Post by dsb on Jul 15, 2018 23:50:17 GMT
CAMILLE COSWORTH
Camille Cosworth sat in her single-bed room at the Mayo Sports Clinic, resting and recovering after her latest round of grueling physical therapy. She had made the journey from Orlando to Jacksonville twice a week for the past six months to receive treatment, often accompanied by girlfriend Yoona Park, though for this particular trip the reigning EurAsian champion had stayed home in order to prepare for an upcoming title defense.
Camille dug her fingernails into the skin just above her right knee, then she let out a heavy sigh when she felt nothing.
Physical therapy, neuromuscular electrical stimulation, and other miracles of modern medicine had done much to slow the rate of atrophy, but progress towards actually regaining the use of her right leg had been insignificant. The impinged nerves in her lower back rendered the limb immobile and insensate, and according to the half dozen medical experts and specialists that had consulted on her case, it would remain that way until she underwent surgery to repair the damage to her spine.
Cosworth dug her fingernails in a little deeper, carving angry red tracks into her alabaster skin and still feeling nothing.
Surgery...
She had seriously considered it at first, before the doctors casually warned her of the myriad of potential side effects and complications, all couched in medical jargon like septicaemia or malignant hypertension or pulmonary embolism or atelectasis. The indecipherable lingo had been simultaneously disorienting and intimidating, and the more Camille read into it, the more adamant she grew in her refusal to go under the knife. For weeks now she had persistently rebuffed Dr. Samuel Shem’s standing offer to refer her to a medical school classmate who was apparently now one of the leading orthopedic and spinal surgeons in the world.
Gnashing her teeth together, she dug her fingernails even deeper and in spite of the blood now oozing from the furrows in her flesh, she still felt nothing.
“C-C-Cammy… err… I mean… Cam-Camille...”
As soon as she heard Roy Bausch’s voice coming from the doorway, Cosworth immediately threw a blanket over her legs.
“Dr. Bausch…” she said as nonchalantly as possible, hoping the man had not seen the self-inflicted cuts on her leg.
No such luck of course, though the junior intern merely retrieved a roll of sterile gauze and a bottle of antiseptic from the nearby cabinet without another word. Camille didn’t protest further when Roy pulled away the blanket and began dressing her wounds, and once the bleeding was staunched, doctor and patient silently stared at each other for the better part of a minute. Bausch softly sighed as he gazed into those hazel eyes, hoping against all hope, wondering if perhaps --
“Umm… did you need something from me, Dr. Bausch?”
“Gah! Wha -- ?!” Roy sputtered as he was brought out of his daydream. “I… errr… Oh! Right! You… ahh… you had -- have -- a visitor. A-a-another patient who’s a fan… is it okay if he chats with you for a bit. He’s, like, super stoked…”
Camille scratched the back of her head and shrugged, “Uhhh sure, I guess I could --”
“OH MY GOD, IT’S YOU! IT’S YOU! IT’S REALLY YOOOUUUU!” a delighted scream came from the doorway, and a moment later an African American boy of age five or six came rushing into the room.
“Hi there!” Cosworth cheerfully said, slapping her most kid-friendly grin on her face. “What’s your n -- OOOPH!”
Not bothering to make an introduction, the boy dove onto Camille’s bed and into her arms, knocking her backwards into a stack of pillows. He unleashed another wordless howl of joy -- filled with the kind of unfettered exuberance exclusive to the innocence of childhood -- before his mother came him, plucked him off the bed, and set him on the floor.
“Joel James Tolliver! Where are your manners?!” the woman chided her son before she gave Cosworth a warm and slightly apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, ma’am. My name’s Monica, and my little Joey gets reeeaaal excited sometimes and forgets to be a proper gentleman.”
She gave her son a gentle nudge and coughed slightly, prompting the boy to launch into his pre-rehearsed greeting.
“HI MY NAME IS JOEL AND MY FRIENDS CALL ME JOEY AND I’M SIX AND A HALF YEARS OLD AND I LIKE CHRISTMAS AND MAC ‘N CHEESE AND LEGOS AND WRESTLING AND IT’S A PLEASURE TO MEET YOU ‘CAUSE YOU’RE SO COOOOOOOOOLLLLLLL!” Joey shouted in one breath as he bounced up and down with barely contained excitement.
