Brooke:
Brooke was curled up on her bed, lost in thoughts of Tanner, when she heard a soft knock on her bedroom door. “Come in.”
When the door opened, Bethany stood on the other side.
“What do you want?” Brooke asked.
Bethany stepped inside, but she didn’t sit down. “I heard about what happened, and I know you’re probably mad at me.”
“Why shouldn’t I be mad?” Brooke asked. “Tanner lied to me, and you covered for him. Do you have any idea how that feels?”
“Try to think about Tanner’s feelings.”
“Why should I? He didn’t think about mine.”
“That’s all he ever thinks about, and you know it.”
“Then why didn’t he tell me the truth?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Lying never is!”
“Does his disability make a difference?”
“It’s not fair to ask me that now after everyone’s spent the last five months lying to me about it.”
“Look at you,” Bethany said. “Everything about you is perfect. You have perfect parents, and you live in a perfect house and drive the perfect car, and you’re beautiful.”
“That doesn’t make me shallow,” Brooke said.
“No, but it makes someone like Tanner think he's not good enough for you,” Bethany said.
“Maybe it did five months ago, but things are different now,” Brooke said. “Tanner said I was his best friend. It seems like that’s something you would tell your best friend who also happens to be the girl you said you wanted to have sex with.”
“What are you going to do?” Bethany asked.
“I don’t know,” Brooke admitted. “I just need some time to think.”
Bethany’s shoulders sagged. “Okay, I guess I should go then.”
She turned to leave, and Brooke didn’t try to stop her. Bethany paused when she reached the door.
“I’m sorry, Brooke,” Bethany said without turning around. “I never wanted to lie to you. It’s just that Tanner was finally happy, and I couldn’t be the one to ruin that for him.”
Tanner’s the one who ruined it, Brooke thought.
When Brooke didn’t respond, Bethany let herself out. Brooke expected her friend to slam the door, but she didn’t.
Once Bethany was gone, Brooke changed into her pajamas. Maybe a good night’s sleep would give her the answers she needed. She’d just crawled into bed when there was another knock on her bedroom door.
“Go away, Beth!”
The door cracked open. “It’s me,” her father said. “Can I come in?”
“Sorry, Dad,” Brooke said. “Yeah, you can come in.”
Her father pushed the door the rest of the way open and came to sit beside her. “Your mother told me you had a rough day.”
“Did she tell you about Tanner?”
“She didn’t have to. I already knew.”
Brooke’s jaw fell open, and she just stared at her father. How was that possible? How could he know something like that? Was it that obvious? Was she stupid to have missed it?
“It came to my attention the day he was admitted to the hospital,” Court said.
Her father’s tone was as matter of fact as his choice of words. It was his doctor’s tone, the one he used when he had to tell someone bad news or explain something complicated about a patient’s condition. It was a tone that was supposed to be for other people, not her.
“You knew and you didn’t tell me?” Brooke asked.
Court sighed. “I know how terrible that sounds to you. It sounds just as terrible to me. Please believe me when I say I wrestled with it.”
Brooke narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Tanner’s condition came to my knowledge when he was hospitalized,” Court said again. “At that point he became a patient, and that entitled him the legal right to confidentiality. If I would’ve told you something about his medical condition you didn’t already know, I would’ve violated that confidentiality and the trust patients put in their doctors every day.”
“What about the trust daughters put in their fathers?” Brooke asked.
Court offered her a half-smile she didn’t return. “I know you don’t believe me now, but I hope someday you can understand I did the right thing, and I hope you can forgive me.”
Brooke stiffened when he leaned over to kiss the top of her head. With another sigh, he stood and turned his back on her. His footsteps were heavy with sadness as he crossed the room, and guilt welled up inside of her. Deep down, she understood what her father did. It wasn’t fair to pretend she didn’t.
“I forgive you, Daddy,” she said softly.
“Thank you, Brooke.” Court wasn’t smiling when he turned to face her. “I just hope there’s enough room in your heart to forgive one more person.”
