Chapter 14

After dinner, I drove Natalie back to her hotel.

“Do you wanna come up to the room for a while?” she asked as I pulled into the parking lot.

“Aren’t you sick of me yet?” I teased. A part of me wanted to follow her back to her room and see where the rest of the night went, but another part was afraid to put myself in an awkward and potentially embarrassing position.

“Only a little.” She winked.

I smiled. “Well, in that case… okay.” I parked my truck, then turned to her. “Why don’t you go on ahead? I’ll be up in a few minutes; I just wanna give Mason a call and tell him goodnight in case I don’t make it home before he goes to bed. He has preschool tomorrow.”

“Aww… that’s so cute,” Natalie said, smiling back. “Sure, take your time… but not too long. I’ll be waiting for you upstairs.” She patted my leg, then slipped out of the passenger seat.

“I’ll be up soon. I promise.” As she closed the door, I stared down at my thigh, wishing I could feel her touch. But I didn’t dwell on it for long. I took out my phone and FaceTimed Dawn so Mason could see me before bedtime. “Be a good boy for Dawn tonight,” I told him after we’d talked for a few minutes. “I’ll be home when you wake up in the morning.”

“We’ll be fine. Have fun!” Dawn said in the background, grinning as she gave me a thumbs up over Mason’s head.

I grinned back, but once I ended the video call, I felt guilty for choosing to spend more time with Natalie over going home to my son. Thankfully, Mason had never been a clingy kind of kid. Because of my disability, he was used to having multiple caregivers. Dawn had moved in with us before he turned two, and he loved her like a mother, not knowing any different. I hoped his resilience would help him adjust if I ever decided to remarry and brought a stepmother into his life.

Using the lift to lower myself to the ground, I locked the truck and rolled across the parking lot toward the hotel entrance. Inside, I took the elevator up to Natalie’s floor and wheeled myself down the hall until I reached her room. Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door. “Well, hello,” she said with a smile when she opened it, standing back so I could come inside. “How’s Mason?”

“He’s fine,” I replied as I rolled into the room. “He’s having fun with Dawn. It’s funny – she’s the one he roughhouses with, and I’m the one he snuggles with. Totally opposite of how it usually is with the dad compared to the… well, the female caregiver.”

Natalie let the door close behind me. “I bet you’re a great snuggler,” she said, running her hand along my arm. “Wanna show me?”

My heart fluttered in my throat, my arm tingling where she had touched me. I felt self-conscious, but I tried to summon my courage and turn on the old Kevin Richardson charm. “Sure. Why don’t you come on up here?” I replied, patting my knee.

She smiled and perched herself on my knees. It wasn’t sexy – the way she was sitting made me feel more like her grandfather than a potential romantic partner.

“No, not like that. Here…” I lifted my left arm rest out of its slot and let it fall to the floor, then repeated this on the right side to give her more room. “C’mere,” I said, holding my arm out. “You’re not gonna hurt me; I can’t feel my legs, remember?”

“I’m more worried your wheelchair can’t hold our combined weight,” she said with a nervous giggle.

“You calling me fat?” I joked. “It’ll be fine. C’mon, climb up here.”

She scooted backward, shifting her body so that she was sitting sideways across my lap with her legs dangling in front of my left wheel. She slipped one hand behind my head, and I wrapped my arms around her waist. “Oh, yeah,” she said, letting out a little sigh as she leaned against my right shoulder. “This is a lot better.”

“Yeah…” I held her closer, inhaling the sweet scent of her perfume. It was the same kind she had worn in London. Remembering our kiss in the park, I longed to repeat it. I licked my lips, moistening them with the tip of my tongue. “Can I kiss you?” I asked hesitantly.

Turning her chin toward me, she smiled. “Of course. It is your turn…”

I closed my eyes as I tilted my head back and brushed my lips against hers. They were as soft and smooth as silk. I could feel her warm breath on my face as she exhaled, her lips parting slightly. Her hand remained on the back of my head, pushing it toward her to deepen the kiss. She drew in another breath and sucked my bottom lip between her teeth, gently biting down. When she opened her mouth, I tentatively slipped my tongue inside. She tasted like mint toothpaste. I imagined her hurriedly brushing her teeth before I came up to the room and realized she must have been anticipating this moment as much as I had. That made me feel more confident.

