My New Caregiver
1707 Words
I wake up to sterile light, thin sheets, and the chemical-sweet smell of hospital disinfectant. The blinds are open again, which feels a little rude, honestly, because I look like death microwaved and nobody asked if I wanted sunlight piercing my retinas first thing in the morning.
Leo isn’t here.
Which is good.
Right?
I should be thrilled. Ecstatic. Throwing confetti made of restraining orders.
Except I’m staring at the doorway like a dog waiting for its owner to return from war. Every time footsteps echo past, my chest tightens—hope, dread, annoyance, all mashed into one ugly, needy feeling I’d like to punch in the face.
Doctors filter in and out, poking, prodding, and rehashing medical history that reads like a Greek tragedy I never auditioned for. They smile with professional reassurance, but their eyes keep doing this subtle little pity thing I want to set on fire. Nobody says the word “trauma” out loud, but they all look like they’re trying not to.
Hours stretch. Nurses chat. Monitors beep.
And I wait.
For a face that doesn’t show up.
By the time evening settles, I’m exhausted from wanting something I refuse to admit I want. I pull the blanket over my head, pretend to sleep, and hate everything a little bit.
-----
Two weeks later, I’m discharged with a doctor’s note that might as well read:
“Do not lift anything over five pounds. Do not strain yourself. Do not attempt to be a functional adult. Good luck, sucker.”
I hobble into the apartment building like an elderly raccoon who lost a fight with a car. The hallway is silent—eerily so. Usually, someone is yelling, or someone is cooking, or someone’s baby is screaming about the injustice of existence. Now, nothing.
My key fumbles in the lock because, apparently, abdominal trauma also screws with your ability to coordinate basic motor function.
Inside, my apartment smells stale, like someone paused life for a week and forgot to hit play again.
I hit the blinking light on my landline because, apparently, this is 1997 and I live inside a sitcom. Voicemails blast through the apartment like desperate little ghosts:
First three: my company.
They beg me not to sue. They offer settlement money. Then medical expenses. Then, hilarious emotional-trauma support because the biggest source of emotional trauma right now is literally my job.
Next two: Shaundra. Crying, apologizing, sniffling like she’s auditioning for a Lifetime movie called “Oops I Accidentally f****d Your Personal Crisis.”
Last one: landlord.
Trying to sound compassionate, but mostly wanting to make sure she still gets her money.
I stand in the middle of my dusty living room and feel this slow, heavy awareness settle in:
I am alone.
Not metaphorically. Not “boo-hoo, I’m single.”
Literally.
No friends. No coworkers. Not even a goldfish to whisper my problems to.
So I do the healthiest thing possible:
I collapse on the mattress in my living room and turn on the TV until my brain dissolves.
-----
After a few days of eating cereal straight from the box and staring blankly at cartoon reruns, I decided I should maybe attempt to rejoin the land of the living.
Step one:
Move my body.
I can walk around the apartment now, if I move like a ninety-year-old recovering from a bear attack. But stairs? Boxes? Basically, anything heavier than a loaf of bread? Absolutely not.
Which is unfortunate, because my apartment looks like I lost a bet with a tornado.
I start small.
Opening boxes.
Folding clothes.
Trying to remember that I used to be the kind of woman who thrived on organization. The kind of sick freak who takes joy in labeled containers and color-coordinated closet space.
Now, the act of lifting a half-empty shoebox makes my incision scream like an angry banshee. My stomach sends sharp, throbbing reminders that being stabbed from the inside isn’t something you bounce back from with a bottle of ibuprofen and positive affirmations.
Every time I bend, pull, reach, or breathe too aggressively, the pain flares up and shocks through my core. I’m stuck wearing airy, shapeless cotton dresses that make me look like an escaped cult member.
Independence has always been my religion.
Now I can’t even open a heavy drawer without wincing.
After twenty minutes of trying to sort books, frustration swallows me whole. I throw down a paperback with enough dramatic flair to make Shakespeare weep, and decide to take a walk.
Which sounds easier than it is.
Getting upright requires bracing myself against furniture, gasping through clenched teeth, and praying my abdominal muscles don’t burst open like a horrifying jack-in-the-box.
I grab the cane propped by the door like I’m suddenly starring in my own tragic Victorian drama.
I open the door carefully.
The hallway is dead silent again.
I feel watched, which is stupid, because nobody’s here.
“Okay,” I mutter, stepping out. “Physical therapy, here we go. Time to be a brave little toaster and—”
The world tilts.