“Err… hiiiiiiii... it’s a pleasure to meet you too, ‘cause…” Camille trailed off as she scrunched her face and wrinkled her nose. “...’cause you’re way too young to be watching FAWN…”
“Oh, honey, you don’t need to worry about that,” Monica piped in. “His dad and I only let him watch FAWN Junior.”
When Cosworth looked even more confused, she quickly explained, “It’s a Saturday morning recap show with all the… objectionable... material edited out.”
“It’s a very short program,” Bausch added with a sagely, knowing nod. “We play it in the pediatrics lounge!”
“Riiiiiiiiiiiiight…” Camille muttered to herself, giving her head a shake and deciding not to question FAWN CEO Bethany Christian’s cockamamie schemes to increase ratings and market share. “...anyway, it’s a pleasure to meet you too, Joey. My friends call me Cam, and I’m twenty-four years old, and I also like --”
“TWENTY-FOUR?!” Joey blurted out. “THAT. IS. OOOOOOLLLLLLDDDDD!”
“Joey!” the boy’s mother gasped, clearly mortified.
“DO YOU REMEMBER DINOSAUR TIMES? DO YOU HAVE FAKE HAIR AND FAKE TEETH LIKE GRANDMA? DO YOU GET UP TO PEE THREE TIMES EACH NIGHT LIKE GRANDPA? DO YOU -- MMMPPHHH!”
“That is QUITE enough, young man!” Monica huffed as she clamped a hand over her son’s mouth. “Didn’t mean no offense, ma’am. You know how it is… kids say the darndest things…! Ah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaa…”
Rather than being offended, Camille winked and cracked a reassuring smile, then she leaned in close to her starstruck fan and said, “Actually, I DO remember dinosaur times…”
The boy’s eyes went as wide as saucers as he pulled his mother’s hand away from his face, then Cosworth added in a low, conspiratorial whisper, “...in fact… I’ve wrestled a dinosaur!”
“Whooooooaaaaa… no way…!” Joey gasped, simultaneously astonished and impressed.
“Uhhhhhhhh… yes way!”
“No way!”
“Yes way!”
“NO WAY!”
“YES WAY!”
“NO WAY TIMES TEN!”
“YES WAY TIMES A MILLION!”
“NO WAY TIMES A BAJILLION-ZILLION-FILLION!”
“YES WAY TIMES A BAJILLION-ZILLION-FILLION PLUS ONE!”
Joey took a moment to count on his hands. Then he counted again, and again, before ultimately coming to the conclusion that a bajillion-zillion-fillion plus one exceeded his number of fingers, and that seemed to convince him that Camille’s claims were credible. Even so, he still had questions.
“What kinda dinosaur didja wrestle?”
“It was the scariest dinosaur of all...” Camille replied as she tried to keep a straight face. “...it was a… SYDNEY-SAURUS!”
“A SYDNEY-SAURUS!” Joey exclaimed to his mother while tugging on her arm. “DIDJA HEAR THAT, MOM?! A SYDNEY-SAURUS! A SYDNEY-SAURUS! A SYD --”
The boy suddenly realized that he’d never heard of that particular dinosaur.
“Waaaaaaiiiiiit a minute…” he said skeptically, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “What’s a Sydney-saurus?”
“Well, you see, Joey, in dinosaur-talk, Sydney means big butt, so Sydney-saurus is just a fancy way of saying big butt dinosaur,” Cosworth explained, though this time she couldn’t quite suppress all her giggles. “And if you got her mad, and I mean reeeeaaallly mad, then she would sit on you with her big, STINKY BUTT!”
“Eeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!” Joey shrieked as his features crinkled with disgust. “YOU MUST BE THE BESTEST, BRAVEST WRESTLER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD TO WRESTLE A SYDNEY-SAURUS! SEE, MOM?! I TOLDJA I TOLDJA I TOLDJA SHE WAS COOL! WAY COOLER THAN DR. PATEL!”
