“I told you I didn’t feel like it,” I snapped.
“You did,” he agreed. He handed me my water bottle. “You also managed to go longer and harder on the treadmill than you ever have before. I call that progress.”
“Progress?” I scoffed. I gestured to my body. “I collapsed—again. How is my life ever supposed to be normal if I keep collapsing?”
Jackson raised his hands. “You have to talk to your doctors about that. I am a trainer. I know how to make you strong. I don’t know how to fix what’s broken on the inside.”
“It’s not broken on the inside,” I insisted. I knew what he wasn’t saying—that he thought the issue wasn’t with my body but rather my mind. We’d had this argument before. But as I’d told him, repeatedly, that was a load of horseshit. I was in here, wasn’t I? Wouldn’t I know if I was mental? “How am I supposed to live like this?”
“I don’t know,” he said. His gaze was full of sympathy, which made my stomach turn. I glanced away. Shame at my own weakness bubbled up in the back of my throat like bile, and I desperately wanted to punch something until my knuckles bled.
As if he knew I needed a minute, Jackson strode over to the windows that overlooked my backyard. He stood there, looking out over the lawn and the pool, while I collected my shattered sense of self and reined in my temper. It took a minute or ten.
These episodes didn’t usually last very long, five to ten minutes but sometimes more; still they freaked me out all the same, because I never knew when or where they were going to happen or if they would be a precursor to something worse. The anxiety I felt anticipating these episodes ate at me day in and day out and was almost worse than my body betraying me. Almost.
When I felt my strength return, for the most part, I glanced at Jackson, preparing to call him back. Even though I’d had an episode, I knew he wouldn’t let me shirk the rest of my workout. Which was fine. I wasn’t a quitter, and I wasn’t giving up on myself. Not today.
As he gazed out the window, a small smile turned up the corners of his mouth. He must have felt my stare, because he turned to me and said, “She’s out there.”
He didn’t need to tell me who she was. I lifted the water bottle to my lips and drained half of it. “So what?”
He turned back to the view and let out a low whistle.
“She’s a looker.” He glanced over his shoulder at me, and one of his eyebrows quirked up in challenge before he returned to the window.
“Right, your idea of a good-looking woman is whether or not she can bench-press a car,” I said. “If you think she’s good-looking, then she’s definitely not my type. I don’t go for women who wrestle hogs for fun.”
“If you say so,” he said. He didn’t turn away from the window but kept staring, clearly enjoying the view.
I sat impotently—which, for the record, is not a word I liked to use in reference to myself in any way, shape, or form—on the bench. Oh, sure, I could try to get up and walk to the window. In fact, I suspect that’s exactly what Jackson was trying to goad me into doing. Jerk.
It would take a lot more than the promise of a good-looking woman for me to give up the security of my safe seat, especially after an episode. Still my curiosity was yammering at me to get a look at the woman Miguel Vasquez had foisted upon me.
“All right, all right, I’ll take a look,” I said. I waved my hand at Jackson. He understood the unspoken command and yet chose to ignore it.
“Walk,” he said, and turned back to the window.
“No,” I said. It was the voice I’d used on construction guys who were slacking and bank loan officers who were weasels. It was supposed to make the person I was speaking to fall in line. Jackson was impervious.
“You need to—” he began.
“Dut dut dut,” I interrupted him. “I didn’t hire you to tell me what I need. I hired you to train me and to be around as needed.”
“You don’t need me right now,” he said.
He didn’t even bother turning around to speak to me, so riveted was he on the woman he could see from the window. My new tenant. What was her name? I couldn’t remember. Fuzzy brain, damn it, another gift from that horrible day. No wonder I never left my house.
I gauged the distance from where I was sitting to my wheelchair parked beside Jackson at the window. I could get there, spotting myself on the line of equipment in my personal gym if I was so motivated. Jackson was still staring outside, ignoring me. All right, my curiosity was most definitely getting the better of me.
I pulled myself to my feet. The fatigue that occasionally clobbered me, also without warning, made me inch my way to my wheelchair beside the window. I absolutely did not want to slide to the floor in a heap. I’d had enough humiliation for one morning. I felt my heart rate accelerate as I got closer. My nerves were snapping just beneath the surface. Being picked up by Jackson twice in one day was more than my ego could bear. I tried to distract myself.
As I got closer, I asked, “Scale of one to ten, with one being my great-aunt Madge with the long chin whisker and the faint odor of mothballs about her, and ten being Scarlett Johansson, where does she rank?”
Jackson glanced over his shoulder at me with an assessing stare then he shook his head. “I don’t rate women.”
“What?” I cried. “You’re the one who just called her a ‘looker.’ ”
“Just an observation, not a rating. I can objectively notice that a woman is very attractive without diminishing her as a person by assigning her a number based on society’s arbitrary standards of beauty.”
“Dude, you need to give me your man card,” I said. “You’re one of those ‘woke’ males, aren’t you?” Truthfully, I respected that Jackson wasn’t a dick about women, bucking the misogynistic stereotype of most muscle heads, but I would rather swallow my tongue before I’d admit it.
He stared at me with his unnerving gray gaze, and I got the distinct feeling I didn’t fool him one little bit. I definitely needed to fire him.
“An eight-point-five,” he said. “She’s a little scrawny for me.”
In spite of myself, I laughed. Then I choked on it, realizing that having a hot tenant was not good. In fact, it was bad, very bad. I did not want any distractions during my recovery, and Annabelle Martin—that was her name!—my unwanted renter, was an eight-point-five. Shit! Then again, maybe Jackson graded on a curve. Maybe his hotness meter would register as a five for me.
I took four steps, keeping my hand out to grab the rack of barbells I passed if I started to crumble again. It wasn’t necessary. I reached the wheelchair, turned, and lowered myself onto the seat with the familiarity that had come from the past nine months of hauling myself around in the stupid thing. I hated it. I hated that I needed it. I hated what it represented. But mostly, I hated that I was afraid to be without it.