to the woman in the wheelchair. “I needed to see.”

Dazed, Jill continued to stare at her. What had she needed to see? How bad MS could get? What burdens the caregivers struggled with? If she could be a caregiver if push came to shove? Had she found her answers?

But as much as she longed to know, Jill couldn't ask. She wasn't ready to deal with what Crash would say. A date…yeah, maybe, just maybe, she could handle that. But Crash's visit with a caregiver support group reflected a willingness to commit to more than just a couple of dates. Before, the thought had scared her—and it still did—but now it also caused a warm feeling to spread through her chest.

Oh, no. Forget it.
As much as she wanted to, she couldn't have anything long-term with Crash. She looked at the couples around her, who seemed happy with each other despite the MS.
Can I?

For several moments, they marched on in silence.

They approached the one-mile point, where tents had been set up with refreshments. The little girl ran to get her mother some water.

“Look at them,” Crash said.

Jill watched as the little girl climbed onto her mother's lap and received a hug and a kiss in return for the bottle of water. The husband laughed about something the girl said and then lovingly rubbed his wife's shoulder. They seemed like any other family. In fact, they seemed more loving and normal than her own family had ever been.

“Don't you want that?” Crash asked.

“Kids?”

“Happiness.”

The sadness inside of her threatened to turn into anger. “Of course I do. I'll just have to find it elsewhere, not in a relationship.”

“You haven't let the MS stop you from doing what you want in your job. You fought Floyd and Ben every step of the way when they wouldn't allow you to do the smaller stunts. Why do you let it stop you from having a relationship?”

“That's different,” Jill said. Admittedly, it sounded a bit lame, even to her. She realized that she didn't have an honest answer to Crash's question.

“Does anyone need a ride to the finish line?” one of the walkathon's organizers shouted, pointing over to a couple of golf carts waiting for passengers.

Jill wanted nothing more than to escape the conversation but was determined to cross the finish line on foot, come hell or high water.

Others seemed just as determined, even though a few of them were heavily leaning on canes or stopping every few steps to rest.

As they continued walking, all the impressions from the walkathon and Crash's question kept buzzing around in her head, which felt as if it were about to explode. Everything she had accepted as an unshakable truth was now being challenged.

Crash was mercifully silent for the next two miles, granting Jill a much-needed respite.

They rounded a bend and strolled along the golf course. The sun shone, without burning down on them and making Jill's symptoms flare, and the hum of a lawn mower drifted over from the golf course—a sound that reminded her of the long, lazy summers she'd spent with her grandparents as a child. A chipmunk chattered in the trees to their right, probably complaining about all the people passing through its territory. Crash's arm brushed hers every now and then as they walked.

If not for the battle being fought inside of Jill's mind, it would have been peaceful.

Someone in the crowd ahead of them let out a triumphant yell as they rounded another bend and the finish line appeared.

A live band played Queen's “We Are the Champions.” People laughed, high-fived, and hugged each other as if they had just won an Olympic gold medal.

Yesterday, Jill would have thought it silly, totally over top for a leisurely stroll. But now she had seen some of the participants struggle to finish the loop, and the wave of euphoria sweeping through the crowd seemed to be contagious.