He tried putting some weight on the leg, drawing in a sharp breath at the pain that shot up his left thigh (like his lower leg was still there and was currently being stabbed). Jonas stumbled slightly, then clenched his leg with his hand and straightened it.
You can do this, Jonas, he told himself, breathing a little heavily from the pain. Was he going to hyperventilate? Stop it, he ordered his uncooperative body. Had it been this painful before? He couldn’t remember. His rumpled reflection in the mirror on the back of his closet door revealed a boy who was a shadow of who he’d been before The Accident—pale and a whole lot thinner. He’s back to eating like a bird! He’d heard his mother express her frustration with him to his father in hissed whispers coming from their bedroom down the hall. He tried to smooth back his feathery dark hair (his mom’s hair), which was stubbornly sticking up on one side, where it had had face time with his pillow last night. Then he tried on a smile that, when combined with the dark circles under his eyes, made his reflection look only slightly unhinged.
He left on his plaid pajama pants and threw on an old Washington U (St. Louis, Missouri: est. 1853) sweatshirt his dad had given him when Jonas had been accepted there (his mom and dad had met there—family tradition?). His dad was more muscular (filled out, as his mom would say), and his old sweatshirt made Jonas look a little like he was going for a swim in it.
He stopped looking at himself in the mirror when he couldn’t bear it anymore. It was odd, seeing himself with two legs again. It made his chest ache a little.
He picked up the crutches again and headed to the kitchen. He tried to think of things in steps.
Get up. (Complete.)
Get dressed. (Complete.)
Get down the hallway.
He was thankful that he was on the ground floor, at least, and didn’t have to navigate the stairs with crutches. After The Accident, Rhys had been forced to give up his bedroom downstairs and take Jonas’s old upstairs bedroom (the odd space over the garage where the air conditioner didn’t quite get in the summer and the heat didn’t quite get in the winter). Rhys hadn’t complained, and Jonas knew it was because he still felt guilty for being the one driving, and for not being injured in the same permanent capacity that Jonas was. Jonas let him feel guilty. Sometimes he felt bad about it, but most times he thought it was a poor substitute for what he himself had lost. It was complicated. He didn’t exactly blame Rhys, but he didn’t exactly not blame him either. Jonas had tried to explain this aloud to the counselor his parents had had him go to after it had first happened (until he’d refused to go and his mom, after a lot of tears, had given in) but had failed. After that, he hadn’t tried to explain anything to the counselor.
There was the permission slip, on the counter.
Pick it up.
Make it down the step into the garage.
The paper crumpled when he tried to hold it and the crutch at the same time. He slowly navigated the step down into the cool darkness of the garage. The keys for the Bus were on the wall next to the door, just like always—just like they’d been when Jonas still drove, where he would pick them up almost every day. The Bus was an old Honda Odyssey with sliding doors that didn’t work and a hole rusted through the door to the trunk. The air conditioner was also on the fritz, on top of the vehicle’s other charms—but it was loyal, and it continued to start and run without fail. There was almost something comforting about it.
Jonas opened the driver’s-side door carefully. You can do this, he told himself again, before opening the garage door and putting the key into the ignition, bringing the engine to life (all six minivan cylinders firing). He proceeded to give himself a pep talk that would have rivaled a football coach’s rallying cry minutes before the homecoming game (well, at least what he thought that would sound like; he wouldn’t know).
Jonas tried not to picture how many days had started with him grabbing the Bus’s keys off the same old hook, shouting good-bye to his mom, and driving off to school or to soccer practice because he was sixteen and newly driver’s licensed and he could. He tried not to think about how now he couldn’t—about all the times he’d tried since he’d recovered from The Accident (when everyone was gone and he was safely alone), only to end up in a cold sweat, unable to leave the driveway. He could have kept trying—could have worked up to it, as the counselor had said—but he just didn’t see the point anymore. And you’re afraid, his irritating inner voice shot back.
After The Accident, there were a lot of things Jonas found himself unable (or unwilling) to do. It was too easy to be reminded of what he was before he was reduced to being a teenager with only one and a half legs. After The Accident, the way he saw the world had been skewed. To him, people were always either a) trying too hard to pretend he was normal or b) going out of their way to try to help him. Help carrying his backpack after school, help opening the door to whatever store he happened to be going into. One well-meaning friend had even offered to take his arm and help him walk, much to Jonas’s embarrassment.
He was tired of people looking at him like he was less him than he had been before the semi hit the passenger side of his brother’s car. He already felt like he was somehow less than he had been before—he didn’t need other people reinforcing that.
So he withdrew from everyone. Jonas with two legs had never been incredibly social, but he’d had friends, at least. He had since distanced himself from them. It was too easy for them to make comments like, “Can’t believe Coach is making us run laps today,” or even the completely innocuous, “Break a leg,” before a presentation at school. Jonas would give anything to run laps aimlessly around the soccer field, or for his leg to ache with something other than phantom limb pain. He was tired of being reminded. He was tired of his friends realizing he was there and then turning to him and apologizing awkwardly. Really, he could handle the comments. What he couldn’t handle were the pitying looks that came afterward, or the way their words trailed off when they caught his eye, because that was what reminded him that he was different now.
Jonas always thought he would be fine if people would only act like they had before, but a small part of him, that annoying inside voice, wondered if he would really be okay if people acted like nothing had changed. What’s the point of pretending nothing has changed when everything has? But he couldn’t stop trying to pretend, at least in front of anyone outside of his family.
So he didn’t go places with friends anymore. He didn’t go hang out at the mall or go to the movies. He didn’t watch their soccer games. He didn’t drive.
He just existed, as if suspended in the moment in which he had regained consciousness only to realize he was short an appendage.
He slowly backed the Bus out of the garage and then down the driveway. He shifted the vehicle into drive and headed down his street. This wasn’t so bad, right? Not so bad (he felt very much like a fifteen-year-old again, learning to drive his parents’ minivan. He still remembered his dad: Easy on the brakes, Jonas. Then Elliot Avery would grin, even though his nervous energy was dissipating into his hands, adjusting his seat belt. You’ll give me whiplash!).
Jonas had never been sad about the leg. The one time he’d cried was more out of anger than anything. He always wondered if it was just that the shock had been so terrible that it had yet to wear off, even almost a year later. It just … was. This was his situation now, and he didn’t feel like being sad would help anything. Besides, Rhys had cried enough for the both of them. Jonas had never known his older brother could cry that much—could cry at all, in fact. (Rhys had gone to visit the counselor—Dr. Andy—after Jonas had stopped seeing her. Supposedly it had helped. At least Rhys didn’t cry anymore.)