The Four Things - Chapter 3

A/N - Thanks so much for all the reviews guys. See how fast I updated - Thanks in part to all your great reviews (and also because I'm procrastinating on EVERYTHING).

Chapter 3


“Seriously Dude? Seriously? You’re seriously going to go to a club where they’re knitting?”

Will nodded, “Seriously Sisky. It’s my therapy so if you want to be a douchebag about it then maybe you should go home.”

“I would rather have broken limbs forever then go to knitting group. Do you even know how to knit?”

“I’m learning,” William pointed to a sunny spot near the windows where some of the other patients were already gathered. Sisky pushed his wheelchair up to the group, spotting a balding, somewhat overweight man, and a bunch of older and middle aged women. “Pull me up over there,” Will gestured to a younger woman with auburn hair sitting by herself in a seat by the windows. A folder and a bunch of papers were scattered all over a little table in front of her. A yellow lumpy thing lay off to the side and Sisky realized that it was her abandoned knitting project.

“I see why you are to this group now,” Sisky looked up at the pale freckled woman with her large green eyes and wavy hair. She was beautiful in that natural, earthy, no-make sort of way. “Is she the reason you broke up with Jamie?”

“No, I told you; Jamie initiated our break up, not me.”

“Yeah, but was she the reason?” Sisky taunted.

William glared at him, “I actually kinda miss Jamie and it’s only been a few hours. How do you miss someone who made it their life’s mission to make you miserable?”

“Maybe it’s like that thing where the girl who’s taken hostage falls for the guy who kidnapped her,” Sisky laughed as he pulled the wheelchair up next to Micaela and then pulled a chair up next to Will and sat down.

“Whatcha doin’?” Will asked Micaela.

“Paperwork,” she didn’t even look up at him, “George can help you if you need any help.”

“Oh,” Will’s face fell. He looked up at George and saw him helping someone else, “He’s busy.”

“Well he’ll be done shortly and then he can help you.”

“But I don’t like it when he does it. I only like it your way,” Will whined and Sisky shook his head suppressing laughter at what an ass his friend was making out of himself.

Micaela looked up at him and sighed, “Okay where’s your needles?” He held them up, still with the pout on his face. “Where’s your yarn?” he held up a tangled skein of dark blue, now his pout turning into a goofy smile. “I’ll help you cast on, but then you’re on your own.” She went to work showing him how to knit while Sisky sat next to them, totally spacing out.

“Young man,” an elderly voice addressed him and he looked up to see an older woman standing over him. Well, not that much over him, as she was only about 2 inches taller then he was while she was standing up and he was sitting down. “Hold this for me while I sit in my chair,” She handed him a skein of baby pink yarn and then pulled the chair up behind her. “What are you here for?” she asked him bluntly.

“Oh, I’m not a patient. I’m just visiting my friend Bill.”

She smiled, “Ah, William. He’s a bit odd that boy. He goes to all the women’s groups just because he’s got the hots for Mica.”

Sisky laughed, “Yeah, he’s a weirdo. Why are you here?”

“I’m here so that they can teach me about how to have a healthy lifestyle.” He looked at her confused. “My insurance company is forcing me to spend extra time hear because this was my third minor heart attack, but I’ll be one hundred next month and I’m still walking, so I must be doing something right.”

“What does a heart attack feel like?” Sisky asked and then immediately regretting it. Why would he make this woman relive such a horrible time in her life.

“It felt damn good.” She laughed at Sisky’s surprised face, “I was having sex.”

His eyes widened even more, “well was it worth it?”

“Oh yeah. It was, what do you youngin’s say? Hot?” Sisky nodded and laughed. “I would do it again in a heartbeat,” she howled with laughter at Sisky’s mortified face, “Forgive the pun. Of course Ray feels just awful about it, but he can’t help it that he’s an Italian Stallion.”

“Is Ray your husband?”

“No. My husband died over thirty years ago, and I spent a good ten years mourning his death and then I realized that I had to get back out there and enjoy my life. It’s what he would’ve wanted. And I’m lucky because Ray’s a younger man.”

“Oh yeah?” Sisky was amused by the woman’s demeanor.

“Yeah he’s eighty. That mean’s I was 19 when he was born, but that’s okay. The younger the better. In fact, you’re pretty cute,” she laughed again at the semi-horrified look on Sisky’s face, “I meant it in a different way then you think. I meant that you’re cute like my great grandson. I’m Dorit by the way.”

