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One sudden horrific moment shifts the entire trajectory of Atlas and Errol's lives, handicapping both young men in ways they could never have expected. A sculptor without his sight, and a piani...
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"This is where the shower gel is." Errol explained next to me, as he gently lifted and guided my hand towards what felt like a hanging shower caddy. "There's an extra loofa hung here." He lowered our hands to the edge of the caddy, allowing me to feel around for the scrubber. I gave him a nod, trying to get my nerves under control so my hand wouldn't shake against his.
It's just a shower, I thought to myself. You'll be fine.
"There's a towel folded on the counter here, along with a shirt and some shorts on my bed. If you need anything else, or any help, just call out." Errol finished, and I felt his hand gently release my own.
All I could do was nod with a solid 'Thank you.' The response was as genuine as I could make it sound... because genuinely, I was incredibly thankful that Errol had dropped what he was doing to come save me from the elements of nature.
"Don't mention it." He replied, and the tone in his voice made me unexpectedly smile. I was starting to do that a lot around him. Smile unexpectedly.
There was a bit of a pause where neither of us said anything... until Errol cleared his throat a bit awkwardly.
"Right, so I'll let you- uh, get to it." Was what he finally settled on. I heard his footsteps fade against the tiled bathroom floor, before the door closed behind him.
That was when I finally let out the breath I didn't even know I was holding.
The shower went about as well as expected.
Terribly.
Like really fucking terribly.
Not so terrible that I needed to call Errol, because lets be honest, my pride would never recover if Errol had to literally help my butt ass naked self out of his shower... but terrible enough where I managed to drop the shower gel about four times, and had to damn near crawl around his ginormous shower floor to try and find it again.
I also almost slipped trying to walk out, but the glass door handle ended up saving me from what was surely about to be the most embarrassing moment of my life.
Regardless of these trials and tribulations, the hot water running down my cold damp skin felt like heaven. By the time I got out and wrapped the towel loosely around my waist, I felt like a whole new person.
Errol had placed my white cane against the bathroom counter, and I found it easily. It was moments like these where I wished I could look over and catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror... but those days were long gone. I just relied on my fingers to try and brush some of my messy hair back.
Errol left some clothes out for me on his bed. He just never mentioned where exactly, or that he had a king size bed. I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to feel around for folded material, and when I did finally find the stack of clothes he mentioned, I accidentally knocked something off the bed.
