The One Who Got Away - CH 3

Chapter 3

Part One: Six years earlier

"I slept with Seth."

"You WHAT?" Kay's friend Micah almost dropped the ice cream cone she was holding, and her jaw practically fell to the ground. 

They were sitting on the grass in a public park; around them were families, groups of students and smooching couples, all enjoying the sunny spring afternoon. 

Micah looked unsure of whether to be shocked or excited. "When? How? Why? And what the fuck, Kay?" 

Kay smirked sheepishly at her own ice cream. "Last night." She shrugged. "It just… happened."

"Uh huh", Micah said with a scoff. "Right."

"Really! I didn't mean to do it." Seeing the alarmed look on her friend's face, she quickly clarified: "I mean, I wanted to, we both did. It simply wasn't planned."

Micah gave her a lazy smirk. "You just accidentally fell on top of him?"

With a laugh, Kay rolled her eyes. "We were at Glow and then his car conked out. So I invited him to crash at my place."

Now Micah rolled her eyes as well.

Kay gave her a look. "What?"

"So much for 'It wasn’t planned'."

"But it really wasn't!" Kay protested. "I don't know what happened, Micah, we suddenly… wanted each other."

Her friend lent her a telling look. "You didn't ‘suddenly’ want each other. He's always had the hots for you."

Kay averted her eyes, trying not to smile. "Oh please."

"What I really want to know is: Why? Why would you sleep with Pretty Boy? Doesn't he have a girlfriend?"

Kay scowled at her. She hated when Micah called him that. Sure, Seth was good looking – he even was what one would have called 'a beautiful man'. But obviously naming him 'Pretty Boy' was not a compliment on Micah's side. She didn't know Seth well and somehow had never really warmed up to him. Not that she had ever directly said so, but Kay suspected she didn't get what Kay saw in him as a person. From the moment Kay had introduced him to her at a party, Micah had immediately categorized Seth. Guys who looked like that couldn't be cool and multi-layered – Micah’s theory. The fact that Kay knew him much better and could attest for the theory not applying here hadn't been able to sway Micah in her preconception. That was Micah for you – quick to judge and hard to bring around.

"No, he doesn't have a girlfriend." Kay told her, not able to withhold the annoyance from her tone. "And will you stop calling him that? It's offending me." 

At that, Micah laughed out loud. "It's offending you?"

Kay rolled her eyes, snorting. "And unfair to him, obviously. But you're implying I'm not a good judge of character. Do you seriously still think I would be such close friends with Seth if he was some shallow bore?"

"Girl, come on." Micah put her hand on Kay's knee. "I never said that. He's obviously a nice guy. Him and I just don't vibe well, that's all."

"You are the one not vibing", Kay corrected her, holding up a finger. "Seth's got nothing to do with it."

Micah sighed. "Look Dude, can we not argue about this? 'Cause I really, desperately want to fucking hear all the details already."

Kay huffed. Normally, she wouldn't have let this go. But right now, the part of her that needed to process last night was stronger. She took a deliberate, long lick of her yogurt ice cream, then intensely looked at her friend. "It was the best sex of my life."

Micah's jaw fell open again. "Are you serious?" When Kay merely nodded, she softly added: "Wow." She paused. "Even better than with Tristan?"

Tristan was Kay's ex. He’d been her first real love and the first man to break her heart when he'd left her after a one-year relationship. To Kay, he had always been the measure of all things when it came to guys. Until now.

"Way better", she said earnestly.

Micah shook her head in disbelief, her dark curls bouncing. "Damn. Who would've thought."

"I know."

"And what happened this morning?" Micah wanted to know. "Was it awkward at all?"

"Not really", Kay shrugged. "Strangely enough. We both had places to be at, I guess that helped."

"Were you being couple-like, or…?"

"No", Kay shook her head. She didn't get to say more, as in that moment, a soccer ball landed in the grass between them, two screeching young boys coming to run after it. One of them retrieved the ball quickly, but not before sticking out his tongue to Kay and Micah.

Micah scrunched her nose. "I swear I'll never want kids. Ever."

Kay snickered. "What does Brandon say to that?" 

The other woman smiled lopsidedly. "He says he would like to have a family one day, but that if he had to choose between having a family and having me, he'd take me."

"Aw", Kay smiled. "He's the best."

"I know, right?" Micah beamed. Brandon was her boyfriend of three years and a saint. Which was pretty much the only type of guy who could be in a relationship with Micah and not go crazy in the process.