Monica laughed as she lovingly stroked the back of her son’s head, then she said to Camille, “Joey used to want to be a pediatric oncologist just like Dr. Patel --”
“A pediatric oncologist…?” Cosworth murmured, rather confused. “Joey, what do you think they do --”
“THEY GIVE ME CAAAAANNNNDDDDYYYYY!” Joey screamed at the top of his lungs before shoving his hands into the pockets of his baggy sweatpants and throwing two fistfuls of Jolly Ranchers into the air like confetti.
“-- but ever since FAWN Junior started airing last year he’s wanted to be a wrestler. Just like you,” Monica finished, blithely ignoring her son making it rain hard candy.
“YEAH! I WANNA BE JUST LIKE YOU! WE COULD EVEN TAKE DOWN A SYDNEY-SAURUS TOGETHER! COULD WE COULD WE COULD WE COULD WE PLEEEEEAAAAASE?!”
Camille’s smile faltered, not enough for the boy to notice, but enough so that Roy and Monica could both sense a shift in the mood. She sucked in a deep breath through her teeth, then she tried to break the bad news as gently as she could.
“Umm… look, Joey… that sounds really great, but I -- I think my wrestling days are over…” Cosworth forced the words out with a great effort.
“You… you don’t wanna be a wrestler anymore...?” Joey asked, suddenly sounding glum and tentative for the first time.
“No, Joey… no, no, no… there’s nothing I want more than to wrestle again… it’s just that… well… sometimes things happen and we can’t do what we want or be what we want. And that’s hard… so, so hard… but w -- we gotta…”
At a loss for words, Camille flopped back onto her stack of pillows and ran a hand over her face.
“...I dunno…” she sighed, more to herself than to anyone else, and then the room fell quiet.
Finally, after a long period of silence from the mother, the doctor, and the wrestler, it was the six year old dreamer who spoke.
“Do you wanna see my cartwheel?”
Camille didn’t say a word, though she did open her eyes, and that was good enough for the aspiring wrestler. He shrugged out of his mother’s grasps, and before anyone could tell him not to, he planted his hands on the linoleum floor and turned sideways and head over heels in a picture perfect cartwheel.
“TA-DA!” he shouted, his effervescent jubilation restored. “DO YOU WANNA SEE MY FRONT FLIP?”
“Um, sure,” Cosworth chuckled, although both Roy and Monica were insisting that the boy simmer down and sit still.
Joey either didn’t hear them or didn’t care, bending forward at the waist to palm the floor and then pushing off into a Front Handspring with an exuberant “WHEEEEEEEE!” The boy’s enthusiasm was apparently infectious, or at least it was to Camille as she gave the little showboat a hearty round of applause and laughter.
The child’s doctor and mother were much less amused, however.
“Errr… Joey… you should calm down before… you… ahh…”
“Joel James Tolliver, you stop that RIGHT NOW or --”
“DO YOU WANNA SEE MY BACKFLIP?”
This time he didn’t wait for any response before immediately launching into a Back Handspring. Unfortunately, Joey couldn’t manage to get enough rotation, and instead of landing on his feet, he landed on his knees with a metallic clatter and a sharp “YOWCH!”
It took Camille a beat to process what had happened, at first offering a kindly, sympathetic smile as she watched her littlest fan rub his right knee and hiss in pain while the other two adults in the room rushed over. Then she noticed that Joey’s left leg was seemingly snapped at the knee, his shin laying at a grotesque angle perpendicular to his thigh.
“OH MY GOD, YOUR LEG…!” Cosworth shrieked at the top of her lungs as she sat bolt upright, the rest of her words reduced to panicked blubbering.
Curiously enough, the boy seemed more embarrassed than hurt, and it was only when Roy rolled up the child’s left pant leg and revealed a shiny metal rod running from shoe to mid-thigh that the reality of the situation began to dawn on Camille.
“...y-your… your leg… it’s…” she stuttered, “...it’s gone?”