We made out for a few minutes before finally coming up for air. I leaned back in my chair, feeling breathless and slightly light-headed but exhilarated. Natalie let out a sigh as she snuggled closer to me, laying her head on mine. She ran one hand across my chest, letting it rest lightly on my left shoulder. I could feel her other hand playing with the hair on the back of my head, her nails grazing my scalp as she tried to twist a lock around her finger. It sent little tingles of pleasure down my spine. I closed my eyes again, enjoying the sensation.

“You know how they say when you lose one sense, the others become heightened somehow?” I said, opening my eyes. “Like a guy who goes blind and then develops a super sense of hearing?”

She nodded. “I always thought that was a myth, though.”

“Me too. But it’s true, in a way, with quadriplegics. I can’t feel anything from the chest down, but everything above that is a lot more sensitive than it used to be. Like, your fingers running through my hair feels incredible.”

She laughed. “Doesn’t everyone love having their head scratched?”

“Yeah, but it’s different now.” I dragged my hand up and down her arm as I spoke. “I can’t describe how, but it feels even better than it did before my injury.”

Bits and pieces of our conversation about sexuality in quad class were coming back to me. I remembered my instructor, Bob, encouraging us to experiment with our partners and focus on the parts of our body we could still feel. “You’d be surprised, but something as simple as my wife sucking on my earlobe can trigger the same kind of pleasure response as I used to get from being touched below the belt,” he’d told us candidly. At the time, I couldn’t imagine ever wanting that level of intimacy with another woman. My wife was dead, and I thought I was destined to be alone for the rest of my life. But here I was, four years later, with a beautiful young woman in my arms.

“I guess that makes sense.” Natalie smiled as she moved her fingers over my head, massaging my scalp and the back of my neck more deliberately now. I realized Bob was right: she may as well have been giving me a handjob, for as good as it felt.

I let my hand drift down to her leg and over her thigh. I wanted to give her the same sense of pleasure she was giving me, but without being able to feel her body beneath my fingertips, I didn’t know if I was doing it right. It was hard to tell whether I was applying too much pressure or not enough. It didn’t help that I felt hopelessly out of practice at pleasing a woman.

Seeming to sense my hesitation, Natalie took her hand off my shoulder and placed it over mine. She unfolded my fingers, stretching them out so my hand lay flat, my palm pressed against her leg. She slid it down to her knee, then up and under the hem of her dress, hitching the fabric up higher as she gently guided my hand toward her inner thigh. My breath caught in my throat as I looked down and watched what she was doing, wishing I could feel the warmth of her skin. Then she removed her hand from mine and ran it up my chest. “Can you feel this?” she asked softly, resting her hand over my heart.

I shook my head. “You have to go higher.”

She reached down the neck of my shirt, her fingers crawling across my collarbones. “What about now?”

I nodded, my skin tingling where she had touched me. “You can take it off if you want to,” I told her. “My shirt, I mean. I’ll show you where I can and can’t feel.”

A little smile tugged at her lips as she lifted my t-shirt, guiding it up and over my head. She helped me free my arms from the confines of the cotton fabric, then tossed it aside. I felt a sudden chill as the cool air of the hotel room hit my bare skin. “Are you cold?” Natalie asked, her smile fading into a frown. “You’ve got goosebumps!”

“A little,” I admitted. “Look, though – they only appear above my level of injury, where I can feel the cold. That’s how you can tell where the sensation stops.”

“What?!” She leaned closer to inspect my skin, running her fingertips lightly down the center of my chest. “Right here?” she asked, poking a spot a few inches below the place where my collarbones met.

Looking down, I nodded. “You’re right on the line. I can’t feel anything below that.”

“No way! That’s so weird,” she said, sounding fascinated. “Not that you can’t feel, but that you don’t get goosebumps on the rest of your body. I guess it makes sense, though.”