"Anyway", Micah went back to the original topic. "How are you feeling about the whole thing now?"

Kay was pulling on some blades of grass. "I'm not sure. I mean, he's still Seth, right?"

What she meant was, he was still her friend Seth. It was strange. They had been the most passionate lovers last night, but this morning, everything had seemed like it always had. Well, except maybe for the fact she had woken up to Seth already awake and gazing at her with that strange look in his eyes. But Kay chose to not share that one detail with Micah right now.

"Did you talk about it at all?"

Kay shook her head and grimaced. "Is that weird?"

Micah shrugged. "No idea, never been in the situation. Do you think this was a one time thing, or…"

Kay ran a hand over her hair to find the loose bun on the back of her head, nervously fingering the band holding it together. She hadn’t dared to think about what was going to happen now, if she was being honest with herself. What she knew for sure was that she didn’t want to lose what she and Seth had. Not after more than three years of friendship. "Who knows", she said vaguely. "I mean, I hope things won’t be different between us now."

At that, Micah laughed dryly. "Oh believe me, they will."

It was not what Kay would have liked to hear. She scowled. "How do you know?"

"It's obvious", Micah shrugged. "You can't have sex with a friend and expect things to stay the same. Forget about that."

Kay chewed her lips, not happy. "We'll see." She stretched out her legs on the grass, then lowered herself onto her elbows, leaning back.

Micah followed suit with the new posture, dropping down next to her. They looked at the sky in silence for a while. "So", Micah drawled. "Does Pretty Boy have a pretty –"

"Micah!"

When Kay got home a few hours later, there was an envelope with her name in the mailbox, no address. She opened it, pulling out a CD. It was one of those blank ones, but captioned with a marker: 'The Sopranos, Season 6'. Kay smiled in surprise, and she looked into the envelope again – to find a white card she had previously missed. It read:

 

'So that you won't have to wait for reruns.

x, Seth'

Part Two: The P Word

After leaving the Bell house, Kay was in a sort of daze. All through her next meeting, she couldn't stop thinking about what had happened. Unexpectedly running into her old friend-lover-flame-whatever was enough in itself, but there was also that other thing: Seth a quadriplegic – it seemed so surreal. Several times, Kay caught herself replaying their whole meeting in her head; every detail of what he’d said, what he had looked like in that chair, how she had hugged him while his arms had just sat there unresponsively – and every time she remembered, she got so emotional again that she almost cried.

During her solo lunch break, Kay more or less just stared at her salad instead of eating it. Eventually, she took out her phone and called Micah. She was one of the very few old friends she’d stayed in contact with over the years, and the only one who knew everything about her and Seth.

"Hold on a sec", Micah breathlessly announced when she picked up, then there was fumbling and rustling for a moment. "Sorry", she said when she was back. "I had to put Neil down first."

"No problem", Kay said. "How are you guys?"

"Exhausted", Micah responded dryly. "He woke up every two hours again. How about you? What's up?"

"I'm, uh.. I don’t even know."

"Are you ok?" Micah inquired. "You sound weird."

Kay swallowed. That damned lump in her throat was back already. "Are you free tonight?"

At the other end of the line, Micah huffed softly. "Girl, I've got an eight-month-old, I'm never free."

"True... Sorry."

There was a slight pause on the other end. "Kay. What happened?"

She took a shaky breath. "I saw Seth today."

"Oh my God! And?"

"He –", but then Kay stopped, suddenly not having the words. "Um..."

Micah hissed softly. "Jesus, that bad. Ok, tell you what. I'm gonna call Brandon and let him know I'm going out tonight."

Kay bit her lips. "Are you sure? I really understand if it's a nuisance." She desperately needed to talk to someone, but she felt bad about dragging a tired, fully preoccupied baby mom out of the house simply because she was being emotional about seeing her… whatever Seth was to her.

"Don't be ridiculous, it's not a nuisance. I'm in baby world over here all day every day, you’ve got no idea how starved I am for adult issues."

That managed to put a smile on Kay’s face. "In that case, I'm happy to help out."

"Great. Can you give me a teaser?" Micah begged. "I'm dying to know how it went down."

Kay hesitated. "I'll tell you tonight."

Micah groaned. "Oh come on! Just give me something!"

