He shrugged. “So? The fact remains. She’s your tenant, and you should go meet her and welcome her to her new home.”
“You mean her temporary lodgings,” I corrected him. “She’ll be leaving in six months if not before.”
“Unless you like her and invite her to stay longer.” Again, he wagged his eyebrows.
I shook my head. “That’s never going to happen. I can’t even imagine attempting to date anyone like this.” I spread my arms wide to encompass my entire body.
Ironically, I was in the best shape of my life. At any other time, I’d be happy to be out there in the sea of singles, mixing and mingling, but no. I’d limited my alcohol intake to almost never, and given up sugar, almost all caffeine, and women, basically anything that made life worth living.
For the past few months, I’d worked out just about every day with Jackson. I was determined never to be as vulnerable as I was on that horrible afternoon, knowing something was wrong but unable to communicate as my body went weak, my face drooped, and my ability to form words evaporated. The mere memory of it caused me to break into a sweat as my heart raced, which scared the crap out of me and then made me furious. I hated feeling weak.
Of course, this was exactly why I put up with the big blockhead. Jackson took our workouts seriously. My goals were his goals. Straight up. I trusted him even if he did end every workout by blasting Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” on the sound system.
“What does Dr. Henry say?” Jackson asked, breaking the silence.
“That he’s run every test he can think of and there’s nothing wrong,” I said. “I’m a medical anomaly.”
Jackson tugged at his chin hair. I recognized it as his go-to gesture when he was thinking about something. Very slowly, his gaze rolled up to mine and he said, “I think you need a different sort of doctor.”
“I already have a cardiologist, a general practitioner, a neurosurgeon, and a neurologist,” I said. “I am ass deep in doctors. Who else could possibly help me at this point?”
He stared at me as if gauging my possible reaction to what he was about to say. He wasn’t usually this circumspect so I felt myself prepare to be on the defensive.
“A therapist,” he said. “I think you need a therapist.”
I frowned. “You’re my physical therapist.”
He shook his head. “Not that kind of therapist.”
“Then what kind . . .” My voice trailed off. I narrowed my eyes at him. “You think I’m mental.”
He looked at me with one eyebrow raised. “I know you’re mental.” When I was about to tear into him, he added with a shrug, “We all are.”
“You think my fatigue, fuzzy brain, and the weakness in my leg isn’t real,” I said. My voice sounded hurt and accusatory. That just pissed me off because I didn’t want him to think I cared about what he thought of me, because I didn’t.
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s real. I just think there’s something else keeping you from a full recovery.”
“That’s stupid,” I said. I picked up my glass of water, resenting that he was having a beer, and took a long sip. “I have done everything, absolutely everything, to recover. Why would I sabotage myself like that?”
“PTSD,” he said. “Emotionally, you’re just not ready. I saw a lot of it when I came back from Afghanistan.”
“I didn’t go to war,” I reminded him. I took a breath, forcing myself to say the hated words that I usually tried to avoid. “I had a stroke.”
When a thirty-five-year-old man says this, it usually stops people cold. Not Jackson.
“You think it’s much different?” he asked. “In one case, you have unexpected IEDs blowing up in your face, possibly killing you or your squad. In your situation your entire body shit the bed on you without warning. Seems like both instances are pretty fucking traumatic.”
I didn’t know if he was trying to schmooze me into listening to him by comparing my medical misadventure to his time in the military. Right, make me having a fat blood clot in my head comparable to a guy putting his life on the line for everything our country holds dear. Sure. I’d have to be a complete asshole to buy that fantasy. Besides, the amount of self-loathing I would feel if this were just some neurotic response to the horrible event of nine months ago would be unparalleled.
“I don’t have PTSD,” I said. It had been suggested that I might have some complications like that before by my regular doctor, but I felt like a tool even considering that the weakness in my leg or my constant feeling of impending doom came from a flaw in my character.
“There’s nothing wrong with being traumatized by what you went through,” Jackson insisted. He took a chunk of meat off the cutting board and chewed with gusto.
“I know that,” I said. “But that’s not it. I know it isn’t.” I didn’t know that but I wasn’t ready to entertain the idea that I was broken emotionally from the hell of the past few months. “The docs just haven’t figured it out yet.”
“You need to look wider, Nick,” he said. His voice wasn’t judgmental but I heard it that way anyway.
“I’m sorry, where did you get your medical degree?” I asked. Now a normal person would have been pissed, cussed me out, or taken a swing at me. Not Jackson. He laughed. That annoying shake-the-bricks-in-the-wall cackle. I definitely needed to fire him.
“What is the ruckus in here?” Lupita Guzman, my housekeeper and cook, came into the room carrying two heaping plates of chicken enchiladas.
She was short and curvy with wavy black hair that she wore in a stylish bob, dark eyes that sparkled, and a smile that lit up the room. She always wore a neatly pressed dress shirt and slacks with comfortable shoes. Honestly, she was the mom I’d always wanted and never had.
I’d gotten lucky when I hired her and her husband just after I bought my house five years ago. The bonus being that they lived in one wing of the house, so I always had someone nearby in case of an emergency when Jackson wasn’t around. He lived here, too, but also had other clients that he worked with in the afternoon and evening, which was a good thing. We’d likely kill each other if we were together all the time.
Lupita’s husband, Juan, was my groundskeeper and driver, who felt more like a reserved uncle as he maintained a certain emotional distance. I knew he appreciated the work and he liked me just fine, but he had two grown children of his own and wasn’t looking for another. Lupita did not have these boundary issues.
She crossed the room and clucked her tongue as she put a plate in front of me. In her lightly accented voice, she asked, “You worked too hard today, didn’t you?”