The One Who Got Away – CH 4

Chapter 4

Part One: Disability Etiquette 

The van had parked several minutes ago already, but so far, it didn't look like anyone was getting out. Kay blew out some air. If she hadn’t known who was in there, it would have felt like a scene in some gangster movie. 

Still, she wondered what was going on. The windows were tinted, so she couldn't see inside – they probably could see her, though. Was Seth having second thoughts or something? 

But then the automatic door on the side suddenly started to open, bringing him into view. And unexpected wave of nausea swept over Kay.

She knew it was stupid, but seeing Seth in that big wheelchair he now steered onto a platform lift was almost as much of a blow as it had been the first time. Back in his parents' living room, it had all seemed surreal. But here he was, in the parking lot of Lakeside Park, still just as paralyzed as he had been a few days ago. And his disability suddenly appeared more blatant to Kay, magnified – it felt… real. She swallowed as she uncrossed her feet, straightening in her posture.

In the meantime, a blond guy with a beard and a man-bun had jumped out of the van. He was about their age and looked like one of those super laid back hipsters and not at all what Kay had imagined Seth's care assistant to be like – which, if she thought about it, was pretty ridiculous on her end, because she didn't actually know what else she had expected. 

During the process of the lift descending, Seth tried to look anywhere but at her, repeatedly rolling his neck. He's nervous. Kay knew his body language inside out – well, that of his former body. He would have scratched the back of his neck right now, or run a hand through his hair. But those days were over, so rolling his neck it was.

Once he was on the ground and propelling the chair forward, Kay slowly started to walk toward him. It felt like an impossible distance. But then Seth finally met her gaze, and the eye contact immediately made her feel calmer. Like it always had. She smiled. 

"Hey", he said, and his shoulders twitched as if they failed to respond to an instinctive brain command.

"Hi." Bending down, Kay gave him a peck on the cheek, her hand on his shoulder. That he wasn't able to touch her back still felt strange.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting", he said. "Sometimes it takes a while to get out." He turned his head to look behind him. "This is Brian, my PCA."

"Hi Brian", Kay extended her hand to the guy. "I‘m Kay."

He shook it, a curiously bemused smirk playing his lips. "Nice to meet you, Kay." He flashed his employer a look, and Seth stifled a chuckle.

Kay looked back and forth between the two men, raising a curious eyebrow. "What."

Seth gave her one of those disarming smiles of his, dimples showing. "Brian just lost a bet", he explained. "We have this game where we speculate how people are going to react to us."

"Not to us as a pair." Brian interjected to clarify. "But to him as a quad and to me as his carer."

"Right", Kay drawled. "And I did what?"

"You shook his hand and introduced yourself." Seth stated with a content smile. "Which I told him you would.“

Boys. With a lopsided smirk, Kay crossed her arms. "As opposed to what?"

"Barely saying hello", Brian replied with a shrug. "Some people think they're supposed to pretend I'm not there. Like a butler."

Now Kay couldn't help but laugh. "That's what you predicted I would do?"

Sheepishly, Brian scratched his beard. "Well, no."

"He said you would say Hi with a wave", Seth smirked.

Kay tsk-ed in mock disapproval, then she gave Seth a fond smile. "I'm glad you knew better."

He smiled back, then shifted his shoulders and pointed his chin towards the park. "Shall we?"

"Let's." 

Brian was walking quite a few paces behind them, deliberately falling back. Which felt a little weird to Kay initially. She almost had the compulsion to include him, but then she reminded herself that the guy was Seth's assistant and not just another friend who had come to hang out with them. 

Walking next to Seth felt odd, too. Kay didn't know how fast or slow she was supposed to go, and she kept getting distracted by observing him. It was all so very unfamiliar to her; how he steered the chair with those puffs and sips, and how his body slightly wobbled passively with every little bump in the ground. 

After a while, he glanced up at her. "Just walk like you normally do", he said, apparently having read her mind. "I'm gonna fall in with your pace." 

"Alright", Kay mumbled sheepishly, doing her best to loosen up her step. "I guess I haven't figured out how fast and how slow this thing of yours can go."

In response, Seth flashed her a boyish grin – before abruptly puffing into the straw more strongly. The wheelchair accelerated so fast that he left Kay behind within seconds. "Hey!", she yelled laughing, hurrying up, and he came to a stand almost as abruptly as he had sped up. 