Before Kay could have responded, there was crying in the background. "Uh oh, somebody's just woken up", Micah singsonged, her voice in mom mode now. "I need to go. Let's text about where and when." And just like that, she had hung up.

After delibarating on it for hours,  Kay decided to text him. She wanted to, but more than that, she needed to. She needed him to know she was serious about reconnecting and not freaked out.

Because if there was one thing she knew about Seth, it was that there was often much more going on with him than he showed. And that sentence, that one sentence kept ringing in her head: 'Sorry for giving you such a shock.' Seth had been dead serious when he'd said it, even though he had literally nothing to apologize for. If anyone did, it was her. For staring at him like that, for not being more… casual about his disability. Then again, how could anyone be casual about suddenly finding their old friend-lover-flame-whatever paralyzed?

"Thanks for coming", she said to Micah when they greeted each other with a hug. They were in a restaurant close to where Micah lived with her family – the suburbs. 

"Like I said", the other woman winked. "Anything to get away from diapers and breastfeeding for a few hours." She mustered Kay critically. "Girl, you look shaken."

Kay nodded faintly. "Yeah."

"You need a drink."

"That I do."

Kay ordered a glass of red wine, because this was a red wine kind of mood, and Micah went for a mocktail. "OK, now out with it already", she demanded, her blue eyes fixating Kay's.

Kay opened her mouth – only to heave a deep sigh. 

Micah's eyes went big. "Oh my God, did you hook up?!" 

Kay was not even able to laugh at the irony of the assumption. If only Micah knew how far off she was. "It's nothing like that", she said quietly. "He's…" She hadn’t thought it would be so difficult to say out loud.

"Wait, don't tell me", Micah held up a finger. "He's married with kids."

"He's paralyzed."

"I'm sorry what?" Micah looked at her with an expression that said the information didn't compute at all. 

"Paralyzed", Kay repeated, now with a steadier voice. "Completely."

Her friends mouth fell open. "Like in a wheelchair?"

"No, on a tricycle. Of course in a wheelchair."

Micah blew out a long breath. "Jesus. How?"

"He broke his neck in a car accident. That's all I know." Kay paused, pointing at Micah’s chest. "You're leaking."

Micah looked down at the wet spots on top of her breasts with a groan. "Ugh. I hate when that happens. Thirty minutes without Neil and it's like my subconscious wants me to not forget that I miss him."

"Do you need to go?" Kay offered.

Micah shook her head with a click of the tongue. "Nah, it's fine. I'm just gonna –", she took a napkin from the table and stuffed it into the collar of her shirt like she was about to eat spaghetti, then looked expectantly at Kay. "Go on."

Kay took a sip of her wine first, then gave Micah the breakdown of how she had run into Seth, how she had almost fainted from the shock and how the two of them had sat and talked. "He can't move anything", she closed. "Except for his head and shoulders."

Micah, who had been listening intently, looked horrified. "Jesus. So it's like with that actor?"

It took Kay a second to understand who she was referring to. "No, it's not quite that bad. But… almost."

"Jesus", Micah said again. "And permanent?"

Kay swallowed. "Sure looked like it. He said it's been over a year, so…" She trailed off, looking down.

"Poor Seth", Micah sighed, shaking her head in disbelief. "How does one even live like that? It's absolutely horrible."

Kay bit her lips. It was, but at the same time she didn't like the pity she saw on the other woman's face right now. "Yeah well, it's not like he exactly has a choice but to live like that, is it."

Micah frowned at the slight edge in Kay's voice. She took a long sip through the straw of her mocktail. "So", she then drawled. "Was it awkward?"

Kay gave her a bewildered look. "I stared at him like he'd turned into an alien, of course it was fucking awkward!"

Stifling a laugh, Micah pressed a hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry", she straightened up. "I know it's not funny. But I actually meant: Was it awkward between you. You know, because of how you left things off back then."

"I don't know. I don't think so? I mean", Kay uttered a deep sigh. "It felt really good to see him, Micah." And here were those tears again, welling up in her eyes. 

The emotion didn't go unnoticed. "Damn", Micah said quietly. "You still have all the feelings for him, don't you."

To that, Kay didn't know how to respond, and she shrugged evasively. Seth was an important person to her, always had been. Exactly what kind of feelings those were now after all this time – well, she didn't want to think about that right now. Or maybe ever, for that matter. 

"I texted him earlier", she remarked instead. "Asked him if he wants to meet up again."