Memory crashes over me so hard my lungs forget how to exist. His voice. His breath. His hands dragging. His weight crushing. The sickening panic flooding every nerve.
My vision tunnels.
The last thing I feel is the cold floor and the humiliating awareness that I’m collapsing in the hallway like a tragic Victorian ghost who didn’t pace herself.
Then nothing.
-----
I come to slowly, with the hazy realization that I am smelling bacon.
Bacon.
Which would be great, except I am 1) not dead, 2) not in heaven, and 3) definitely not capable of cooking bacon in my current useless state.
I run a mental systems check:
Still my bed.
Still my lumpy pillows.
But the sheets are tucked in tight, and the blanket over me is way too soft, like high-end fluff someone with their life together would own.
I groan and force my eyes open.
And there he is.
Leo.
In my kitchen.
Humming.
Cooking.
In my kitchen.
At four in the afternoon, which is definitely breakfast time if you’re an unhinged cryptid, I guess.
He turns, sees my eyes open, and beams like a golden retriever who just found his favorite ball.
“Oh, good! You’re awake!”
His cheerfulness lands in the room like confetti explosives—bright, invasive, too loud for my post-trauma gremlin cave.
“What,” I rasp, “are you doing here?”
“Making you food.” He gestures with a spatula like a conductor demanding applause. “All you had was cereal and ramen, and humans require protein to survive.”
I blink.
He bought food.
He went shopping.
For me.
My brain short-circuits.
“You bought me food?”
I try to sit up so I can inspect the fridge for evidence, but my stomach immediately protests by lighting itself on fire.
Leo abandons the stove and rushes over with supernatural speed, gently pushing me back down.
“I need you to stay still,” he says. And it’s not a suggestion. It’s a command.
I should bite his hand.
Or flip him off.
Or tell him to mind his own business.
Instead, I cross my arms and glare like a feral toddler.
“You can’t just waltz into my apartment,” I mutter.
He laughs.
Actually laughs, like I just told the funniest joke in the universe. The sound is warm and rich and stupidly attractive in a way that should be illegal.
“You were passed out outside your door,” he says. “Did you want me to leave you there?”
I open my mouth to argue.
Nothing comes out.
Because, no.
Even I can’t commit to that level of stubborn self-destruction.
“You don’t have to feel bad for me,” I snap, batting away his hand. His touch leaves a trail of electricity down my spine I refuse to acknowledge.
“I don’t pity you,” he starts.
Before he can finish, we both smell burning.
Leo’s face cycles through confusion, horror, resignation, and panic in record time before he sprints back to the stove.
If this i***t burns down my apartment, I swear I’ll sue his ass.
He manages to save most of the food, but the bacon looks like charcoal, and the pancakes are a shade of brown I would describe as “trauma toast.”
I don’t intend to laugh.
It just happens.
Loud. Ugly. Uncontrolled.
His head whips toward me so fast I hear a crack, which makes me laugh harder, because I’m witnessing perfection unravel in real time.
For the record, my laugh is terrible.
It ranges from squeaky dolphin noises to guttural goose honks.
In comedy clubs, comedians would pause their set just to mock me. I’ve accepted this fate.
And then he laughs back.
Oh.
Oh my god.
Leo’s laugh is atrocious.
A wild, unrefined, borderline feral howl.
Messy. Loud. Human.
Finally—FINALLY—something imperfect about him.
I wipe tears from my eyes, still wheezing.
“You look like a man having an existential crisis over burnt bacon.”
He grins. “I am a man having an existential crisis over burnt bacon.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“And yet,” he gestures to the plate, “I cook for you.”
I snort.
“Burn things for me, you mean.”
He exaggerates a bow.
“May your highness accept my humble, crispy sacrifices?”
The warmth in my chest creeps up before I can stop it.
A laugh.
A real one.
Not manic, not forced.
I hate that he can pull joy out of me so easily.
I hate that I want him here.
I hate that isolation feels less suffocating with him around.
He sets a plate in front of me, careful, controlled, annoyingly gentle.
“You’re impossible,” I murmur.
He winks.
“You think this is impossible? Just wait until dinner.”
I blink at him.
“Dinner?”
He shrugs.
“What, did you think I was only making breakfast?”
And despite everything—the trauma, the pain, the mess of my life—I feel my lips curve into a reluctant, helpless smile.
Damn him.
- Writer