“I do get them on my legs sometimes when I have AD – autonomic dysreflexia. It’s a reaction I develop to any kind of discomfort where I can’t feel. I’ll have, like, a hot flash, and my face will flush, but the bottom half of my body will break out in cold sweat and goosebumps. That’s how I can tell if something’s wrong down there.” In the midst of my explanation, I suddenly realized I was giving her way more information than she needed to know at this stage in our relationship, probably ruining the romantic vibes in the process. “Sorry… TMI. I didn’t mean to kill the mood.”

“No, not at all,” Natalie replied quickly, offering me a reassuring smile. “I don’t mind. I want to know. It’s interesting.”

“If you have any questions, just ask,” I said with a shrug. “I don’t wanna overwhelm you with information, but I’m willing to talk about anything you may be wondering about.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, looking at me with curiosity, one eyebrow raised. Then, she suddenly climbed off my lap. “I’ll turn the air conditioning down. I don’t want you to be cold.”

“Your body heat would’ve kept me warm enough,” I replied, watching as she walked across the room to adjust the thermostat. She turned away from the wall, smirking over her shoulder at me.

“Okay, so… first question,” she said when she came back, flopping onto the bed in front of me. “Can you still have sex?”

Of course, that was what she wanted to know. I didn’t blame her for asking; it was a good question. I swallowed hard before answering. “I think so… but I don’t know for sure. I haven’t tried since I got hurt.”

She raised both eyebrows that time. “So, you haven’t been with anyone since…?”

I shook my head. “Not since my wife died.”

“Wow… I didn’t realize,” she said, her forehead creasing as her face fell. “Does that mean… Am I the first girl you’ve dated as a…?”

“Quad?” I supplied, giving her a grim smile. “Pretty much. I went out on one date with a friend of Dawn’s a couple months before I met you, but it didn’t lead to anything.”

“Do you think this will lead to anything?” she asked, her whole expression lifting.

She looked like a gossipy little girl, lying on her stomach with her legs in the air, ankles crossed. Her cleavage caught my eye; I could see down the front of her dress. I tried not to stare as I answered: “I hope so.”

Natalie smiled back at me. “Me too. I can be pretty adventurous, you know. I’m willing to experiment with you whenever you’re ready.” She paused before adding with a wink, “Maybe I’ll be the one to pop your quad cherry.”

I burst out laughing, hiding my red face in my hands. “Well, that’s one way to put it,” I replied, peeking out from behind them.

She grinned. “Sorry… I hope I’m not making you too uncomfortable. I was just curious.”

“It’s okay,” I said, lowering my hands to my lap. “I told you you could ask. I kinda wish you’d come back over here, though.”

“Or maybe you could come over here?” She waggled her eyebrows, giving me a questioning look.

I eyed the bed uncertainly as I rolled toward it. The mattress rested on a modern-looking raised platform instead of the traditional box springs. It was too tall for me to do a lateral transfer from my chair, even if I’d thought to bring a sliding board with me. “I dunno… I would, but I think this bed is too high. I’d need help to get onto it.”

“I can try to help if you tell me what to do,” Natalie said with a shrug.

I considered her offer, wondering if she was physically capable of helping me. She was a head shorter than Dawn and half her size. I doubted she could haul my weight around the way Dawn did. But she was taller than Sam, who had managed to transfer me successfully when I lived in L.A. Unlike Sam, however, Natalie had no training or previous experience working with people like me.

“We’d have to do what’s called a pivot transfer,” I said. “Basically, I put my chair right next to the bed, and you help me stand and pivot over to it. But you’d be supporting my weight; I can’t stand on my own, and I have no sense of balance. And I’m heavy. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m pretty strong,” she said, flexing her biceps. “I used to be a base in cheerleading. C’mon, let’s try it!”

In the end, my desire to please her beat out my better judgment. I parked my chair beside the bed, put on my brakes, and unbuckled my seatbelt. Then I talked her through the process of unstrapping my feet from the foot plates, pushing them out of the way, and planting my feet on the floor.

“Are you all right?” she asked, her eyes widening as she watched my legs shake.

I nodded. “They’re just spasms. I get ‘em whenever I change positions like this, but they’ll go away in a few seconds.” I waited until my legs were still to continue with my instructions. “Okay… now, you’re gonna wrap your arms all the way around me like you’re hugging me real tight, and I’ll hold on to your shoulders. Then, on the count of three, you’ll hoist me up onto my feet, turn me, and lower me onto the bed.”

