Unlucky Laura - Chapter 7

Laura had adjusted fairly quickly to life with her casts. After all, she had long been used to living with one cast; living with three wasn't all that much harder. She still had the help of Terry getting ready in the morning, but Terry didn't seem as cheerful and eager to help as she always had previously. And she was, for the first time since Laura had met her, pretty quiet most of the time. As annoying as Terry's talkativeness may have been sometimes, Laura far preferred it to this new sullen silence. And during the evenings, Terry often wasn't even in the room at all, not arriving until after Laura had gone to bed.

As Laura and Terry slowly drifted apart, Laura became closer to Craig. They would have lunch together during the week, when their schedules would allow it, and hang out together on the weekends. There hadn't been anything romantic between them; not yet, anyway. Laura thought she could sense a bit of a spark sometimes, while they were talking, but so far Laura had been too shy and nervous to act on it, and if Craig felt the same way, he hid it well. Probably for the same reason, Laura thought.

One Saturday, about two weeks after Laura had met Craig, and almost a month after her falls in the bathroom, the two of them went on a walk across campus, enjoying the fresh October air. Actually, Craig walked; Laura rolled, in her trusty electric wheelchair. They talked quietly about this and that as they made their way to the southern end of the campus. Once there, after a short climb up a shallow hill, they found themselves on the hillside, over looking the scenic campus. There were only a couple of buildings on this end of the campus, for the music and art departments, so the setting felt nicely secluded. After Laura parked her wheelchair, Craig picked her up and carried her onto the lawn at the top of the hill, being careful not to bump her casted legs or arm. Her injuries were well on their way to being healed now, though, and rarely caused her any pain. They settled on the lawn and ate the picnic lunch they had brought.

After lunch, they were lying on the grass, gazing up at the clouds quietly. There was a slight breeze in the air, but it was not cold; quite pleasant, actually. Laura finally broke the silence.

"Craig?"

"Hmmm?"

"Wanna do me a favor?"

"Yeah?"

She held up her casted left foot. "There's an itch right under my toes. Would you scratch it for me?" It actually didn't itch very much today, certainly not as much as it did sometimes, but Laura missed the toe massages she had received regularly when Terry was still speaking to her. Besides, nothing that got Craig's hands on her could be a bad thing.

"Sure." Craig gently eased the purple sock off of Laura's casted foot, and started to gently scratch the small bit of the sole of her foot not covered by cast, just underneath the toes.

"Mmmmmmm..." Laura hummed happily as she closed her eyes. She wriggled her toes happily, and felt them curl around Craig's fingers. "That feels great."

Craig moved his hand so that he was scratching her toes, and was soon massaging each toe individually. Gently gripping each toe between his thumb and index finger, he stroked it along the sides as he gently twisted it slightly to the left and right. He massaged her toes for nearly twenty minutes before moving to her right foot and repeating the process for another fifteen or twenty minutes. The whole thing seemed to go by too quickly for Laura, who was almost starting to fall asleep when the massage stopped. Before she could complain, she felt a tickle on her toes. Her eyes snapped open as she laughted out loud.

"Ticklish?" Craig asked playfully. He tickled more agressively, holding Laura's casted leg firmly; partly so she couldn't flail about and injure herself (or him), partly so she couldn't escape the tickling.

"No fair!" Laura yelled between giggles. Her toes wiggled fiercely, but the casts held her ankles firmly in place, even as her muscles strained against them. After a few tries, she pulled herself to a sitting position and tried to tickle his ribs in retaliation. He giggled briefly before pulling away and attacking her midsection in return. They struggled playfully like this for a moment or two, rolling in the grass, before finally stopping for a break, Craig on his back, Laura on top of him. As they gazed at each other, catching their breath, Laura leaned toward him, slowly and oh-so-cautiously, and gently and quickly kissed him on the lips. After a short pause, Craig gave her a kiss in return. A much longer kiss.

And so went their afternoon. Laura had never known such bliss could exist, having lived her entire life in a private world of embarassment and loneliness and plaster. They stopped as they watched the sunset quietly, then made their way back to the dorms.

The lights were off as Laura opened the door to her room. Craig flipped on the light switch as Laura rolled through the open door. As the lights came on, Laura saw a blanket-covered lump on Terry's bed. After a second, a petite, pale redheaded girl poked her head and bare shoulders out of the blankets and saw Laura.

"Um... hello," Laura said awkwardly.

Terry poked her head out a moment later. "Oh, Laura, I... I didn't realise you would be back so soon."

"That's OK." Laura, even growing up under her mother's watchful eye, had never felt that her upbringing was particularly sheltered. But she couldn't help but feel a little shocked to find her roommate frolicking in bed with another woman.

The redheaded girl hadn't taken her eyes off Laura since coming out from under the covers, and now finally spoke. "Wow, what happened to you?" She shook her head, as if snapping herself out of a daze. "I'm sorry, my name is Carrie..."