For a long time after her father had gone, she thought about everything that happened and what he’d said. Was she really so shallow that she’d let something like that keep her from dating Tanner? What if it was the other way around? What if she was the one missing a leg? How would she feel if people only saw that when they looked at her?
All her life, people judged her without getting to know her. People thought being rich meant she was a snob. Being pretty meant she was obsessed with her appearance not to mention dumb as a rock. Being an only child meant she was spoiled and always got her way.
Granted, that was anywhere near the things Tanner had probably gone through. Thinking back to what she’d overheard Charity say about him on the first day of school, and what she’d done to him last year, it didn’t take a genius to figure out she’d really hurt him.
‘You’re my girl forever, Brooke’.
Up until this afternoon, that was what she wanted. Had that changed? Didn’t she still feel that electric tingling inside whenever she kissed him or held his hand or when she thought about what they’d almost done on New Year’s Eve? Even if it changed her feelings, did it change the way he felt about her? Missing his leg didn’t mean he was missing the ability to love her the way a guy with two legs would. It didn’t seem fair to use that as a reason not to love him the same way.
But he lied to me, Brooke reminded herself again.
Yes, he lied to her, but she knew why. In that moment, Brooke made up her mind. There was only one person who could give her the answers she needed.
Tanner:
It was almost eleven, and Tanner wasn’t any closer to going to sleep than he’d been when he retreated to his room a few hours ago. Kenny tried to get him to talk about Brooke, but Tanner didn’t want to for fear he’d start crying again. Crying in front of his aunt was one thing, but he wasn’t about to go blubbering all over Kenny.
Suddenly there was a soft knock on his window, and Tanner nearly jumped out of his skin. When he peeked out the mini blinds, his heart felt like it was going to explode. Brooke stood outside in her pajamas.
Tanner cracked the window open. “What are you doing here?”
“I needed to talk to you,” Brooke said.
“And it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” Tanner said before he could stop himself.
Brooke’s face fell, and she backed away from the window. “I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
“Wait.” Tanner was careful not to raise his voice so he didn’t wake up Kenny. “Go to the front door, but don’t ring the bell. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Tanner couldn’t imagine what she wanted to tell him this late at night, but he didn’t care. Even if she yelled at him, it was worth it to see her and be close to her again. He tried to be quick as he pulled on his prosthetic leg and secured it with the straps.
After ten years he’d gotten pretty good at it, but for some reason his fingers fumbled as he rushed to get it done. Once he finished, he pulled on a pair of over sized sweat pants. As an afterthought, he grabbed a pair for Brooke and tried to be quiet when he went to the front door.
“Hi,” Brooke said.
“Jesus, did you walk here?” Tanner asked.
“I didn’t want my parents to hear the car,” she said.
Tanner shoved the sweat pants at her. “Here, put these on. It’s cold as hell out here.”
“Thanks.” Brooke gave him a slight smile as she pulled on the pants.
They sat on the front steps. There were goose bumps on her bare arms, and he ached to offer her the warmth of his own arms.
“What did you need to talk about?” Tanner asked, even though he already knew.
“What exactly happened to you in the accident?” Brooke asked.
“I lost my right leg from just above my knee,” Tanner answered. “It was mangled, and the doctors couldn’t save it.”
Tanner couldn’t look at her, and it wasn’t just for fear of what her reaction would be.
“How did it get mangled?” Brooke asked.
Tanner took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.
He never talked about the accident, not even with Kenny. Even when he’d first come home from the hospital and went through a period of having nightmares, he wouldn’t talk about it. Talking about it made it too real.
It was Kenny who’d done most of the talking, but it wasn’t exactly about the accident. On the nights Tanner would wake up crying, Kenny would crawl in bed with him and hold his hand and say all the things Tanner needed to hear to make him feel better.
To this day, he could still hear Kenny’s soft voice beside him; ‘Don’t cry, Tan. I know it ain’t the same, but we’re brothers now. I’ll always take care of you.’ Even at seven years old, Kenny was wise beyond his years. Of course only Tanner knew that. Everyone else saw what Kenny let them see, the joking guy whose only serious interests were girls and sports.