He looked up at her, his grin even cheekier now. "This was how fast it can go. And this…" – he puffed again, and the wheelchair started rolling forward at a mere snail pace – "this is how slow."

Kay smirked back at him, still sort of catching her breath. "How long did it take you to master it?"

Seth grimaced. "Quite a while." He lent her a lopsided smile, then took the wheelchair out of its crawl and back into a normal pace.

Kay fell in alongside him. The path, leading under old oak trees, took a slight, picturesque curve. "Tell me about those bets of yours", she said, glancing over her shoulder toward Brian, who was still strolling in a considerate distance behind them. "What’s the deal with that?"

Seth glanced up. "Brian started those. He never directly admitted it, but I think it was an attempt to make me feel more at ease. You know, in the beginning." He gave his control a quick sip to take the curve. "He wanted me to feel less shitty about awkward situations. Be a good sport about them."

Kay nodded in understanding. That made a lot of sense. "And did it work?"

Seth smiled. "I guess it did."

They went for drinks at a pop up café facing the shore, where they could sit outside. Brian went to grab a coffee to go, and he pointed to a bench by the water. "I'll be over there." Seth gave him a nod, and the PCA walked off, leaving them to it.

"Can you take away that chair?" Seth asked when they approached the small round table Kay had pointed out as a nice spot, and she quickly dragged the surplus furniture out of the way. He maneuvered his wheelchair into the free spot as well as he could. Obviously, the table was much too low for him to fit under, so he ended up sitting more close to than 'at' the table. Kay sat down opposite him, and for a moment, she felt acutely aware of how going to places with Seth was different now. Distractedly, she picked up one of the menu cards. She was about to skim through it when she realized he couldn't do the same, and she sheepishly glanced up at him, hesitating. 

He lent her a placating smirk. "I'm not in a hurry, go ahead and take a look for yourself first."

You and your goddamn mind reading. Clearing her throat with a sheepish smile, Kay took up the menu and gave it a quick scan. Iced Coffee for her. She gazed at Seth again. "Do you want me to hold it up for you to see, or to read it to you?"

To her surprise, he chuckled. "Whatever works best for you, Kay." Seeing her hesitate, he shrugged: "Ok, just show me."

Leaning over the table top, Kay stretched out her arms to hold the menu in front of him, and after a few seconds, he nodded. "Got it, thanks." There was still a grin twitching in the corners of his lips.

The server, apprehensively eying them from the doorway of the kitchen hut, looked like he would have gladly avoided coming over. But their table was one of the only three with guests, so the guy didn’t really have a choice. When stood at their table, Kay immediately noticed how intensely he tried to ignore the wheelchair, which effectively resulted in ignoring Seth altogether. "Hi", he said, briefly looking at her. "What can I get you?" 

"I'll have an iced coffee", she said coolly, then deliberately turned her head in her company's direction.

For a millisecond, her's and Seth's eyes met, and she could see bemusement flicker up in his gaze. He looked at the server, calmly ignoring the guy's rudeness. "The mint ice tea please. With a straw."

Server Guy nodded curtly, then couldn't turn away fast enough. Kay's gaze bore into his back as he was walking off, and she rolled her eyes with an annoyed scoff. 

Seth chuckled softly. "You know, this one is actually not too bad", he commented with a smirk. "At least he didn’t ask you 'what will he get' or ignore my order. Some of them do that."

Kay gave him an incredulous frown. "Please tell me you're joking."

Seth held her gaze, wordlessly shaking his head.

"God", she groaned.

He shrugged. "You can't really blame them. Most people barely ever come into contact with disabilities. They don‘t see a difference between a quad like me and someone who’s nonverbal, or someone with a severe mental impairment. They just see a big wheelchair, which is enough to make their alarm bells go off."

Weighing her head in consideration, Kay knitted her brow. "Even if they don’t know the difference", she argued, "that's no reason to not treat you like a person. I don’t understand how someone could just forget simple common courtesy because a wheelchair freaks them out."

Seth's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "Really?" he asked, cocking his head. "If you didn't know me, if I was just a stranger in a power chair, would you have been able to talk to me normally the other day? Not to mention look straight at me without shying away?"