As Bausch worked to reset the prosthetic leg, Monica breathed a sigh of relief that her baby boy wasn’t seriously injured, then she offered an explanation to Cosworth.
“A couple years ago, they found something in his bones. Ewing’s something-or-other, they called it. I don’t know what that is, I just know it was bad. We did everything we could to stop it, but we couldn’t. Started out in his shin and it just kept spreadin’ -- to his knee and then his leg, and then there was nothin’ left to do ‘cept… well… you see…”
Roy continued to explain as he fussed with the harness, “Once Joey’s all grown up, we can get him a more permanent device. ‘Til then though, we gotta swap these out every three months when he outgrows them, so we just hold them in place with straps and clamps.”
With Bausch having remounted the prosthesis to what remained of his thigh, Joey staggered upright and limped over to Camille’s bed side. He picked up one of the Jolly Ranchers he had tossed out earlier, then held it out to her.
“You look sad. Have a candy. I feel better when I have a candy.”
A took Cosworth a good bit of time to get control of the thoughts and emotions swirling about in her head. She took the proffered Watermelon Jolly Rancher, peeled off the wrapper, and popped it into her mouth. Miraculously, it did make her feel better.
Finally, she squeaked out, “Did it hurt when they… you know… with your leg…?”
The boy slowly shook his head side to side, looking deep into her eyes the whole time.
“Was it scary?” Camille asked again, and this time Joey nodded his head up and down.
“It was, but Mom said that being brave means doing the right thing even when you’re afraid.”
Cosworth smiled warmly, then she leaned forward to lightly kiss her fan on the top of his head and added, “...especially when you’re afraid.”
She turned towards Roy and handed the intern her phone.
“Dr. Bausch, can you take a picture of me and Joey? When he’s a big and famous wrestler, I wanna say that I was his first fangirl.”
“OH BOY! DO YOU MEAN IT?! DO YOU DO YOU DO YOU?!” Joey shouted, jumping up and down with joy as Bausch snapped off a series of photos from every angle. “DO YOU REALLY THINK I’M GONNA BE A GOOD WRESTLER?!”
“No, Joey… I think you’re gonna be the best.”
“YAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!” he screamed at the top of his lungs as he skipped around the room, though this time his mother scooped him up into her arms before he could shake free of his prosthetic harness again.
“Alright, baby, simmer down now. Let’s go with the nice doctor to getcha fit with your new leg,” she said to her son, then she turned towards Camille. “It was a pleasure, ma’am.”
“Pleasure was all mine, and thank you,” Cosworth replied with a smile and a nod as she took her phone back from Bausch and watched her trio of visitors leave out the door.
Laying back on her pillows and gazing up at the ceiling, she let her thoughts drift for what seemed like hours. Finally, once the Jolly Rancher in her mouth had dissolved into nothing more than a tiny sliver, Camille picked up her phone and dialed her girlfriend.
Yoona picked up midway through the first ring.
“‘Sup, babe?” Park greeted over the sound of loud THWACKS in the background as she repeatedly kicked a heavy bag while chatting on the phone. “Whatcha wearin’?”
“Umm… a hospital gown? Listen, Yoona, I --”
“Mmmmmm…sexy… What color are your panties?”
“What?! Listen to me, I’m --”
“Just fucking with you, Cam! I know they're black with frilly lace, ‘cause you're a dirty little slut who --”
“YOONA, I’M READY.”
The other end of the line abruptly went silent, even the sounds of Park working the heavy bag suddenly stopped. After a lengthy hesitation, Yoona spoke again, all flirty mischievousness gone from her tone.
“Stay there, Cam. I'm coming up.”
“Wait, what?! You can't just leave Orlando!” Cosworth protested. “You have a title defense to --”
“Yeah, fuck that. This is more important. I’ll be there in an hour.”
“B-b-but it's a two and a half hour drive from --”
“Only if I follow the speed limit and stop for red lights.”
With that, Yoona hung up, leaving Camille staring at her phone in disbelief. Still -- even with the knowledge that her girlfriend was about to rack up thousands of dollars worth of traffic violations -- she couldn't help but smile. For the first time in a long time, Camille felt as though everything was going to be alright.
