Pain Plays Hooky

Pain Plays Hooky

Pain twines my fingers, squeezes, as we wait in this room freckled with anxious people. Finally, the forms, and I return to Kevin still collapsed in the wheelchair.

Gripping the insurance ID card, I trip up remembering his social— his eyes squeezed shut, I hate to bother him. I start thinking of the overturned semi on I-65

blocking my path to our treasured date. Two hours I tried his cell, only to find him at home perched in underwear on the top of the staircase, unmoving. A stillness my body knows.

His broken-back guru, I forage for stale pain pills, Ibuprofen, ice packs—anything to stop his hurt. I can’t believe I can’t remember his soc. Probably its my favorite number.

The action film is discarded for the ER. I curse, and Pain helps me grab a T-shirt, a pair of shorts, slip-on shoes, our car keys. Pain had promised to take the day off, yet we pull clothes on his tense body as his spine shoots

fireworks through tender flesh. I duck under his arm and slowly we pull him up. We inch down stairs we never imagined to be so high. As Pain natters apologies in my ear, he tells me over and over he had no idea

how much this sucks. Now, he rattles off his soc as I try to stay inside the boxes. His jaw clenches. Practiced, yet I still fluster when I hand over the clipboard, ask them when? Soon, they tell me, then I sit and take his hand.