"I'm Laura. And this is Craig." Laura proceeded to tell the stories behind her injuries... the brief versions anyway. She was starting to get very tired of telling them over and over agian.

"Wow. That's amazing. I mean, it's terrible that you got hurt, and everything, but you don't usually see people in so many casts. I got you beat, though," she said, suddenly smiling proudly.

"What do you mean?" Laura asked. She noticed that Terry had an awkward look on her face can only be expected from people who are naked in bed with someone who is engrossed in conversation with someone else entirely.

"Well, the summer before last I was visiting my girlfriend at the time at her parents' house in Vermont. We had a big fight about something, and so I went off for a hike to cool down for a while; there was a bunch of land behind her parents' house. So after a few hours I was getting pretty tired, and trying to find a place to sit down, when I stepped on a loose rock, and my ankle rolled underneath me."

"And you broke it?" Laura asked. Having spent so much time in casts, she was used to people randomly telling her their stories of broken bones, and she handled them with the polite boredom of a sailor listening to someone tell of their day trip to the beach.

"Well, yeah, but it gets worse. See, the ground here is sloped, and it leads down to a rocky drop of about fifty feet or so. So, before I can stop myself, I bounce down this rocky slope, bones cracking all the way, and land hard on the ground, my arms and legs broken and dislocated in a bunch of places."

"Oh, my God." Laura murmured. She had, for the first, and perhaps last time, heard an injury story that beat any she had experienced.

"Wait, wait, it gets worse," Carrie giggled, in the manner of someone who is discussing injuries that are now little more than a faint memory, and who has also probably had a few drinks. "I'm out in the middle of the woods, nobody knows where I am, and my cell phone doesn't work out in the middle of nowhere, so I have to get myself back to civilisation somehow. So I drag myself, with my badly broken arms, in the direction of the nearest highway, over a mile away. The doctor said that if my back or neck had been broken, I would have definitely been paralysed with all the movement. But there was no spinal injury, just my legs and arms shattered, my hips and shoulders dislocated. Guess I'm just lucky." She smiled.

"So I spend the whole night trying to drag myself along, despite the pain that comes with each movement. And it's REALLY painful. Worse than the worst pain you've ever experienced, and all through your body, all night long. But somehow I actually dragged myself to the highway. I don't know what the hell I would've done if I'd gotten lost or something. But I pulled myself into the middle of the road, so that anyone driving along would be sure to see me. And guess what?"

"What?" Laura, Terry and Craig all asked, almost in unison. The smile on Carrie's face suggested that she was enjoying holding the room's attention like this.

"Some kid driving along doesn't notice the injured girl in the middle of the road, and drives right over my pelvis."

Carrie's audience cringed. Carrie giggled as she continued her story. "It hurt sooooooo bad! So finally this kid stops and comes back to see what he hit and finds me. So he gets some branches from the woods and tries to splint my arms and legs, but not very well, and loads me into the backseat of his car. That REALLY hurt, by the way. So we drive for half an hour to the nearest hospital, me screaming and crying in pain the whole time, especially when the car hits a bump, and these roads are REALLY bumpy. Finally, after surgery, installing plates, rods, screws, you name it, I'm stuck in traction for about two months, before they stick me in a full body cast, from my chin down to my toes, for four months. All I can move is my fingers and my toes."

"How horrible," Laura muttered, reminded of the recurring dream she had about being in a full body cast.

"Not as bad as you think. I got plenty of 'conjugal visits' from my girlfriend. It was kinda cool. Like a bondage thing. You into bondage?" she asked Laura.

"Er..." Laura mumbled.

"Yeah, I thought as much. It's really interesting though, not being able to move at all, not being able to do anything with your girlfriend except just lay there at her mercy. Not being able to do anything about the all the itching."

Laura really wished she hadn't mentioned itching, as a slight itch started on the bottom of her right heel.

"Wait a minute. How do we know you aren't just puling our legs here?" Craig asked skeptically.

Without a word, Carrie lifted the blanket, showing a series of scars on her naked right thigh and hip. "See? I still have a bunch of hardware in there; if you've got a metal detector handy, I can prove it." She giggled, then stopped as she saw the clock. "Ohmigod, is it eight-thirty already? I've gotta get to work! 'Bye, hon."

Carrie quickly dressed herself as Laura and Craig looked away awkwardly, and then left. Afterwards, Terry silently curled up in a ball facing the wall. After a moment's pause, Laura asked Craig, "So... what are you doing tonight?"

"Well, I think my roommates are having a party. Wanna go?"

"Sure." Laura glanced at the lump of blankets on Terry's bed as she turned of the light and shut the door. "Goodnight, Terry." She received only a mumble in reply.

As they made their way to the party, Laura pondered the revelation of her roommate's sexual orientation. It didn't bother her at all, really, so much as just surprise her. And it certainly seemed to explain quite a bit, Laura thought.