Winners Don't Have Bad Days (Watty 2020 Winner, Romance)

2. #Mundane, October 2017

Mike didn't want to sit down. Imagination sketched the crutches flying across the waiting room when Daya returned for him, while his body wriggled feebly on the floor. She took pity on him after one comic fall about a century ago, but there was no need to overdo it.

The odds were in favor of it being a one-of-a-kind occurrence, not a systematic adoration of a klutz. Hence, he parked himself in a low-traffic corner, a granite statue of Commander in the graveyard, watching for his Donna Anna to saunter in.

Speaking of sauntering... Mike brought the crutches forward—the way an annoyingly cheerful nurse had taught him—and progressed two feet. Now, for a brief respite. Or not.

The silvery SantaFe nudged into the pickup zone—an odd experience, something akin to seeing his legs walk on their own (a terrible example in this instance)—and Daya hopped out, slamming the door shut. So, the fierce sprite did not like his tall SUV. He wondered why. Did she feel that the objects of known size gave away her miniature stature? In his humble opinion, the energy packed inside manipulated the space-time continuum, enlarging her presence.

That energy pulsated about her when Daya cut through the sliding doors into the waiting room. He managed five swinging steps while she closed the rest of the distance without so much as breaking a sweat. Fierce, beautifully fierce.

"You must really hate paying for parking," Mike said at the same time as the phone buzzed inside her jacket.

She glanced at it, and life drained out of her face.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, while his gamer's mind rooted through potential personal catastrophes. He shushed it. Nobody burned her home village, you dumbass. Ogres didn't torture her lover to death. This is Calgary, not Baldur's Gate.

She gaped at her phone. "My skates. They don't want to buy my skates."

"Okay. It's okay."

She was obviously crestfallen, and it made no sense. On any other day, he'd have taken her by the elbow, sat her down, bought her a cup of coffee to tease out the tragedy bit by bit. But today he had plunged from the towering height of a curb, ended up in an air-cast with crutches, not to mention a pouch of industrial-strength tylenol between his teeth. These fun accessories limited his powers of caffeinating the distraught just when he needed them the most. In video games, assassins leaped from the accurately rendered historic landmarks hundreds of feet tall and walked it off. Fantasy beats reality, zero to one million.

He pointed his crutch at a bank of three unoccupied chairs next to a woman with three vibrantly healthy kids and one piteously coughing runt of the family.

"Parking," Daya moaned, still staring dazedly at the phone screen, as if willing away the heartbreaking news.

This wasn't the circumstances under which he'd enjoyed watching her moan. He chased the flippant, painkiller-induced thought away and stuck to reality: "You can't drive with your hands shaking. Tell me what's wrong with your skates."

A lurch towards the vacant seat could mean: I will brook no argument. Or not, but it was the best he could offer. Luckily, the fear of making a spectacle of himself proved to be exaggerated. His foot couldn't carry weight, but he used it as a balancing point, not hit the fascinated minors with his crutches, and ended up with his butt in the traditional position. Thank goodness he decided against kneeling into the chair. The prospect of fighting back to his feet scared him, but the wise men live in the moment.

Daya propped the crutches and perched next to him. "My car broke down. I had a buyer for my skates, so I paid for the car. Now they won't buy it, and there is rent due."