Am I Ever Gonna Find Out?

n.b. For ease of reading, I will keep adding updates and corrections to this entry.
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Silence Is Golden...

"Go on a date with me."

I am stunned. Gobsmacked, as I'm sure Chase would say, being British and everything. I agree, partially to get her back on my team and partially...something else.

Dinner, of course, does not go well. Once I realize that my "feelings" for Cameron aren't feelings of attraction but elation that someone, anyone is interested in me, my mouth goes off before my brain can stop it. My psuedo-psychologizing has the desired effect of stopping Cameron's ridiculous (not to mention career-ending) schoolgirl crush, but the horrified look on her face makes me wish for the gift of tact.

I may push most people away, but my relationship with Stacey and the subsequent nasty breakup proved that I enjoy having a ...shudder..."significant other" in my life and feel incomplete without it. Much to my intense and constant irritation. I like to pretend I'm fine being on my own, but it's like Simon and Garfunkel trying to bullshit the listener that they are a rock and an island. (Although the line "I touch no one and no one touches me" has certainly described the past five years.)

I suppose I could have told Cameron about how my last relationship ended, but I have a feeling that it would have had opposite of the intended effect. How can someone young enough to be my daughter be so damn maternal towards me?

...But I Think It's Gonna Kill Me Now.

There are some advantages to working in a building where every damn wall is glass. I can see Cameron and Stacey through the window of the lab. God knows what they're talking about - Cameron's probably asking some schmoopy questions about me. Five hundred bucks says she's asking about me before the infarction. I can see it in the expression on her face - that infuriating, exasperating yet somehow endearing look of concern she throws my way sometimes. Unfortunately half the time it's when I'm due for another Vicodin so I'm too distracted to think of a good retort. Stacey smirks a bit and says something, and this is where I really wish that lipreading was among my skills. At this, I start my retreat for my office, suddenly in the mood for some jazz.

Everything I've Seen...

John Henry's tortured trumpet soars in my ears, taking my mind off the pain - the pain of seeing Stacey again, the pain of stretching out my bad leg, forcing the bend out of it. I really wish I had shades on my office wall so I could block the view from the hall, but everytime I have them installed, they disappear by the end of the day. I settle for shutting my eyes and playing "If I can't see them, they can't see me." With my physical eyes closed, my mind's eye is free to roam and it goes straight to those days in the hospital. Trying to save my leg, despite the agony and the fact that I knew perfectly well I was most likely choosing death over life as a cripple. Finally breaking down from...well..."pain" doesn't seem to do justice to hitting a full on 10 on the pain scale while hooked up to a morphine drip, but it will do, and asking to be put in a coma. The sick feeling in my stomach when I first realized my leg had fresh bandages and wondering what the hell Stacey had done. Finding out exactly how much I had lost in mobility while still having enough neuralgia to have the surgeon utter the words "pain management." Vomiting the first time I saw my muscular thigh whittled down to half it's former size, a huge scar going across it.