Camille Cosworth sat in her single-bed room at the Mayo Sports Clinic, resting and recovering after her latest round of grueling physical therapy. She had made the journey from Orlando to Jacksonville twice a week for the past six months to receive treatment, often accompanied by girlfriend Yoona Park, though for this particular trip the reigning EurAsian champion had stayed home in order to prepare for an upcoming title defense.
Camille dug her fingernails into the skin just above her right knee, then she let out a heavy sigh when she felt nothing.
Physical therapy, neuromuscular electrical stimulation, and other miracles of modern medicine had done much to slow the rate of atrophy, but progress towards actually regaining the use of her right leg had been insignificant. The impinged nerves in her lower back rendered the limb immobile and insensate, and according to the half dozen medical experts and specialists that had consulted on her case, it would remain that way until she underwent surgery to repair the damage to her spine.
Cosworth dug her fingernails in a little deeper, carving angry red tracks into her alabaster skin and still feeling nothing.
Surgery...
She had seriously considered it at first, before the doctors casually warned her of the myriad of potential side effects and complications, all couched in medical jargon like septicaemia or malignant hypertension or pulmonary embolism or atelectasis. The indecipherable lingo had been simultaneously disorienting and intimidating, and the more Camille read into it, the more adamant she grew in her refusal to go under the knife. For weeks now she had persistently rebuffed Dr. Samuel Shem’s standing offer to refer her to a medical school classmate who was apparently now one of the leading orthopedic and spinal surgeons in the world.
Gnashing her teeth together, she dug her fingernails even deeper and in spite of the blood now oozing from the furrows in her flesh, she still felt nothing.
“C-C-Cammy… err… I mean… Cam-Camille...”
As soon as she heard Roy Bausch’s voice coming from the doorway, Cosworth immediately threw a blanket over her legs.
“Dr. Bausch…” she said as nonchalantly as possible, hoping the man had not seen the self-inflicted cuts on her leg.
No such luck of course, though the junior intern merely retrieved a roll of sterile gauze and a bottle of antiseptic from the nearby cabinet without another word. Camille didn’t protest further when Roy pulled away the blanket and began dressing her wounds, and once the bleeding was staunched, doctor and patient silently stared at each other for the better part of a minute. Bausch softly sighed as he gazed into those hazel eyes, hoping against all hope, wondering if perhaps --
“Umm… did you need something from me, Dr. Bausch?”
“Gah! Wha -- ?!” Roy sputtered as he was brought out of his daydream. “I… errr… Oh! Right! You… ahh… you had -- have -- a visitor. A-a-another patient who’s a fan… is it okay if he chats with you for a bit. He’s, like, super stoked…”
Camille scratched the back of her head and shrugged, “Uhhh sure, I guess I could --”
“OH MY GOD, IT’S YOU! IT’S YOU! IT’S REALLY YOOOUUUU!” a delighted scream came from the doorway, and a moment later an African American boy of age five or six came rushing into the room.
“Hi there!” Cosworth cheerfully said, slapping her most kid-friendly grin on her face. “What’s your n -- OOOPH!”
Not bothering to make an introduction, the boy dove onto Camille’s bed and into her arms, knocking her backwards into a stack of pillows. He unleashed another wordless howl of joy -- filled with the kind of unfettered exuberance exclusive to the innocence of childhood -- before his mother came him, plucked him off the bed, and set him on the floor.
“Joel James Tolliver! Where are your manners?!” the woman chided her son before she gave Cosworth a warm and slightly apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, ma’am. My name’s Monica, and my little Joey gets reeeaaal excited sometimes and forgets to be a proper gentleman.”
She gave her son a gentle nudge and coughed slightly, prompting the boy to launch into his pre-rehearsed greeting.
“HI MY NAME IS JOEL AND MY FRIENDS CALL ME JOEY AND I’M SIX AND A HALF YEARS OLD AND I LIKE CHRISTMAS AND MAC ‘N CHEESE AND LEGOS AND WRESTLING AND IT’S A PLEASURE TO MEET YOU ‘CAUSE YOU’RE SO COOOOOOOOOLLLLLLL!” Joey shouted in one breath as he bounced up and down with barely contained excitement.