“It broke.” Tanner finally found a version of his voice. “My leg broke. Compound fracture, my shin bone was sticking out through my skin.”
Brooke paled, but she didn’t say anything.
“They might have been able to save it, but we were in the car too long,” Tanner said. “Our car got smashed up really bad and they had to use the jaws of life to get us out. By the time the fire department got there and got me out and to the hospital, it was already too late, not enough circulation, too much blood loss.”
“You must have been terrified,” Brooke whispered.
Tanner bit down on the inside of his cheek. If he could concentrate on that pain, maybe he wouldn’t feel the pain of the memories that always chased him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Brooke asked.
“I was scared,” Tanner said.
“I’m sorry I took off today. I just needed time to think.”
“I know it’s a lot to deal with.”
“I can live with you being an amputee,” Brooke said. “What hurts is that we’ve been dating almost six months, and you didn’t trust me enough to tell me.”
“It’s not like that,” Tanner said.
“Were you ever planning to tell me, or were you waiting until we had sex to let me see it for myself?”
“I don’t know,” Tanner said, darting his eyes away from her. “I guess I didn’t think it through. It just felt so good to be with you and feel normal. You know what Charity did to me. You think anybody else in this town is any different than her? Because they’re not. They all treat me like some kind of circus side show act now.”
Brooke frowned at him. “Now?”
“After it first happened people were cool about it. When I got older, the kids in school started making fun of me,” Tanner said. “They called me peg leg and pirate boy and stuff. Kenny used to get in fights all the time over it.”
Brooke offered him a small smile. “I could see that.”
“Anyway, the older I got the worse it got,” he said. “They stopped saying stuff to my face and started talking behind my back. And forget dating. Girls avoided me like I had some contagious disease or something. Then the one time a girl did go out with me, she puked on me because she was so grossed out by me.”
“I can’t believe I never figured it out,” Brooke said.
“That’s because I didn’t want you to.”
“Can I see it?”
“What?”
“Can I see your prosthetic leg?”
Tanner couldn’t say no. The time had come to be honest with her and let her all the way in like he’d promised all those months ago. Taking a deep breath, he pulled his sweat pants past his knees and revealed his prosthetic leg to her. A long moment of silence passed between them as Brooke studied his legs and Tanner studied her and tried to gauge her reaction.
“Say something, baby doll,” he pleaded when she still hadn’t spoken.
“Does it hurt?” Brooke said.
“Not anymore.” Tanner shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
“It almost looks real at first glance.”
“I guess that’s why I picked this one.”
“There are different types?”
“Yes, and the more real they look, the more they cost.”
“Is it hard to use and stuff?”
“It was at first, but I had years of physical therapy just so I could learn to use it. I didn’t want to have to use a walker or a wheelchair,” he explained. “And I’ve had this one for a few years.”
Brooke furrowed her brow. “You mean you have to keep getting new ones?”
“They don’t last forever,” Tanner said. “They get old and break and stuff, and every time I hit a growth spurt I have to get a bigger size.”
“Can I touch it?” she asked.
“Okay.” Tanner held his breath as Brooke explored his prosthetic leg.
“What are you thinking about?”
“I’m so scared my heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of my chest.”
“Why are you scared?”
“I guess I’m waiting for you to barf,” he tried to joke.
“I won’t do that,” she promised.
“Do you think you’ll feel that way when I take it off?” Tanner asked.
Her face fell. “You won’t take it off now?”
“I can’t, Brooke,” Tanner said. “Not yet okay.”
“Okay, Tanner,” Brooke agreed in the same easy way she always did.
Tanner exhaled and moved to take her in his arms. “I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you too,” she whispered back, bringing her lips down on his.
As he kissed her, Tanner held her tight in his arms, feeling grateful she still loved him. That went better than he expected, and Tanner realized he’d been stupid for not trusting her all along.