It was subtle, but his gaze was challenging her, and Kay thought to hear a hint of tension in his voice. She felt herself blush, but nonetheless held eye contact as she took a moment to consider what he'd said. 

"You're right", she eventually shrugged in defeat. "I don’t know if I would have. Which I admit is really, really shitty of me."

Seth's gaze softened. "Not really really shitty." He winked. "Just a little shitty." 

Kay grimaced, and he chuckled. "Seriously though, that's what I mean. People act ignorantly, but that doesn’t make them bad."

She studied him thoughtfully, resting her chin on one hand. This was why she had missed him in her life. And what she had always adored in him. That high perception, the way he always saw through everyone's bullshit – including hers, and how he challenged it. But how he did so in an utterly empathetic and forgiving way. Unlike herself, who tended to get fired up fast. She liked to challenge people, too, but she didn't possess half of Seth's ability to go about it with graciousness. 

"For what it's worth", she said earnestly, "I don't think I'll ever see those things the same way again now."

He reciprocated her sad smile. "That makes two of us." He softly cleared his throat and changed the subject with a roll of his left shoulder. "So what made you move back here? I always thought you would stay in London."

Kay leaned back in her chair. "Too many reasons", she sighed. "I loved it there, but to be honest, being so far away from my family always kind of bugged me. And then, when my job went to shit –"

"To shit how?" 

"Well, the head architect retired, and one of the seniors took over. And from that moment, the whole atmosphere turned bad. It was absolutely crazy."

Seth nodded knowingly. "A lot can happen to an established group dynamic when you put in new leads."

"Exactly. It was like everyone was in competition mode all of a sudden. Without any real reason! Even those of us who were friends sort of started working against each other. It felt toxic." Kay grimaced at the memory. "So yeah, I started looking around for other options. I didn't plan to leave London altogether at that point, but then my relationship of two years ended, so I felt there was actually nothing to keep me there any longer." 

Seth licked his lips. "What happened there? With your relationship."

Running a hand through her hair, Kay sighed. "He was a very different person than me", she explained. "It was like every aspect of our life together… uh…" She faltered. Not because of what she was saying, but because of what she was seeing – her gaze had caught a movement from where she would have least expected it: Seth's body. 

Both his hands had abruptly stiffened, fingers lifting from the armrest, just like that. It lasted no longer than a few seconds, but she was so perplexed by it that she had completely lost her train of thought. 

"That's just muscle spasms." Seth's voice almost startled her. He was giving her a faint smile, but she could see the uneasy bobbing of his Adam's apple. "I get them all the time. Disconnected nerves producing involuntary movement, nothing more."

Kay bit her bottom lip. "I didn't know that was a thing. For some reason, when thinking of paralysis, I never pictured…"

"Limbs that move", Seth finished for her, nodding. "I know." He furtively peered down at his hands, and Kay followed his gaze. The left one looked kind of odd now, as if it was trying to stretch and curl at the same time. Briefly, Seth's eyes flickered up to Kay’s face, and she gave him an apologetic look. "I really don't mean to constantly stare like this all the time. I don't know what –"

"It's fine."

"No, Seth, really, I'm so embarrassed", she grimaced. "I never thought I was one of those people." 

Now he laughed, shaking his head. "'One of those people’? You're just you, Kay. And it's ok.” He made a point to emphatically look into the eyes, raising his brows. "Really."

She smiled meekly. "Alright."

"Now tell me what happened with that guy in London. You were saying he was very different from you…?"

Kay told him the short version of how she and Thomas had been polar opposites from the very beginning, how their slightly tumultuous relationship had progressed and eventually ended.

"Considering how much you clashed, one year of living together sounds kind of like an accomplishment." Seth remarked, once she had finished.

"Ha", Kay laughed dryly. "That's one way of looking at it." She nodded at him. "Did you and" – Whatshername – "Sophie live together?"

Seth hesitated. "We planned to."

He didn't get to say more, because Server Guy was bringing their drinks now. It was mind boggling how it could have taken anyone this long to prepare a coffee and an ice tea. At least the eternity the guy had spent in the hut seemed to have eased some of his anxiety, because now he was making a visible effort to give them both a smile. "Cold coffee and ice tea with a straw. Enjoy."

