Page 33 of Wait a HO HO HO Second!

“It does make your ankles weak, but first it weakens the muscles that lift your feet with each step, the dorsiflexors. When those muscles are weak or paralyzed, you develop what’s called foot drop. The braces make walking easier by supporting your foot with each step. As I’ve gotten older and the nerves in my ankles and legs have been affected, maintaining my balance has become difficult without at least one crutch.”

“I noticed you only use one crutch when you are in the mall,” he said, wiping his hands on a napkin. “Couldn’t help but wonder why.”

“When the mall is closed, I keep one hand free to carry things,” she said, sliding her plate onto the coffee table. “But when I’m in the mall with patrons around, I always use two crutches. They give me a wider berth as I walk, so I don’t get tangled up and fall.”

“That makes sense. I noticed you used two the whole time tonight, so I figured there were reasons.”

“Always,” Joy said, smiling. “And it can change day to day. Sometimes, if I didn’t sleep well or spent a lot of time on my feet—”

“Like today,” Kian said, and she nodded.

“Like today. That means I’ll need both crutches all day tomorrow. Managing it is about knowing yourself and understanding how your body responds to different situations and levels of exertion. Once you understand that, it’s easier to move from day to day with confidence rather than fear.”

“You get used to it,” Kian said, and Joy nodded with a half shrug.

“At least until it changes again. Then you’re back at the starting line for a few months while you figure it out.”

“That’s a tough row to hoe; I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I don’t need your pity.” Joy spat the words more than she spoke them.

“Whoa,” he said, turning to face her. “That wasn’t pity. It was a genuine recognition of what you’ve been through and what you continue to live with, nothing more. Your life hasn’t been easy, and I know I played a part in that, so I am genuinely sorry you have to live with something like this. Does that make me an ableist for saying so?”

“In a way, yes,” Joy said.

“Wait, really?” Kian asked, surprised as hell. He thought acknowledging what she had been through without making it a ‘poor you, I could never live this way’ comment was the right move.

“Really,” she agreed, a small smile tugging at her lips. “You’re assuming my life is so terrible and hard because of my CMT that you have to apologize for being able-bodied.”

“I didn’t say that.” Had he said that? He ran the words through his head and sighed. “Maybe I did say that, in a roundabout way.”

“Let me be clear. I love my life here in Snowcap Ridge. I don’t wake up every morning thinking, ‘Oh, poor me, I have to strap on these braces. Life is just awful.’ Are there days when I wish I could move faster or not need the crutches so I could use both hands? Absolutely, but those are fleeting moments, not ones I sink into for days. I know who I am, and I’m happy with who I am, Kian. I’m a fat girl who wears leg braces, uses crutches, and needs a chair lift to get to my apartment.”

“I hate that you call yourself a fat girl.”

“Again, it makes you uncomfortable, not me,” she said, raising a brow.

“Society dictates that, Joy,” Kian pointed out, leaning back on the couch.

“While that’s true, it doesn’t mean society is right. I can be fat, happy, and healthy despite what society dictates. Fatphobia is real, but so is body positivity. Lorelei taught me the difference and showed me how to love myself by setting an example I lacked growing up.”

Smiling, Kian couldn’t help but nod. “Mom always said she knew her worth, and it had nothing to do with how happy she made a man. It had everything to do with how happy she made herself.”

“That. She taught me the most important lesson a parent should teach their child, but she did it by showing, not telling. I needed training wheels at the beginning, but slowly I learned that you have to be okay with who you are at every level, or you’re going to wake up one morning and realize your whole life was spent worrying about what other people think of you. The things you said to me about myself, I carried rent-free in my head, letting you dictate who I was, but the moment,” Joy paused, her hand suspended in the air, bouncing as though she was putting her thoughts in order. Kian knew whatever she had to say would slash him wide open again, but he would listen because she deserved to be heard. “The moment I set that down,” she whispered, dropping her hand to her lap. “I started to love myself. Clarity showed me that I couldn’t make you love yourself, but I didn’t have to let that hatred you laid on me be the loudest voice in my head. Your opinion of me didn’t matter. You weren’t the one living my life. I was. The only thing that mattered was how I treated myself. Living for anyone else is a waste of a life.”

Sinking into the couch, Kian could do nothing but nod. She was right, no matter how much it stung to hear. “You’re right. I did do that,” Kian admitted. “The hatred for myself part. It took me about two weeks in college to realize that was why I behaved that way.”

“Two weeks is oddly specific.”

“When you come from a graduating class of 69 and walk into a school with 650, you learn quickly that there’s always someone smarter than you in the room. When your entire identity is built around being the best at everything you do, without realizing the sample size is pretty small, you can quickly reach an existential crisis. I found myself among peers with the same affluence and opportunities I had, who also acted like decent human beings. Watching them interact with others, my big man-on-campus persona slowly disappeared, leaving me lonely and scared. I didn’t know who I was because I had carried abandonment issues for so long.”

“Being across the country made that abandonment feel real?” Joy asked, her dinner long forgotten as she locked in on him.

Kian could tell Joy was trying to understand. The strange part was that he wanted her to. He wanted her to know who he was now that he’d put in the work and stopped acting like an entitled child.

“Abandonment was the only emotion I truly understood, Joy. That’s what it all boils down to. It was impossible for me to form lasting relationships because I feared they would leave me, too.”

When the light came on in her eyes, Kian was relieved. Splaying yourself open so someone else can look inside wasn’t easy. It was even harder when it was Joy Brady. She’d been the one person he’d never found the courage to approach in the last decade. He’d reached out and apologized to everyone else he’d wronged in high school, at least those he knew about. Some accepted it; some didn’t, but putting in the work changed him little by little.