“Err… hiiiiiiii... it’s a pleasure to meet you too, ‘cause…” Camille trailed off as she scrunched her face and wrinkled her nose. “...’cause you’re way too young to be watching FAWN…”
“Oh, honey, you don’t need to worry about that,” Monica piped in. “His dad and I only let him watch FAWN Junior.”
When Cosworth looked even more confused, she quickly explained, “It’s a Saturday morning recap show with all the… objectionable... material edited out.”
“It’s a very short program,” Bausch added with a sagely, knowing nod. “We play it in the pediatrics lounge!”
“Riiiiiiiiiiiiight…” Camille muttered to herself, giving her head a shake and deciding not to question FAWN CEO Bethany Christian’s cockamamie schemes to increase ratings and market share. “...anyway, it’s a pleasure to meet you too, Joey. My friends call me Cam, and I’m twenty-four years old, and I also like --”
“TWENTY-FOUR?!” Joey blurted out. “THAT. IS. OOOOOOLLLLLLDDDDD!”
“Joey!” the boy’s mother gasped, clearly mortified.
“DO YOU REMEMBER DINOSAUR TIMES? DO YOU HAVE FAKE HAIR AND FAKE TEETH LIKE GRANDMA? DO YOU GET UP TO PEE THREE TIMES EACH NIGHT LIKE GRANDPA? DO YOU -- MMMPPHHH!”
“That is QUITE enough, young man!” Monica huffed as she clamped a hand over her son’s mouth. “Didn’t mean no offense, ma’am. You know how it is… kids say the darndest things…! Ah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaa…”
Rather than being offended, Camille winked and cracked a reassuring smile, then she leaned in close to her starstruck fan and said, “Actually, I DO remember dinosaur times…”
The boy’s eyes went as wide as saucers as he pulled his mother’s hand away from his face, then Cosworth added in a low, conspiratorial whisper, “...in fact… I’ve wrestled a dinosaur!”
“Whooooooaaaaa… no way…!” Joey gasped, simultaneously astonished and impressed.
“Uhhhhhhhh… yes way!”
“No way!”
“Yes way!”
“NO WAY!”
“YES WAY!”
“NO WAY TIMES TEN!”
“YES WAY TIMES A MILLION!”
“NO WAY TIMES A BAJILLION-ZILLION-FILLION!”
“YES WAY TIMES A BAJILLION-ZILLION-FILLION PLUS ONE!”
Joey took a moment to count on his hands. Then he counted again, and again, before ultimately coming to the conclusion that a bajillion-zillion-fillion plus one exceeded his number of fingers, and that seemed to convince him that Camille’s claims were credible. Even so, he still had questions.
“What kinda dinosaur didja wrestle?”
“It was the scariest dinosaur of all...” Camille replied as she tried to keep a straight face. “...it was a… SYDNEY-SAURUS!”
“A SYDNEY-SAURUS!” Joey exclaimed to his mother while tugging on her arm. “DIDJA HEAR THAT, MOM?! A SYDNEY-SAURUS! A SYDNEY-SAURUS! A SYD --”
The boy suddenly realized that he’d never heard of that particular dinosaur.
“Waaaaaaiiiiiit a minute…” he said skeptically, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “What’s a Sydney-saurus?”
“Well, you see, Joey, in dinosaur-talk, Sydney means big butt, so Sydney-saurus is just a fancy way of saying big butt dinosaur,” Cosworth explained, though this time she couldn’t quite suppress all her giggles. “And if you got her mad, and I mean reeeeaaallly mad, then she would sit on you with her big, STINKY BUTT!”
“Eeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!” Joey shrieked as his features crinkled with disgust. “YOU MUST BE THE BESTEST, BRAVEST WRESTLER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD TO WRESTLE A SYDNEY-SAURUS! SEE, MOM?! I TOLDJA I TOLDJA I TOLDJA SHE WAS COOL! WAY COOLER THAN DR. PATEL!”