Once he was out of earshot, Kay snickered. "Think it took him so long because he had to rehearse this?"

Seth was shaking his head at her with a chuckle. "Will you cut the poor guy some slack?"

She smirked. "I know, I know, I'm being judgmental. Especially given how klutzy I am myself." She gave her iced coffee a stir, then took a sip.

It was only when she set her drinking glass back down that she sheepishly realized Seth wasn’t going to enjoy his ice tea whatsoever without her help. God, Kay, not again. First the menu card, now the drink. Why did she keep forgetting that he could not move? Of course she knew that he couldn’t, but for her subconscious to fully internalize that, well, that would apparently take a while. Somewhat hastily, she unwrapped the straw Server Guy had brought for Seth, shaking her head at herself. "Sorry."

"Kay?"

"Yeah?"

"Please stop apologizing for being new at this." Seth's gaze was warm when she looked up, and she sighed, smiling sheepishly: "Ok."

"I usually would have Brian for this kind of stuff." He nodded at his tea. "But I wanted us to be able to be alone after all those years, so…"

"Of course", Kay quickly said in all honesty. "I don't mind." She put the straw in his ice tea and peered at him. "So, want some?"

Seth gave her a friendly nod.

She had never done anything like this before, so she felt nervous when she stood up and went around the table. How high and how close exactly was she supposed to hold it up for him? What if she spilled something? 

Glancing at Seth's face as she stood next to him, Kay could see a hint of momentary shyness there. But it was also clear that to him, this was not half as big of a deal as it was to her – and how could it have been. Silently pleading with her hands not to shake, she held the drinking glass up with one and the straw steady with the other.

Seth brought his head forward. "Little lower," he mumbled, without looking up, and Kay obliged. 

"Like this?"

Instead of replying, he started to sip. She looked down at the long dark lashes of his downcast eyes, losing herself there for a second. Until he pulled back and briefly glanced up at her. "Thank you."

For some reason, an image flashed up before Kay’s inner eye in that moment: Seth sitting in a bar with her laughing, then casually leaning forward to take his beer from a low table. Kay blinked – the image felt like a punch in the gut. Because the Seth that was sitting here with her now couldn't do that anymore. One sip of a drink, such a simple, trivial thing, and his body just couldn't do it. Ever.

She bit down hard on her lip, because she had that lump in her throat again. How stupid was that? She had no reason to get emotional whatsoever; she wasn't the one sitting in the wheelchair. Get it together Kay. She avoided looking at Seth when she set his glass on the table and went back to her chair.

"If you'd sit next to me, you wouldn't have to get up every time", he remarked kindly.

Kay looked up distractedly. "Right, yeah. Good idea."

"I should have told you when we first got here."

She quickly shook her head. "Not a problem." She got up and dragged her chair around the table.

Seth was quietly observing her. "It's only this tedious the first time around“, he then said gently. "Don't worry."

Kay winced a little. She wasn't entirely sure whether he was merely talking about helping him with his drink, or overall about spending time with him. "It’'s not tedious', she told him with a shake of her head. "I just don’t want to mess up."

He eyed her fondly, a smile playing on his lips. "Kay. I'm not here to assess your performance in disability etiquette, I'm here to spend time with you. You can never mess up with me."

Kay uttered a sigh. "Well, you know me", she peered up at him with a meek grin. "I want to be perfect at everything."

That raised a chuckle. "I remember. And newsflash: You'll never be." 

Laughing, she rolled her eyes at him. Seth winked, then turned earnest as he held her gaze. "Let me guess. You're hoping there's a way you can somehow avoid any possible awkwardness or mishaps when it comes to my disability. So that neither one of us is uncomfortably exposed."

She bit her lip, smirking bashfully. Damn you. "Something like that."

"That's not how this works though. The way this works is, I'll let you know when I need help, and you ask when you have a question. Whatever it is."

Heaving a sigh, Kay incredulously shook her head at him. "You're really good at this."

He frowned. "Good at what?"

"All of this", she shrugged. "Your situation."

A strange look crossed his face as he averted his eyes. "Hardly", he mumbled, then looked at her again. "This is just my life now, Kay. I have to make things work somehow." His left shoulder went up as he shrugged.