Natalie nodded. “Got it,” she said, reaching under my armpits and around my back as I leaned forward, hooking my arms over her shoulders. “Ready? One… two… three.” I rose out of my chair as she rocked me forward, pulling me into a standing position. My body slowly straightened to its full height as my legs spasmed beneath me. Natalie kept her arms around me, holding me up. “Well, hello,” she said, smiling at me as we stood in a tight embrace. “You’re taller than I realized.”

“Six one,” I replied, smiling back shakily. I felt light-headed and wobbly in this position, but it was nice to be on my feet, standing face-to-face with her for the first time. I ducked my chin to steal a kiss before she pivoted to the side, perching me on the edge of the bed.

At first, I thought we’d nailed the transfer, but she let go of me a moment too soon. As I lost my balance and started to flop backward, I felt myself sliding off the bed, my legs folding beneath me as my knees buckled.

“Kevin!” Natalie tried to catch me before I fell, but she wasn’t strong enough to compete with gravity, which carried me all the way to the floor. My head hit something hard on the way down, causing a sharp burst of pain on the back of my skull. I cried out as I collapsed onto the thin carpet. “Oh my Lord!” Natalie gasped, dropping to her knees next to me. She hovered over me, her eyes wide and scared. “Are you okay?”

For a few seconds, I could only stare up at her, my mouth opening and closing noiselessly as I struggled to catch my breath. I must have looked like a fish out of water as I lay on my back on the floor, unable to move or speak. Pain was still radiating through my head, stars flashing before my eyes. Finally, I managed to nod. “I’m fine,” I forced myself to say, not wanting her to feel bad.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I… I don’t know what happened…”

“It’s okay.” I could tell from the waver in her voice that she was about to cry. “Can you just help me sit up, please?”

First, she straightened out my legs, which must have been bent at an awkward angle. Then, she slipped her hand under my shoulder and around my back, slowly pulling me into an upright position. Suddenly, she gasped. “You’re bleeding!”

“What?” Instinctively, I reached up to the back of my head. I couldn’t feel anything, but when I pulled my hand away and looked at it, it was streaked with bright red blood. “Shit… I must’ve banged it on the bottom part of the bed.”

“Oh, Lord. I don’t do well with blood.” Suddenly, Natalie’s face looked about five shades paler than before. “I think you may need stitches. We’re gonna have to call an ambulance.”

“What? No, wait-” I started to protest, but she shook her head.

“Kevin, I don’t know if I can get you up off the floor and back in your chair by myself, and even if I could, I don’t know if I should,” she said, her voice shaking. “You hit your head; you could have a concussion.”

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I knew she was probably right. Now that I was sitting up, I felt slightly woozy, but that could have just been the result of my blood pressure dropping from the change in position.

“Go figure,” I muttered, massaging my head with my fist. “I can’t believe I was worried about falling off a horse earlier, only to hurt myself falling off a fucking bed.”

“I’m gonna call 911 now,” Natalie said, giving me a sympathetic look. “I think you should lie back down.” She lowered me carefully to the ground, grabbing one of the pillows off the bed to place under my head before she hurried off to find her phone.

I couldn’t help but wonder how long I would have to lie there on the hard floor before help came. I worried that the lack of padding would lead to pressure sores, but I decided not to mention my concern to Natalie, knowing she was already upset enough. I could hear her talking to the 911 dispatcher on the other side of the room, telling them the name of the hotel and her room number. Then she ducked into the bathroom, describing what had happened in muffled tones. “Yes, he’s conscious and alert, but he’s bleeding from the back of his head,” she said when she came back out. “Please hurry…”

She must have hung up with 911 by the time she returned to my side, a bath towel in hand. “They’re on their way,” she said, folding the towel twice. “I’m gonna put this behind your head to mop up some of the blood.”

As she lifted my head to place the towel on top of the pillow, I wondered how much blood I had lost. I knew from past experience that head wounds tended to bleed a lot; it probably looked worse than it actually was. “Thanks,” I said as she lowered my head back onto the pillow.

