Chapter 2

By the end of the week, something had changed between Nicole and Simon, although neither of them could have said exactly when it had happened. At first, his attention had seemed like a simple consequence of what had happened to her. He waited outside lecture halls because he knew the stairs were difficult, carried her books because she needed both crutches, opened doors without making a ceremony of it, and slowed his long, athletic stride to match the careful rhythm she had been forced to adopt. Sometimes, when they crossed the campus together, Nicole would catch him glancing down at the complicated apparatus supporting her left leg, checking that everything was still in place, and she would see the small crease of concentration between his eyebrows whenever her movement became awkward. But gradually his concern had stopped feeling like something he was doing merely because she needed help. He was simply looking for her. He would sit beside her in the library even when there were empty tables, save her a place at lunch, and appear outside her classrooms at the end of lectures as though waiting for her had quietly become part of his routine. He had begun remembering small things she had told him weeks ago, things she herself had forgotten mentioning. Nicole had wanted him to notice her, but she had never imagined that she would become the person he worried about when she wasn’t there.

One rainy afternoon, they were sitting together in the library while water crawled slowly down the tall windows and blurred the buildings beyond them. The grey light made the room feel unusually intimate, almost separated from the rest of the university. Nicole had her books spread across the table, although she had spent more time watching Simon than reading the same paragraph in front of her. Her crutches rested within easy reach of her chair, and her left leg remained in the strange leather support she had constructed. The apparatus looked even more complicated from the side, with its narrow straps running around her leg and hip and then upward over her shoulder, keeping her small foot protected. Simon had been looking at it for several minutes. Eventually Nicole closed her book and gave him a suspicious glance. “You keep staring at it.” Simon immediately looked away, slightly embarrassed, but after a moment he admitted that he still could not understand how the thing worked. He leaned closer, examining the straps with the innocent curiosity of someone trying to understand a piece of equipment rather than a part of another person’s body. Nicole explained that the support kept her foot from touching the ground, that the straps around her leg kept it stable, and that the strap passing over her shoulder helped maintain the suspension. Simon frowned when she explained that without it, the foot would simply drop. He looked at the apparatus again and then at her face, and the concern that appeared in his expression was so genuine that she wished, for a moment, that she had not invented any of it.

“That must be terrible,” he said quietly. Nicole gave the small shrug she had practiced so many times that it had almost become natural. “You get used to things.” Simon did not seem convinced. His eyes drifted downward again, settling on the small portion of her foot that remained visible beneath the leather support. After a moment he said, almost thoughtfully, “Your foot is really small.” Nicole immediately looked at him, half expecting a joke, but there was nothing mocking in his expression. When she asked whether he was making fun of her, he shook his head and explained that the contrast had simply caught his attention. The apparatus was complicated and heavy-looking, while her exposed foot seemed unusually small and delicate inside it. He admitted that he had never realized how small it was. Nicole tried to turn the observation into a joke, but Simon’s next words stopped her. “I always noticed you,” he said, and when she looked at him with startled disbelief, he added that he simply had not realized how much he was noticing. The sentence stayed with her long after they returned to their books. She had spent months believing that Simon barely saw her at all. Now she was beginning to wonder whether she had misunderstood the distance between them from the beginning.

Later that afternoon, after another lecture, Nicole’s leg had begun to feel tense. She rubbed the accessible part of her thigh while waiting in the corridor, trying to disguise the movement by pretending to adjust one of the straps. Simon noticed anyway. He always noticed now. He asked whether it hurt, and when she told him it was only tense, he considered her for a moment before asking whether a massage would help. He explained that his trainer had them work the muscles after practice when they became tight and immediately added that he meant the muscles and nothing more, as though he suddenly realized how the offer might sound. Nicole smiled and told him she knew what he meant. They found an empty classroom nearby, where the afternoon light fell in pale rectangles across the floor. Simon was extraordinarily careful. He worked around the straps and the leather support, asking where the tension was and whether the pressure was comfortable, and whenever she indicated that something felt too strong, he immediately changed his touch. There was something deeply reassuring about his concentration. He did not behave as though she were fragile or helpless, but neither did he treat her condition casually. For a while they remained almost completely silent, and then Simon admitted that he hated seeing her like this. When Nicole asked what he meant, he clarified that he hated the situation, not the massage. He kept thinking about her waking every morning and having to put all of this on simply to walk to class, then carrying her books, crossing crowded hallways, negotiating stairs and doors, doing all the ordinary things everyone else did while one leg no longer worked normally. He knew the doctors did not know whether the condition would be permanent, and he knew there might be improvement, but that knowledge did not stop him from worrying. When Nicole asked why he worried so much if there was still hope, he looked at her with an expression so open that she almost looked away. “Because I care about you,” he said. The simplicity of the answer frightened her more than anger ever could. She had expected attention. She had expected curiosity. She had even expected sympathy. She had not expected this.