Chased Dreams (7 page)

She snorted. “It’d be too long ago for you,
if it happened yesterday.”

“It’d be too long if it happened an hour
ago,” I teased. “What do you say to a little pre-surgery action for
your husband? I’m sure there’s a closet around here, somewhere, and
it would give me something happy to dream about while I’m under the
knife.”

She faced me. “Don’t men have anything
better to do than think about sex all the time?”

I appeared to ponder this for a moment.
“Well, there’s certainly nothing better that
I
can think of.
Why can’t women take that as a compliment?” I grinned as she
stuttered for something to say.

“Mr. Walker?” a familiar voice rang out and
I turned to see the same Patient Care Coordinator, Selena, who’d
helped me before.

“Coming,” I replied, reaching for my
crutches, sad that the fun little bantering I’d been having with my
wife had to come to an end.

This time, however, Selena was all business.
There was no flirting with me whatsoever as she directed Brittney
and me to our room. She quickly went about doing everything she
needed to and left out the door, telling me the doctor would be in
shortly.

I didn’t even have time to resume my
conversation with Brittney before Dr. Price appeared in the
doorway.

“Well, here we are, again. How are things
going?”

I glanced down at my injured leg and back
up, causing him to get an awkward smile on his face, as if he
realized that might not have been the right thing to ask.

“I guess I’m the best I can be, under the
circumstances,” I replied. “Let’s get this over with as fast as we
can.”

He nodded. “Understood. The nurse and
anesthesiologist will be in shortly to finish getting you ready. We
should have you back to surgery in the next thirty minutes. How
does that sound?”

True to his word, it wasn’t long before they
were ready to roll me back. There was a flurry of people helping as
they started to push the gurney out the door. Brittney had such a
sad forlorn look on her face.

“Wait,” I said. “I didn’t get to kiss my
wife goodbye.”

She brightened and stepped forward, leaning
to place a soft short kiss against my lips.

“I love you, Brittney.”

She smiled. “I love you too, Chasers.”

I continued to stare at her until I couldn’t
see her anymore and then I closed my eyes. I wanted her image to be
the last one, the one that stayed with me.

I started counting when the anesthesiologist
prompted me to, my eyes growing heavy. The next thing I knew, I was
standing on a football field with my best childhood friend, Ray,
next to me in shoulder pads and his game day uniform.

Was I dreaming again?

Confused, I looked up into the stands and
saw Nikki sitting next to Brett and Brittney. Further scrutiny
revealed my mom and Greg sitting up there and sitting next to them
was my real dad. They were all smiling and waving at me.

I couldn’t stop staring at my dad. It had
been so long since I’d seen him. I wanted to run to him—hug
him—tell him how much I missed him. He stood and gestured for me to
come to where he was. The closer I got, the more everyone else
faded away, until only he and I were standing there together. I
couldn’t help myself, I burst into tears.

“Stop crying, son. I’m proud of you, and the
man you’ve become.” He smiled and reached out to stroke my face,
pride shining in his eyes. “Always remember to keep your head above
your shoulders, no matter where life may take you. You’re my son
and you’re a Walker. We always fight until the end. I love
you.”

“No! No!” I screamed out as his image began
to fade away. The tears flooded my eyes until I couldn’t see
anything anymore.

Suddenly, I heard music blaring loudly, the
beat thumping hard. I wiped my wet face and glanced toward the
sound, finding Nikki sitting in my truck in front of the barn. She
was totally jamming out to some girly dance music. I couldn’t help
but smile when I saw her there, even though I couldn’t figure out
what was going on.

I went over and turned the music down. She
whipped around to stare at me and started laughing.

“What’s the matter, Chase? Can’t manage to
listen to my techno dance music?”

I couldn’t stop staring at her smile—the one
I’d fallen in love with. I was so confused right now. I felt like
the tears would never stop. “I miss you.” They were the only three
words I could mutter.

She got out and stepped forward, slipping
her hands into mine, gripping them tightly. “I miss you too, but
you’ll see me again, one day. I’ve been so proud of you.” Her eyes
were warm and compassionate as she stared at me.