“I’d better call the front desk to let them know the ambulance will be here soon.” As she dialed the front desk from the room phone and explained the situation, I felt my sense of embarrassment intensify. In a matter of seconds, I had gone from a guy who was about to get lucky to a guy who was lying helplessly in a puddle of his own blood.

Meanwhile, my date looked like she could pass out any moment. “Why don’t you sit down, Natalie?” I said when she hung up the phone, noticing again how pale her face was.

She let out a shaky laugh as she slid down to the floor beside me and leaned back against the bed, closing her eyes. “Sorry… I’ve never been able to handle the sight of blood.”

“It’s okay. But, I promise, it’s not as bad as it looks. I’ll be fine.”

She nodded but kept her eyes closed until we heard a knock on the door. “EMS!” a male voice called. Natalie climbed to her feet and hurried to open the door. Moments later, two EMTs, a man and a woman, walked over to where I was lying. Natalie stood back out of the way, watching anxiously as they knelt down to examine me.

“What’s your name, sir?” the woman asked, shining a bright light in my eyes.

“Kevin,” I replied. “Kevin Richardson.”

If she recognized me or my name, she didn’t react. “Can you tell me what happened tonight, Kevin? How did you end up on the floor?”

I explained our failed attempt to transfer me from my chair to the bed and described how I’d fallen, hitting the back of my head on the way down.

“Did you lose consciousness at any point?”

“No.”

The medics looked back at Natalie, who shook her head to confirm this. “Any dizziness, nausea, or vomiting?”

“I was a little dizzy when I sat up,” I admitted, “but I’m all right now. No nausea or vomiting.”

“Can you squeeze my hands?”

I couldn’t even feel her touching me. “No,” I said, annoyed by the question. “I’m a C5-C6 complete quadriplegic. I can’t move my fingers. I have no feeling or function from the chest down.”

The woman nodded at her partner, who was opening his bag of supplies. “Okay, Kevin, we’re going to put a C-collar on you now,” she said as the man pulled a neck brace out of the bag.

“No, please,” I started to protest, shaking my head. “I don’t need that.”

“If you hit your head, you may have also hurt your neck,” she said, putting her hands on both sides of my head to hold it still while her partner applied the collar. “We need to stabilize your spine until you can be examined by a doctor. They’ll take it off in the ER once they rule out an injury.”

I knew the EMTs were just trying to cover their asses in case I was actually hurt worse than I appeared to be, but I thought they were overreacting. Once the collar was secure, they rolled me carefully onto my side so they could see the cut on the back of my head. They applied a bandage, wrapping a roll of gauze around my head to hold it in place before they put me on my back again.

Tears of frustration sprang to my eyes as I stared up at the hotel room ceiling. I felt so helpless lying flat on the floor, unable to even turn my head now that I had the hated cervical collar around my neck. Besides being too tight and confining, it brought back bad memories of the two months I’d spent wearing one while I was in the hospital.

My sense of deja vu only intensified when the ambulance crew carefully lifted me onto a stretcher, strapping me down before they raised it off the floor and rolled me out of the room. “Sorry for all the trouble,” I told Natalie as she walked alongside the stretcher, holding my wadded up t-shirt in her hand. “Assuming they let me go home tonight, I can still take you to the airport in the morning.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, frowning. “I’m coming to the hospital with you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” she insisted. “I’m not letting you go alone.”

I didn’t argue the point any further. A part of me appreciated having her there to accompany me, but I was also embarrassed about being wheeled out of the hotel on a stretcher and loaded into the back of an ambulance. I hoped no one else was around to see me that way.

Natalie rode up front with the male technician while the woman continued tending to me in the back. She took my pulse, then wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm and inflated it. “Your BP’s low,” she said, frowning when she looked at the reading.

“That’s just my baseline. My blood pressure’s always low like that because I’m paralyzed.” I tried to explain it to her, but she wasn’t listening to me.

“Hey, Sully!” she called up to the cab, presumably speaking to her partner. “Let’s go lights and sirens with this one.”

I rolled my eyes as the ambulance suddenly accelerated, its siren wailing. “Seriously, I’m okay,” I said as she started attaching sticky pads to my bare chest to monitor my heartbeat. “It’s just a cut.”