Monica laughed as she lovingly stroked the back of her son’s head, then she said to Camille, “Joey used to want to be a pediatric oncologist just like Dr. Patel --”
“A pediatric oncologist…?” Cosworth murmured, rather confused. “Joey, what do you think they do --”
“THEY GIVE ME CAAAAANNNNDDDDYYYYY!” Joey screamed at the top of his lungs before shoving his hands into the pockets of his baggy sweatpants and throwing two fistfuls of Jolly Ranchers into the air like confetti.
“-- but ever since FAWN Junior started airing last year he’s wanted to be a wrestler. Just like you,” Monica finished, blithely ignoring her son making it rain hard candy.
“YEAH! I WANNA BE JUST LIKE YOU! WE COULD EVEN TAKE DOWN A SYDNEY-SAURUS TOGETHER! COULD WE COULD WE COULD WE COULD WE PLEEEEEAAAAASE?!”
Camille’s smile faltered, not enough for the boy to notice, but enough so that Roy and Monica could both sense a shift in the mood. She sucked in a deep breath through her teeth, then she tried to break the bad news as gently as she could.
“Umm… look, Joey… that sounds really great, but I -- I think my wrestling days are over…” Cosworth forced the words out with a great effort.
“You… you don’t wanna be a wrestler anymore...?” Joey asked, suddenly sounding glum and tentative for the first time.
“No, Joey… no, no, no… there’s nothing I want more than to wrestle again… it’s just that… well… sometimes things happen and we can’t do what we want or be what we want. And that’s hard… so, so hard… but w -- we gotta…”
At a loss for words, Camille flopped back onto her stack of pillows and ran a hand over her face.
“...I dunno…” she sighed, more to herself than to anyone else, and then the room fell quiet.
Finally, after a long period of silence from the mother, the doctor, and the wrestler, it was the six year old dreamer who spoke.
“Do you wanna see my cartwheel?”
Camille didn’t say a word, though she did open her eyes, and that was good enough for the aspiring wrestler. He shrugged out of his mother’s grasps, and before anyone could tell him not to, he planted his hands on the linoleum floor and turned sideways and head over heels in a picture perfect cartwheel.
“TA-DA!” he shouted, his effervescent jubilation restored. “DO YOU WANNA SEE MY FRONT FLIP?”
“Um, sure,” Cosworth chuckled, although both Roy and Monica were insisting that the boy simmer down and sit still.
Joey either didn’t hear them or didn’t care, bending forward at the waist to palm the floor and then pushing off into a Front Handspring with an exuberant “WHEEEEEEEE!” The boy’s enthusiasm was apparently infectious, or at least it was to Camille as she gave the little showboat a hearty round of applause and laughter.
The child’s doctor and mother were much less amused, however.
“Errr… Joey… you should calm down before… you… ahh…”
“Joel James Tolliver, you stop that RIGHT NOW or --”
“DO YOU WANNA SEE MY BACKFLIP?”
This time he didn’t wait for any response before immediately launching into a Back Handspring. Unfortunately, Joey couldn’t manage to get enough rotation, and instead of landing on his feet, he landed on his knees with a metallic clatter and a sharp “YOWCH!”
It took Camille a beat to process what had happened, at first offering a kindly, sympathetic smile as she watched her littlest fan rub his right knee and hiss in pain while the other two adults in the room rushed over. Then she noticed that Joey’s left leg was seemingly snapped at the knee, his shin laying at a grotesque angle perpendicular to his thigh.
“OH MY GOD, YOUR LEG…!” Cosworth shrieked at the top of her lungs as she sat bolt upright, the rest of her words reduced to panicked blubbering.
Curiously enough, the boy seemed more embarrassed than hurt, and it was only when Roy rolled up the child’s left pant leg and revealed a shiny metal rod running from shoe to mid-thigh that the reality of the situation began to dawn on Camille.
“...y-your… your leg… it’s…” she stuttered, “...it’s gone?”
As Bausch worked to reset the prosthetic leg, Monica breathed a sigh of relief that her baby boy wasn’t seriously injured, then she offered an explanation to Cosworth.