Micah scratched her chin. "Can he even do that? Meet up I mean."

Kay gave her an irritated scowl. "He's disabled Micah, not dead."

The other woman shrugged. "Just wondering."

"Well, in any case", Kay sighed, "he hasn't replied."

"Maybe texting isn't something he can just do. Maybe he needs someone to type for him."

Now Kay rolled her eyes. "I highly doubt that", she said. "And he did respond to my first message, just not to the second one where I asked the question."

"So maybe he just hasn't gotten to it yet", Micah offered.

Even though she would have liked to think so, Kay knew better. Because she knew Seth – he wasn't the kind of person who forgot or postponed responding to a direct question. No, his silence meant that he didn't want to meet up or was still unsure about it. Maybe he simply had no interest in reconnecting with her. Maybe he had moved on from their friendship. That, or she had fucked up. Once again.

Part Three: Waving Hand Emoji

Seth sleepily squinted against the light flooding into the room as the blinds were being pulled open. 

'Morning Dude", Brian said softly, then walked back out. The sound of running water in the bathroom, to which Seth shortly dozed off again, like every morning. Next, the sudden heat of the warm washcloth on his skin. It made him flinch at first, but then he welcomed the feeling as Brian gently rubbed his face and neck with it. It was always the first thing the PCA did before starting the morning routine, because it helped Seth with waking up. 

It was funny – all his life, he’d actually been a morning person. He'd never had trouble waking up, and he'd never needed much sleep. But since his injury it was the opposite. Seth didn't know whether it was because of all the meds or because ninety percent of his body had not the slightest clue what was going on, ever. Either way – every morning it took him a long time to shake off his drowsiness. And contrary to before his injury, he needed a lot of sleep. Like, a ridiculous amount of it. 

"How was your night?" Brian asked while taking away the cushion from under Seth's left arm. 

Seth merely managed to grunt in response. His night had been shit, which Brian already knew, because of course Roberta had briefed him when he'd come in – like every morning. But it was nice of him to ask anyway – like every morning. Seth did appreciate the gesture. Blinking lazily, he watched as the PCA removed the overnight splint on his hand. "Couldn't sleep", he now mumbled, immediately wincing at the raspiness of his own voice. He needed to cough, badly. But that would have to wait. Right now, Brian was busy with rolling him onto his back. Which sounded easy in theory but took finesse and strength in reality – simply because of how much spasticity his limbs tended to hold in the morning. Seth steeled himself for the discomfort he knew was about to hit him in a second. On cue, as soon as Brian forced his hip to roll all the way, his extensor muscles went rigid with a violent tremble, which in turn triggered a spasm in his abdomen. In short, his whole body turned into a stiff, vibrating board. The spasms themselves weren't what was painful, but the cramping in his shoulders was all the more – as well as the tightness in his chest. Every time, it felt to Seth like he couldn't breathe, and the twenty-or-so seconds it usually lasted tended to stretch into slow motion. It was the same shit every morning, and neither Brian nor his other two aides had found a solution against it. More spasmolytics were not an option, because they tended to make him drowsy, which, well, was definitely not what he needed more of. At least the morning spasms took care of that problem: He was always fully awake after.

"The nerve pain didn't come back though, right?" Brian asked, only now responding to his remark about not being able to sleep. 

"No", Seth said feebly, still recatching his breath from the rolling procedure. "Just thoughts keeping me awake."

Brian nodded, not asking further. He was never one to prod, which Seth was grateful for. Even though there was probably no other person who had seen him as raw and vulnerable as Brian had, Seth almost never talked to him about what was going on. Not that he really would have needed to – Brian could read him like an open book anyway. Which didn't mean Seth wanted him to know everything. Like for instance what had kept him awake last night.

Which had been Kay. Who else. Seth felt bad about not having replied to her last text. He knew she was probably wondering why he hadn't, and that she probably thought it was because of her; because of something she'd done or something she'd said. While in truth, it was solely because of him. Because her sudden appearance had set off an avalanche. 

He wasn't at the point yet where he was able to think of his pre-injury life without getting depressed. Maybe he would get there one day, but he certainly wasn't now. Seeing Kay again and all the memories that came with it was the harshest reminder possible of all he had lost. 

But then there was also the other part of him; the one for which seeing Kay again had been like coming home. For the past four years, he had tried to ignore how important she was to him, how much there was something missing in his life without her. And it had worked – until that moment where she had suddenly stood in the living room. Now Seth couldn't bear what her presence did to him. But he also couldn’t bear the thought of pushing her away.