"That's what I mean. You tackle stuff in a practical way."

"Because I have to. I can't really afford to think too much about mine or other people's self-consciousness. And the only control I still have is to communicate clearly."

Kay studied him thoughtfully. "You’re good at giving instructions. You always were."

He smiled lopsidedly at that but was quiet.

"Actually, that reminds me", she noted, after taking a sip of her coffee. "Do you still work?"

Seth licked his lips, nodding hesitantly. "I just started again. A few hours per week for now."

She nodded. "And? How is it going?"

He absentmindedly looked down at his knees. "It's… new. Different than before, obviously. And I’m still getting used to doing it all with no hands."

"How does that work, exactly?"

"With eye tracking and voice commands. It takes a lot of concentration, but I guess that will get better with time."

A wasp started buzzing around their drinks and, apparently attracted to the sweet tea, settled down on the rim of Seth's glass. With a soft curse, Kay attempted to make the insect go away by wagging a menu card at it. "So do you do work mostly from home, or…?"

Seth shifted his shoulders, his eyes following the wasp as it flew off nervously. "Yes. It's easiest like that because I have my computer tuned for my needs. And I'm able to do the hours whenever I have a… whenever it works best."

Kay frowned slightly. There was obviously something he had just chosen not to say. 

"Can I have a drink, please?" he asked, and she held up the glass for him. It already felt less awkward than the first time, she realized gladly, especially since she was sitting next to him now. She would get used to this quickly. 

The damned wasp was back already. It hectically flew back and forth around their heads, looking for that sugar. Kay started flailing at it as soon as she had set Seth's drinking glass back down again. "I fucking hate those things."

Seth was watching her with a shake of his head. "Don't flail, it makes them aggressive", he told her. "Just stay still."

"Easy for you to say", Kay snorted, then internally froze up a little .

But Seth was laughing. "Touché."

The wasp finally disappeared somewhere and Kay settled back down comfortably in her chair. "You haven't told me about what happened with Sophie", she remarked, waggling her eyebrows at him.

He smirked lazily. "Not much to tell. We got along really well for almost three years. Then she fell for someone else."

"What?" Kay gulped, her eyes going wide. "And you're saying there's not much to tell?" She couldn’t believe Whatshername had done that to Seth. And how nonchalantly he was mentioning it. How very Seth of him – he was too forgiving with people.

He shrugged. "It wasn't as dramatic as it sounds. We were more like good friends at that point, we just didn't realize it."

"I thought you said you were planning on moving in together."

He nodded. "We were, and we probably would have if she hadn't developed feelings for the other guy. So it was actually a good thing. We would have just dragged it out."

Kay was shaking her head in bafflement. "You're speaking about this so casually", she stated. "Aren't you angry at her for doing that to you?"

"Of course I was hurt at first. But," he shrugged. "She was honest about it right away." He paused when his right arm spasmed abruptly.

And then suddenly, something was wrong.

Part Two: Six years earlier

Seth was just stepping out of the indoor pool building when his phone rang. He smiled at the name on the display before picking up. "Hey."

"Thank you for the surprise mail." Kay said on the other end, and he could hear the grin in her voice.

"You're welcome."

"You really didn't have to."

"I wanted to."

She laughed softly. "Well, thank you. I'm gonna start binging right away."

Seth leaned one shoulder against the wall of the building, putting his sports bag on the ground. "How was your day?"

"Good. Hung out with Micah in the park."

And told her about last night. He could just picture Micah’s shocked face at hearing the news. He knew she wasn't exactly his biggest fan. 

"How's your car?" Kay wanted to know.

Seth rubbed the back of his neck. "In the shop. They're gonna need until Monday."

On the other end of the line, there was a soft hiss to that. "So you're car-less."

He laughed. "I'm car-less. Actually about to walk home right now."

"From swimming?"

"Yeah."

"Very healthy."

"I know, right?"

There was momentary silence on both their ends, and Seth shifted from one leg to the other. So it was a little awkward after all. How could it not have been.

"So", Kay said. "Meet up sometime next week for an after work drink?"

He swallowed. "Sure."

"Or will you be having too much going on because of the deadline?"

Seth unconsciously shook his head. Right now, he couldn't have cared less about that. "No, it shouldn't be a problem. Can I text you once I get a clearer picture on monday?"