She held out her hand and he took it. She gave it a good firm shake, “I’m Adam,” he smiled. He couldn’t help but admire her spunk.

*****

2 weeks later

“You’re improving,” Micaela sat down on the edge of William’s bed, while he sat across from her in the chair, “I talked to your doctor, your social worker, and your physical therapist this morning and they said you should be ready to leave by the end of the week.”

“That’s great,” William looked at her and his expression showed that he thought it was anything but great.

“It is great. You’ll be healed before you know it. You can get back to work with your music, and maybe next fall you’ll be back into touring again with your band. You’ve made great progress since you were here and the doctor said that it’s probably because of all of the Recreation Therapy you’ve been doing. You’ve been attending two to three groups per day, afterall.”

“Sure,” Will said, immediately regretting going to all of those groups. He didn’t want to leave. He was finally able to see what he truly wanted and it wasn’t to leave the facility, it was to spend as much time with Mica as possible.

“So I want to set up a meeting with you toward the end of the week where we can discuss activities that you can keep doing when you get out of the facility so that you can keep getting better and better.”

“Okay,” he looked down at his hands.

“How about Thursday afternoon? If you leave on Friday afternoon, that will give you plenty of time to ask me some questions if you think of them after our meeting.”

“Whatever you want,” he swept his hair out of his face with his good hand.

“Okay, Thursday at two then.” She got off of the bed and headed to the door.

“Micaela wait!” Will shouted panicked.

“What is it William?”

“Do you think maybe you could go out with me sometime?”

She looked down at her hands embarrassed, “No, I’m sorry William. I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t date my patients. We have a patient-therapist relationship and it needs to stay that way.”

“No it doesn’t. You’re not my psychiatrist. There are no rules in Recreation Therapy that say you can’t date me when I leave here.”

“You’re right. There’s not, but I wouldn’t feel right about it. It’s a personal policy.”

Will couldn’t look her in the eyes, “Oh. Well okay then.” He felt totally embarrassed.

“I’m going to go now William, but I’ll see you later,” she turned and left the room, leaving him there alone and thinking about how foolish he’d been to even ask her.

“Hey!” Sisky entered the room cheerily with Mike close behind him.

“You guys said you’d be here at two. It’s almost three now!” Will said aggravated. He really didn’t care about what time his friends came, he was just angry about Mica not accepting his invite.

“What the hell are you, the time nazi?” Mike glared at him.

“We took a detour coming here. I took Mike to go see Dorit,” Sisky said with a huge smile on his face, “Doesn’t she totally rock for an old woman?”

“Yeah, she was the shit!” Mike gave Sisky a high five and Will rolled his eyes. Sisky had been to visit almost every day for the past two weeks, but he always spent more time hanging out with Dorit then with Will.

“Mica said she wouldn’t go out with me,” Will slumped in his chair.

“So that’s why you’re all bitter and worried about the time,” Sisky sat next to him and patted his shoulder, “it’s not really a surprise though.”

“What the hell? Of course it is! She spends every day with me!”

“Only because you choose to go to her groups and because you’re her patient. She doesn’t have a choice, she has to spend time with you and pretend like she likes you, even if she hates your guts.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, man.” Will exhaled a huge sigh and looked up at the clock, counting the minutes until his friends would leave him in peace.

*****

“Will asked me out today,” Micaela said to Paige as they sat at the little diner that they went to after work sometimes.

“Will who?” Paige looked up curiously and accidentally dribbled ketchup from her fries down her chin.

“Will Becket. My patient.”

“Oo, the hot rock star one? You said yes, right?”

“No, you know my policy on that,” Micaela pushed her fries around with her fork. Suddenly they weren’t looking that appetizing.

“Yeah, but you can make an exception for him. I mean, you told me yourself that you thought he was hot,” Paige wiped the ketchup off of her chin with a napkin, but a glob of it dropped off of the napkin and onto her khaki’s, “dammit!” she muttered under her breath.

“No. You know I can’t break my own rules. How bad would it be if I broke rules that I came up with myself?”

“You’re such a freak. Anyone else would jump on that chance. I would,” Paige tried to pretend like the piece of salad hadn’t just fallen off of her fork right before she put the bite in her mouth, and Micaela ignored her and continued pushing her fries around her plate, lost in her own thoughts.