In the afternoon, he finally gave in – to the part of him that had missed her.

"Hi Kay. Sorry for the silence. Yes, let's meet up. What day would be best for you? Seth"

 

Kay's reply came within minutes.

 

"I always have Friday afternoons off. Would that work?"

 

It took him much longer than her to compose his answer, because dictating something into your phone and the phone actually producing those words and punctuations how and where you wanted them were two different things. 

 

"Can’t on Friday, how about this Saturday afternoon?"

 

"Done! Where should we meet? I can come to the house if that's easiest for you."

No, he didn't want to meet at the house. It always made him feel like an infirm old person when people suggested that. And also like a child, because at the age of thirty-six, having your parents just in the other room wasn't exactly how you wanted to spend time with your friends. 

 

"The weather will be nice", 

he had the phone write.

 

"Let's meet somewhere outside. I can get more or less anywhere, as long as there is parking and no stairs."

He would have added a winking face emoji, but the phone kept inserting the waving hand one, so he gave up on that.

“How about Lakeside Park?”,

 

Kay texted back after a while. 

 

“2.30pm?”

 

Smart girl. Lakeside Park was not only fully accessible, it was also a place where they hadn't hung out together in the past. Kay had always had fine instincts like that.

"Sounds good. And just to let you know, my PCA would tag along. Hope that's not a problem. We would still be on our own for the most part. He's not like my shadow or anything."

 

Seth hated this part of making first time plans. He never knew how people would react to the fact he needed an aide with him wherever he went. Sure, no one had ever responded with ‘Oh no, that makes me uncomfortable!’ – but that didn't mean they weren't thinking it.

"Of course. Not a problem at all, looking forward to meeting him :)"

 

If it had been anyone else writing that, Seth wouldn't have believed that they really meant it. With Kay though, he did. Almost.

"That her?" Brian looked out the window as he came climbing into the back of the van. Luckily, the glass was tinted and Kay couldn't see the two men peeking at her.

Seth nodded, trying to ignore the nervousness creeping up on him right now. Kay was standing on the corner of the parking lot, one foot crossed over the other, hands in the pockets of her blue jeans. Her plain white t-shirt was glowing in the sun. 

"Why does she look like she's been standing there forever?" Brian remarked, undoing the fastening that kept Seth's chair in place. 

"Because she has", Seth smiled. "She's always early." 

He looked down at his arms. "Can you stretch me before we get out?" He tended to get intense spasms during car rides, and the trip over here had been no exception. His left hand was clenched into a tight fist, and on his right side, the fingers were rigid and still quivering. While he didn't want to make Kay wait for much longer, he also didn't want her to see his limbs looking like this. It was inevitable that she would eventually, but it didn't have to be right now, when he was feeling self-conscious as it was. Because in a few minutes, his disability would be hitting her all over again, as if it was the first time. It always hit different in public – more real. 

Brian picked up Seth's left arm and slowly pushed it all the way upwards. "So. What does 'old friend' mean exactly?"

Seth gave him a cocked eyebrow. "It means 'old friend'."

The PCA smirked, but he refrained from a comeback. He lowered the arm back down and started to work on Seth's hand, slightly massaging the palm and then pushing back against the knuckles. It slackened, fingers automatically uncurling – except for thumb and index finger, both of which had been perpetually impossible to straighten for months. No one knew why it was solely those two fingers and why only on his left hand, except for Brian's theory that it had something to do with the fact that Seth had more function on that side. Which Seth found kind of ironic, because the only 'more function' was basically that he could lift his left shoulder higher up than the right one. 

"So", Brian said, now moving over to the other arm. "What's your greeting-the PCA-prediction?"

Seth looked out the window, gazing at Kay. "She's gonna shake your hand and introduce herself."

Brian reacted with a surprised snort. "Dude. You must really like her."

He shook his head with a smirk. "I'm serious. You'll see.” He leaned back against the headrest. "What’s your bet?"

The other man pursed his lips. "I think she'll…", he also threw a look out of the tinted window. "She'll just say Hi. Maybe wave."

Seth chuckled, then grunted at the tightness in his shoulder when Brian pushed his arm all the way up. "You're so gonna lose."

"We'll see about that. Ready to go out there?"

He took a deep breath. "Ready."