It was hard for me to look at her and admit
my weaknesses. I glanced toward the ground. “Nikki, I’m scared. I
don’t know where life is taking me,” I managed to mumble.

She gave a slight chuckle. “You’re something
else.” She released one hand and grabbed me by the chin, forcing me
to look at her. “Don’t you remember who you are? You’re Chase
Walker—the guy who can get anything he wants, if he sets his mind
to it. You stole my heart when I had no plans to let you do any
such thing. Now you have this beautiful life—one that’s amazing.
You need to be happy with what you have.”

“I wish you could stay,” I said softly.

She continued to smile sweetly. “I’ll always
be with you, Chase. Right here.” She pointed to my chest. “And
you’ve always had my heart. I love you and I
know
you’ll
succeed in anything you do—not just football.” She stepped away and
sorrow flickered briefly in her eyes. “I have to go now. Your
surgery is over.”

It seemed as if her voice continued to echo
in my head until she disappeared, completely.

I felt someone shaking my shoulder.

“Chase, your surgery is over.”

I opened my eyes briefly and found a couple
of nurses standing over me, but I couldn’t stay focused and zoned
out again. Another shake of my shoulders woke me and Dr. Price was
standing there.

“Hi, Chase. I just wanted to let you know
everything went really well. We were able to get everything
stabilized. We added one plate and four screws. I’m much happier
with how things look now.”

“Okay, thank you,” I replied groggily.

“Did you feel any pain during the
procedure?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Not a thing. Why?”

“Hmmm, that’s strange. You had tears on your
face and we thought you were crying.”

I didn’t say anything more, but I was sure
they had been caused by my dream. I had no clue why I’d had this
dream, but I did know one thing—I was actually looking forward to
going to therapy.

It wasn’t too long before the nurses had me
all ready to go home. They wheeled me out to the car and helped me
get inside while Brittney went around to the driver’s side. All I
wanted was to go back to sleep. The pain meds were keeping me in a
blissful haze.

“Your foot massages may have to wait a few
days, babe. I’m feeling kind of beat.” I tried to muster a
smile.

She pretended to sigh heavily. “Oh, all
right. I guess you can put it off—for a few days. I’m not letting
you out of this one though.” She laughed.

“I love you,” I said, as I closed my
eyes.

“Sleep well. I love you too.”

Chapter Eight

“Chase?” Brittney’s voice called to me
gently. “Chase, we’re home.”

I slowly opened my eyes and saw we were
sitting in the driveway. My head was pounding and I honestly felt
like someone was hammering nails into my temples.

“Could you leave the front door open for me,
babe?” I asked, and groaned. Speaking made my head throb even
more.

“I’m going to help you into the house,
silly. You’re still pretty out of it. I don’t want you to fall and
hurt yourself worse.” She came around and opened the door for me
before grabbing my crutches from the back. “Here you go.”

She extended her hand and helped to pull me
to my feet. It made me so irritated. I’d been reduced to not even
being able to get out of a car and into my own damn house without
help. I didn’t know which was worse—needing help—or needing the
help of a girl. At least it was Brittney. I loved her and I was
glad she was willing.

“I couldn’t even get a bronze medal in the
Special Olympics if there were only three contestants,” I jokingly
grumbled, hoping to make her laugh and was happy when she did. I
loved the sound of her laughter. Just having her close by was
comforting.

She continued to walk right beside me as I
hobbled my way along, heading straight for the bedroom once I was
inside. I collapsed onto our bed, feeling like a train had hit me.
I was quickly learning one thing—I hated surgery and I hated being
in pain.

“Babe? Did they send any more of those pain
meds home with you? Whatever they gave me before the surgery isn’t
cutting it.” My knee was throbbing badly.

She laughed. “Yes, they gave you a new
script. We stopped at the pharmacy drive through on the way home to
pick them up. You don’t remember? You even signed the receipt for
them.”

“I did?” I asked in amazement. I had
absolutely no recollection of doing any such thing.