But, even in the ER, I was treated like a trauma victim. Working with a team of nurses, the doctor turned me over to examine every inch of my body, asking me all kinds of questions that ranged from what I could and couldn’t move or feel to simple queries about what day of the week it was. Natalie waited outside in the hallway while they finished their assessment. “Where are you taking him?” I heard her ask as they rolled me out of the room.

“Radiology,” one of the nurses told her. “We need to make sure he doesn’t have a skull fracture or brain bleed.”

That was less than reassuring, but aside from a pounding headache, I felt fine. After a series of X-rays and a CT scan, I was wheeled back to the emergency room, where Natalie was finally allowed in to see me.

“Are you okay?” she asked when she came up alongside the gurney on which I lay, still flat on my back with the cervical collar around my neck.

“I’m cold and uncomfortable, and my head is killing me,” I complained, “but otherwise, yeah… I’m fine. I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile. “I’ll see if the nurse can bring you a blanket.” Before I could tell her it wasn’t necessary, she turned and stepped out into the hall again. I heard her talking softly to someone outside the open door. “He’s going to get one,” she said when she came back in.

“Thanks.” I forced a smile onto my face.

“You’re welcome.” She picked up my hand and threaded her fingers through mine. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

I wished I could feel the warmth of her holding my hand, but all I felt was the feather light touch of her stroking the inside of my thumb with hers. “You’re already doing it. Just stay here and keep me company for a while.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Oh, and if you can find me a phone, I need to call Dawn to come pick me up,” I added as it suddenly occurred to me that I would have no way of getting home once I was cleared to go. My wheelchair, cell phone, and truck were all still at the hotel.

“You can use mine,” Natalie offered, taking her phone out of her purse. “Tell me the number, and I’ll dial it for you.”

I didn’t know Dawn’s cell phone number by heart, so I had her call the house instead, hoping Dawn would hear my voice on the answering machine if she didn’t pick up.

“It’s ringing,” Natalie said, holding the phone to my ear.

Dawn’s slightly confused-sounding voice came on the line a moment later. “Hello?” She had to be wondering who would be calling so late.

“Hey, it’s Kevin,” I said. “Listen, I’m okay, but I had a little mishap while I was hanging out with Natalie and landed myself in the ER. I may need you to pick me up in a while.”

“What happened?!” Dawn asked, her voice rising.

“I fell and cracked my head open. They had to run some tests to make sure I don’t have a concussion or anything, and I may need stitches, but no big deal – I’ll be fine.”

“Well, damn! That’s one way to end a date,” said Dawn with a chuckle. “Where’s Natalie?”

I smiled. “She’s here with me, but we had to leave my chair and truck back at her hotel, so I have no way to get out of here.”

“Well, I can come get you, but what do you want me to do with Mason? He’s already sound asleep. Should I wake him up and bring him with me, or-?”

“No, don’t wake him. He has school tomorrow; I don’t want him up half the night, worrying about me,” I said. “Can you call my mom? I’m sure she’d come and stay at the house with him while you drive the van to the hospital.” I hated to bother my mom in the middle of the night, but it was better than disrupting my son’s routine. I knew she wouldn’t mind; in fact, she would be more upset if she found out I hadn’t called her.

“Of course,” said Dawn. “Which hospital are you at? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Saint Joe, but no rush. We’re still waiting on test results,” I told her. “Thanks, Dawn.”

Once we heard her hang up, Natalie put the phone back in her purse. She spent a long time hunched over the handbag, fumbling through it like she was trying to find something. The loose strands of hair that had fallen out of her braid hung in her face.

“Natalie?” I asked, frowning at her. “What are you looking for?”

When she finally lifted her head, I realized why she had been trying to hide her face from me. Tears were flowing freely from her eyes.

“Hey… are you okay? What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Kevin,” she said, her voice trembling. “I should never have offered to help you onto the bed when I clearly had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t mean for you to fall.”