“A couple years ago, they found something in his bones. Ewing’s something-or-other, they called it. I don’t know what that is, I just know it was bad. We did everything we could to stop it, but we couldn’t. Started out in his shin and it just kept spreadin’ -- to his knee and then his leg, and then there was nothin’ left to do ‘cept… well… you see…”
Roy continued to explain as he fussed with the harness, “Once Joey’s all grown up, we can get him a more permanent device. ‘Til then though, we gotta swap these out every three months when he outgrows them, so we just hold them in place with straps and clamps.”
With Bausch having remounted the prosthesis to what remained of his thigh, Joey staggered upright and limped over to Camille’s bed side. He picked up one of the Jolly Ranchers he had tossed out earlier, then held it out to her.
“You look sad. Have a candy. I feel better when I have a candy.”
A took Cosworth a good bit of time to get control of the thoughts and emotions swirling about in her head. She took the proffered Watermelon Jolly Rancher, peeled off the wrapper, and popped it into her mouth. Miraculously, it did make her feel better.
Finally, she squeaked out, “Did it hurt when they… you know… with your leg…?”
The boy slowly shook his head side to side, looking deep into her eyes the whole time.
“Was it scary?” Camille asked again, and this time Joey nodded his head up and down.
“It was, but Mom said that being brave means doing the right thing even when you’re afraid.”
Cosworth smiled warmly, then she leaned forward to lightly kiss her fan on the top of his head and added, “...especially when you’re afraid.”
She turned towards Roy and handed the intern her phone.
“Dr. Bausch, can you take a picture of me and Joey? When he’s a big and famous wrestler, I wanna say that I was his first fangirl.”
“OH BOY! DO YOU MEAN IT?! DO YOU DO YOU DO YOU?!” Joey shouted, jumping up and down with joy as Bausch snapped off a series of photos from every angle. “DO YOU REALLY THINK I’M GONNA BE A GOOD WRESTLER?!”
“No, Joey… I think you’re gonna be the best.”
“YAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!” he screamed at the top of his lungs as he skipped around the room, though this time his mother scooped him up into her arms before he could shake free of his prosthetic harness again.
“Alright, baby, simmer down now. Let’s go with the nice doctor to getcha fit with your new leg,” she said to her son, then she turned towards Camille. “It was a pleasure, ma’am.”
“Pleasure was all mine, and thank you,” Cosworth replied with a smile and a nod as she took her phone back from Bausch and watched her trio of visitors leave out the door.
Laying back on her pillows and gazing up at the ceiling, she let her thoughts drift for what seemed like hours. Finally, once the Jolly Rancher in her mouth had dissolved into nothing more than a tiny sliver, Camille picked up her phone and dialed her girlfriend.
Yoona picked up midway through the first ring.
“‘Sup, babe?” Park greeted over the sound of loud THWACKS in the background as she repeatedly kicked a heavy bag while chatting on the phone. “Whatcha wearin’?”
“Umm… a hospital gown? Listen, Yoona, I --”
“Mmmmmm…sexy… What color are your panties?”
“What?! Listen to me, I’m --”
“Just fucking with you, Cam! I know they're black with frilly lace, ‘cause you're a dirty little slut who --”
“YOONA, I’M READY.”
The other end of the line abruptly went silent, even the sounds of Park working the heavy bag suddenly stopped. After a lengthy hesitation, Yoona spoke again, all flirty mischievousness gone from her tone.
“Stay there, Cam. I'm coming up.”
“Wait, what?! You can't just leave Orlando!” Cosworth protested. “You have a title defense to --”
“Yeah, fuck that. This is more important. I’ll be there in an hour.”
“B-b-but it's a two and a half hour drive from --”
“Only if I follow the speed limit and stop for red lights.”
With that, Yoona hung up, leaving Camille staring at her phone in disbelief. Still -- even with the knowledge that her girlfriend was about to rack up thousands of dollars worth of traffic violations -- she couldn't help but smile. For the first time in a long time, Camille felt as though everything was going to be alright.