Chapter 3

Amanda always came home carrying the warm, sunlit smell of sweat.

She'd been on the team all through college.

I was the one in the crowd cheering for her.

Every game, she drank only from the bottle I handed her.

Every game, she tossed her jacket into my arms and no one else's.

I used to like that smell. More than that, I craved it.

Like the young hormones of a girl in her college years.

But the jersey in my hands now.

There was something else tangled into it, sticky and thick.

Clinging to the fabric was an unfamiliar liquid that smelled of floral scent.

"Aren't you going to bed? What are you sitting there staring at?"

Amanda came out of the bathroom with her hair still dripping.

What she saw was me holding the jersey, sitting in the wheelchair.

"What is this?"

I asked her straight out.

Amanda froze for a second, something evasive flickering in her eyes before she smoothed it over.

"I was too busy playing to notice. How would I know?"

"Probably when I was drenched in sweat and threw it in a corner, somebody brushed something dirty onto it by accident."

With that, she snatched the jersey out of my hands and took it off to wash.

The next day, out of nowhere, my fever spiked to a hundred and two.

Amanda was picking up her ball to leave. I caught her sleeve, weak.

"Can you take me to the hospital first?"

Amanda frowned and reached over to feel my forehead.

"You were fine. How did you suddenly spike a fever again?"

"A hundred and two?"

"Yeah."

"Did you take anything?"

"We're out."

She frowned again and glanced at the clock on the wall.

"Then lie down for now. I'll go buy you some medicine."

But an hour passed and she still wasn't back.

Then my phone chimed with an alert. Her heart rate had spiked.

Only then did I remember. Her fitness watch was synced to my phone.

She wasn't playing right now.

So what was making her heart pound like that?

I struggled to wheel myself out to the balcony, and sure enough, Amanda's car was parked right downstairs.

She got out of the car first.

Right behind her, that close male friend of hers, Elwin Stevens, stepped out still pulling his clothes on.

"Amanda, you've got some nerve. Your boyfriend's up there burning up with a fever."

"And you drive out here to meet me in the car. You couldn't wait?"

Amanda had two boxes in her hand, cold medicine and something for the fever.

Then she threw herself against Elwin, fingers trailing over his chest.

"This is just the start."

"Want something more exciting?"

Elwin met the wicked look in her eyes. "Oh? You want me to go home with you?"

"Right in front of Winston?"

Amanda didn't seem to care one way or the other.

"Is that a problem?"

I read the shapes of the words on their lips, and my hands shook with rage.

Two minutes later, a key turned in the lock, and the door opened from outside.

"Win, I'm back with your medicine."

Amanda waved the fever medicine in front of my face, then walked in.

"Ran into a buddy from my team on the way. Told him to come over for a meal."

Elwin gave my amputated leg a flat, unbothered look.

Tossed off a greeting that cost him nothing, then went to find Amanda in the kitchen.

He slapped her on the backside.

"No wonder you can't get enough of me."

"Sure, your boyfriend's a good-looking guy, but one look at that stump and it kind of kills the mood, right?"

"How long has it been since you two slept together?"

Amanda kept right on getting dinner ready. "Three years."

Their low, whispered voices carried, so plain against the quiet of the living room.

Over the next few days, Elwin kept coming over for meals, using the ball as his excuse.

Then one day it started pouring, and he couldn't get home, so he stayed the night.

I woke to find him wearing my slippers and the pajamas I'd just bought.

Standing there drying his hair with my hairdryer.

Like he was the man of the house.

I asked Amanda, "What is this?"

"You know I'm a clean freak. Why would you let someone else wear my pajamas and slippers?"

Amanda shot me a look.

"It's pouring out there. You really have the heart to make him walk home alone in that?"

"Your leg's gone. What does being a clean freak matter now? You've really got to make a thing out of one pair of slippers?"

In that moment, I went completely quiet.

All that was left was my red-rimmed eyes, looking at her without a word.

Amanda suddenly panicked and hurried over to soothe me.

"Win, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

"I'm not put off by your leg."

She coaxed me softly. "He's just my friend. I don't even think of him as a man."

"So what if he stays over at our place for one night?"

A friend staying over for a night, sure, that's nothing.

But when the two of you are booking hotel rooms together, can you still call that a friend?

Looking at how righteous Amanda's face was.

In the end I swallowed the words back down my throat.

"Then do whatever you want."

I turned my wheelchair and went back to the room. Amanda didn't bother with me after that. She took Elwin to make up the bed in the guest room.

I listened to them, starting out all serious about the sheets, ending up tangled together.

I closed my eyes.

Then I dialed a number.

"Hi, the day after tomorrow, in the morning, can I rent a car with a wheelchair space?"

"And a driver too."