“I know. It’s not your fault,” I tried to assure her. “You followed my directions just fine. I should have told you to make sure I was sitting far enough back on the bed before you let go of me. It’s not the first time I’ve fallen, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Like I said, my balance sucks.” It surprised me to see this seemingly confident flight attendant falling apart over a simple accident. I smiled to show her I wasn’t mad, that I didn’t blame her for what had happened.

“I just feel bad.” She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “Here you planned such a perfect day for us, only to get hurt and end up in the hospital.”

“It was worth it,” I replied, smiling at her. “I enjoyed every minute, right up until the last hour or so.”

“Me too,” she said, managing a smile back.

By the time my nurse came back with a blanket, I wasn’t cold anymore. In fact, I felt uncomfortably warm. “Your blood pressure’s come back up,” the nurse observed as he checked my vitals. He sounded pleased, but alarm bells were going off in my head.

“What is it?”

“One-thirty over eighty-four. It’s actually a little higher than the normal range, but nothing to worry about right now.”

“No, that’s really high for me. Mine’s usually somewhere around ninety over sixty,” I said, frowning as I realized the reason for my sudden hot flash: I was developing autonomic dysreflexia. I wasn’t sure if it was because there wasn’t enough padding under the bony parts of my body or if it was because my bladder was too full. Remembering that I hadn’t been to the bathroom since dinner, I decided it must be the latter. This was my body’s way of warning me that if I didn’t empty my bladder soon, I was going to have another kind of accident.

“Really?” The nurse looked surprised. “Wow… that’s pretty low.”

“Yeah… welcome to the wonderful world of quadriplegia,” I replied sarcastically, hoping I wouldn’t have to explain AD to him. “I probably just need to pee. Any way you could sit me up so I can cath myself?” I was uncomfortably aware of the fact that Natalie was standing right next to me, listening to every word, but now wasn’t the time to be self-conscious. I knew I had to take care of this before it turned into an even more humiliating situation.

“Sorry, but no… not until the doctor comes in to clear your spine,” he said. “I can do it for you, though.”

“Fine,” I said with a sigh and looked up at Natalie, blushing from a mix of embarrassment and elevated blood pressure. “Mind stepping out for a few minutes?”

“Not at all,” she replied, flashing me a crooked smile. She waited in the hallway while the nurse helped me.

“How much longer till y’all can take this collar off me?” I asked once he was done, bringing my hand up to the bulky neck brace. “It’s driving me nuts.”

“I’m not sure, sir,” the nurse said apologetically. “I’ll try to find your doctor and ask.”

He left, sending Natalie back into the room. “Feeling better?” she asked awkwardly.

“A little.” My blood pressure had come back down, but my face still felt flushed. “I’ll feel a lot better when I can lose this collar.”

“It doesn’t look very comfortable,” she said, pursing her lips.

“It’s not,” I replied flatly. “But the nurse went to look for my doctor, so hopefully he can take it off soon.”

I wasn’t holding my breath, but to my relief, the doctor arrived a few minutes later to go over my test results. “Good news, Mr. Richardson,” he said, glancing down at the iPad in his hand. “The X-rays and CT scans show no evidence of trauma to your head or neck. That means we can sit you up and take off this C-collar now.”

“Thank god,” I said with relief.

The doctor set his iPad down on a tray while he raised the head of the gurney and removed the front part of my collar. All of a sudden, I heard Natalie gasp. “Good Lord, Kevin! How on earth do you have this much hardware inside your neck?”

I glanced up and saw her staring down at the iPad. She picked it up and turned it around to show me the screen, which was displaying an X-ray of my head and spine. “I know, right?” I replied, swallowing hard as I studied the image. “I’m like a cyborg now – part man, part machine.” The metal rod running down the back of my neck, held in place by a series of long screws that had been drilled into the bones, reminded me of just how badly I had been injured in the crash that had killed Kristin. My surgeon had been able to fix the damage to my broken spine by fusing the fractured vertebrae back together, but she hadn’t been able to do anything about the crushed spinal cord beneath them. Unless medical science figured out a way to regenerate nerve cells, I would be paralyzed for the rest of my life.

Natalie took one last look at the X-ray and shook her head. “I think I need to sit down,” she said, sinking into a chair on one side of the room.

“You all right?” I asked, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye.