"Of course. Let me know whenever."

"Ok." He paused, hesitating. "Kay? I had a… really good time last night."

There was a small pause. "Me too." She didn't say more on it than that. Maybe she would once they'd see each other.

They met up on Tuesday. It was warm outside, and they went for drinks in the courtyard of some boho bar. They greeted each other the same way they always did, as friends. Except that Kay put one hand on the back of his neck when they hugged, squeezing tenderly. And Seth's arms encircled her more around the waist than around the shoulders.

They chatted about work and The Sopranos for a while, dancing around the elephant in the room with ease. On the surface, everything seemed normal. 

"I'm glad we're able to sit here like we always have", Kay eventually said, and she did look relieved. 

Pausing a beat, Seth nodded hesitantly. "Yeah."

"I would have hated for things to be awkward between us after… you know", she went on. "I was kind of worried about that."

He looked down at his beer, one finger tracing the rim of the glass. He didn't want to say anything that could freak her out. "Were you… surprised that it happened?"

Kay laughed softly at the question, giving him a curious look. "Weren't you?"

Licking his lips, Seth shrugged. "I don't know", he said. "I mean, I never really thought about it before, but… in the morning, when I woke up next to you like that, I could… see it."

Cocking her head, Kay frowned slightly. "See what?"

He shyly met her gaze. "Us."

She paused, lowering her eyes. "Oh." Nervously, she started fingering her earlobe. 

She's freaked out.

"But yeah", Seth quickly uttered, clearing his throat. "It was only –"

"You mean us in a relationship?" There was the slightest frown on her face as she looked at him.

He shrugged self-consciously, giving her a hesitant nod.

"Seth." She said it almost reproachfully, even though her eyes were soft. "That's… I mean… we are such good friends."

Swallowing, he nodded. Forget about it. "Yes, of course, you're right." He attempted a smile. "No need to ruin that."

Kay shifted awkwardly. "You're too important to me", she said softly. "It's not that I didn't enjoy the sex, it was truly great. But you know, London is coming up and you and I are so good the way we are –"

Seth held up his hand, lending her a smile. "You're absolutely right."

Yes, London was coming up. Even though it was still four months until then and her stint over there would only be for half a year. But it didn't matter. Kay was not in. And maybe she really was right. Maybe they shouldn't risk ruining what they had by attempting to be a couple. Seth rather had her as the friend she'd always been than not at all.

Later that night, they went back to her apartment and had sex. While they had agreed to stay friends only, it seemed they weren't able to go back to being friends without sleeping together, too. Their physical connection was simply too amazing for that. 

Seth didn't stay the night this time. He said he would need to get up extra early in the morning, which wasn't a lie, but the actual reason was that he could tell Kay didn't really want him to stay. It was probably better this way, he told himself.

The next time it happened was a month later, which was also the next time they saw each other. They didn't talk about it any more; it was just a sort of silent understanding between them, and it automatically became an established rhythm. They would hang out like they always had, then went to Kay’s place to sleep together. They were passionate, tender lovers in bed, but before and after, they were being purely platonic. There were no kisses or other close physical contact outside of Kay’s bedroom. Except for those hello and goodbye hugs that were different now and also lasted a bit longer than before. But that might have also just been his imagination. 

Months passed like that. Their physical bond became more intimate, and their friendship not one bit less stable.

And then Kay was leaving for London. 

They were both a little melancholy on their last night out together, and the hug when they said their goodbyes was warm, with Kay's hand lingering longer on this neck than usual.

"Take care over there", Seth said softly. "You will be missed."

She blushed, laughing. "It's only six months. You won't even notice much that I'm gone."

Seth gave her a lazy smile. "Don't be too sure about those six months. They might want to keep you after."

Kay chuckled, waving the idea off. "Only in your dreams, Seth."

His eyes rested on hers earnestly. "I am going to notice much that you're gone. Very."

With a sad smile, she fondly punched his shoulder. "I'm gonna miss you, too. I'll write and send pics."

"You better. And Kay? Have fun over there."

They hugged one more time, then parted ways, both climbing into their respective cars. 

Seth ran a hand over his face and took a deep breath. Maybe it was time to start dating again.