She laughed again. “Let me go get you a
glass of water so you can take some. The doctor said you could have
more if you needed it, when we got home.”

I sighed and relaxed back against my pillow,
images of the dream I’d had still floating through my head. They
disturbed me, but I didn’t feel like talking with Brittney about it
yet. I wasn’t sure why all these memories of Nikki kept surfacing,
but I didn’t want to hurt Britt’s feelings with them. I loved and
appreciated her so much. She’d helped me through so many difficult
times.

She reappeared with water and my medicine,
handing them over to me. “Here you go.”

I scooted higher in the bed so I could sit
up. I quickly swallowed them down and set the glass on the
nightstand. “Would you mind handing the Xbox controller too? It’s
over on the T.V.”

“You’re going to be calling me your maid
before long,” she replied, doing as I asked. “Are you sure you’re
awake enough to play this?”

“No,” I responded, knowing she didn’t really
like me playing this thing. “But I figured it would help to get my
mind off other stuff.”

“I understand. Is there anything else I can
get you? If not, I’ll go see if I can get you an appointment with
the therapist I found.”

“Yeah, if you’re gonna end up being my maid,
maybe you can start wearing one of those little French outfits
around the house.”

A burst of laughter escaped her. “You
wish.”

“Yeah, I do.” I winked at her and she shook
her head as she left the room.

I was really happy she was setting up the
appointment, already. I wanted to talk to someone who was outside
of this whole situation. I hadn’t felt like my head was sitting on
straight since my accident. It was as if I’d been shoved into some
creepy alternate universe.

Turning on the television with the remote, I
settled back to play. The longer I sat there, the more relaxed I
became, my body almost feeling like it was floating. This was
different from the high I used to get when I was smoking weed. It
made my body feel good again. I remembered people from my group
sessions who’d had problems with these kinds of pills. They’d told
me they were really easy to get addicted to. I could understand why
now. I finally had to turn my game off because I was too far gone
to play. I slid down into my pillow and just absorbed the feeling
washing over me.

“Chase?” Brittney called from the other
room. “Do you think you’d feel up to going to see the counselor in
a couple days?”

“Um, better make it for next week,” I
replied, finding it hard to stay awake. “I still feel pretty out of
it right now.”

“Okay. I’ll see what they have.”

I couldn’t stay awake to see if she had
anything else to say.

***

The loud beeping of the alarm woke me with a
start and I glanced over to see that it was ten o’clock in the
morning already. I’d fallen asleep at 5 PM, yesterday. These pain
meds were really knocking me out. I lifted my head and could
already feel a massive headache coming on and my knee starting to
throb.

“Awake from the dead?” Brittney’s voice
surprised me. I’d forgotten she’d taken work off today, so she
could help me get to my appointment.

“Yeah, barely. I need some more medicine
though. Will you get them for me?” I flashed her a tired puppy dog
stare, even though I knew she would anyway. “I think I’m going to
need something extra to ease the pain while I’m getting cleaned
up.”

“You have plenty of time. No need to rush,”
she said as she got up and went to get my medicine. “You’re
appointment is right after lunch, from 1 to 2.”

I sat up and slowly turned my legs off the
bed, staring down at the giant brace I still had to wear. I sighed
heavily, disgusted by my lack of mobility. I’d hoped to feel much
better than I did by now. “I’m afraid this is going to be somewhat
of a task again. Can you help me out?”

“Of course! You know I’m happy to!” Her
voice was cheerful, but she looked really tired. There were circles
under her eyes that hadn’t been there before. It had to be
difficult for her—working full time and then rushing right home to
take care of me. I hated that I was responsible for making her look
this way.

After she brought me my pills, she gathered
some clothes for me and followed me into the bathroom. The doctor
had given me a special sleeve for me to use when I showered to keep
my leg and incisions dry.

Brittney laid my clothing on the counter and
turned to face me. “What do you need my help with?”

“I’ve got my shirt, but I need help with the
rest.”

She immediately stepped forward and began
untying the string on my athletic shorts.