She nodded. “Yeah… don’t mind me. I’m just a little squeamish.”

I laughed, not knowing what else to say. I had lost any aversion I had to bodily fluids and functions four years ago. Nothing bothered me now.

Natalie waited there while the doctor assessed my range of motion, making sure I could flex and extend my neck and rotate my head without pain before he removed the back of the collar. “Turn your head to the right,” he said, feeling my neck as I twisted it. “And now the left. Any pain or discomfort when you do that?”

“No. It just feels good to be able to move again.”

“Great. You’re all clear then.” He smiled and set the cervical collar aside. “I’m going to lie you back down and roll you onto your side so I can put a few staples in your scalp laceration. Then I’ll send you on your way.”

“Hooray… more hardware. You may not wanna watch this part,” I warned Natalie with a grin.

She grimaced. “I’ll wait outside again. Call me when it’s safe to come back in.”

The doctor numbed my scalp and closed my cut with staples in no time. When he left, Natalie returned to the room, looking slightly less pale. She sat with me while we waited for someone to bring my discharge papers and go over my aftercare instructions.

One of the nurses was helping me with the paperwork when Dawn walked in. “Well, hey there!” she exclaimed. “How ya doin’?”

“Better now that you’re here,” I replied, smiling with relief. “Perfect timing – I’m ready to go home.”

“Good. Your mom will be happy to see you in one piece.”

“She made it over to stay with Mason then?”

“No, I just left him alone in the house,” Dawn replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “Of course, she came over. She was worried about you.”

“I’m fine. No worse for wear, other than a few staples in the back of my head.” I turned my head, attempting to part my hair with my knuckles to show her the wound.

“Nice! Another battle scar to add to your collection.” Unlike Natalie, Dawn was not the least bit fazed by blood and gore, having worked as a certified nursing assistant when she was younger. “So this must be Natalie,” she added, turning toward her. “I’m Dawn.”

Natalie nodded. “Nice to meet you, Dawn,” she said, smiling as she stood up to shake her hand.

“Same to you. Sorry to crash your date like this.”

Natalie laughed. “You’re not the first. It was pretty much over once the paramedics walked in. But at least it came to a memorable end – right, Kevin?” She looked over at me.

“Not exactly the end I was hoping for, but… yup. Neither of us will ever forget tonight; that’s for sure,” I replied, smiling at her.

Since I didn’t have my chair with me, I had to ride out of the emergency room in one of the hospital wheelchairs. It felt big and clunky compared to the custom one I was used to. The orderly who brought it to my room wouldn’t let me wheel it by myself, insisting on pushing me to the exit.

Dawn went to get the van while Natalie waited with me on the sidewalk. When Dawn pulled up, she hopped out of the van and opened the passenger side door. We parked the wheelchair as close to the open door as possible so I could transfer to the front seat. I still didn’t have a sliding board with me, but Dawn knew what she was doing. She performed a perfect pivot transfer, pulling me up onto my feet, turning me around, and lowering me carefully into the front seat, making sure my head cleared the top of the door frame. She lifted my legs in after me, placing my feet on the floor, and fastened my seatbelt to keep me from flopping over before she closed the door.

Natalie climbed into the back of the van, buckling herself into the last row because the middle seats had been removed to make room for the ramp and my wheelchair. “I’m getting serious airport shuttle vibes back here!” she called up to me as Dawn drove us to the hotel.

Dawn parked in the handicapped spot next to my truck and opened the back door so Natalie could get out. I wished I could walk her up to her room, but I had no choice but to wait in the van while Dawn went in with her to get my wheelchair. “You don’t have to come back out here,” I said, rolling down my window to talk to her before she went inside. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe we could grab breakfast before I take you to the airport.”

Natalie smiled and nodded. “That sounds great. Thank you again for a fun day.”

“You’re welcome. I wish the night would have gone better. Thanks for sticking with me.”

“Of course. I’m just glad you’re okay.” She leaned in through the window and kissed me on the cheek. “Sweet dreams. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I smiled back at her, blushing where her lips had been. “Goodnight, Natalie.”

“‘Night, Kevin.”

I watched her walk inside with Dawn, wondering what would have happened if the evening had turned out differently.

***