Strong by Jennifer Rivard Yarrington Page A

legs again, and I could feel everything. I just couldn't move my feet or my legs on my own. They told me I had an incomplete spinal cord injury and that, even though I could still feel my legs, they weren't sure if I would ever be able to move them on my own.”
    “ After that, I asked the nurse to stop giving me pain meds and she agreed to back the dose down a bit. I wanted to be able to feel as much as I could so I knew what I had to work with. In my mind, I thought, If I can feel something in my legs, then I should be able to move them. I stayed up all that night, trying and trying to make my toes move or make my muscles twitch or make my feet flex. I eventually drifted off to sleep, but I woke up to hear my mom laughing. I remember that I was starting to feel really annoyed because I thought my mom was tickling my feet and I just wanted to go back to sleep.  But then I remembered what I had been trying to do before I fell asleep. My eyes shot open and my mom practically screamed with laughter, 'Chase, you were wiggling your toes!'”
    Chase stops to take another moment, another breath before continuing. I want to say something, but I'm not sure what to say. My emotions are everywhere. The thought of Chase trapped in a mangled car sickens me. It almost breaks my heart to think that I came so close to never meeting him. To have him here next to me seems extraordinary now that I know how close he came to death.
    And of course, I'm still floating on air from our kisses.
    “ Do you want to come back to the cabin?” Chase asks. “I can make us some coffee and tell you the rest of the story .” He uses a goofy Paul Harvey voice and I agree that his cabin would be far more comfortable than my truck.
    It is surprisingly quiet at his cabin. It seems that everyone went off to bed early. Soon we have fresh cups of coffee in our hands and a small blanket over our laps. The blanket is a wild creation of colors as many small crocheted squares have been joined together. I wonder if Oma made it. It seems like a grandmotherly creation.
    Chase resumes his story. “So, where was I? I was wiggling my toes, right?” He flops his feet around for emphasis, nearly making me choke on a sip of hot coffee.
    “ I don't know who was more excited, my mom or me. When the doctor came back in, he did all sorts of movement and strength tests. I was a little discouraged to realize how weak my legs were. I couldn't do everything he was asking me to do, but he kept assuring me that, if I could wiggle my toes, it was a 'good sign.' A few days later, I was transferred from the hospital an inpatient rehab facility.”
    “ It was more like ' impatient ' rehab. At first, I was so frustrated with what I couldn't do. But one day, early on, I just decided to bust my butt in therapy. I knew I didn't want to be in a wheelchair forever, and I knew that I had some potential to move my body on my own. I just tried not to focus on how far I had to go.”
    “ Wow, I can't imagine going through that,” I tell him. “I don't think I would have even a fraction of the courage you had. The courage you have. ” I stop to admire his strong features, the line of his jaw, the depth of his eyes. I imagine that some of that strength, the determination in his face, came from going through the challenges of the past four years.
    “ I don't think anyone has the courage before they're faced with the decision to either move forward or give up. You can't do it half-heartedly. Believe me, I had days when I just said, Screw this. I'm never walking out of this place.”
    “ But four weeks later, the day I left rehab, I walked out with these .” He lifts one of his crutches high into the air. “We brought the wheelchair home, too, and I used it a lot. I got tired very quickly for the first several months. The accident was in March and I decided I was going to go back to school in September, no matter what it took. I wanted to graduate with the rest of my class. And I was NOT