“It’s most likely nerve damage,” Dr. Michaels says. “Muscular issues would have a more immediate pain and its own set of limitations.”
He helps me back down the hall to his office. After a few steps, I’m able to mask the lessening pain. It’s still sharp but getting better. Mia trails us, and I feel her gaze on my back. We sit again. I bounce my right leg. I’m not usually an anxious person. Dance was my outlet for stress for such a long time, I used it to get more confident. But now I’m slowly disintegrating into a wreck.
“Have you experienced this pain for a while?”
I bite my lip, unable to answer. The doctors thought nerve pain would be the culprit of me not returning to dance. I was just hoping he’d have a different theory.
“I want to get an MRI to look for things we may have missed. Stress fractures could also be causing the pain, and they’re best picked up with more intense imaging.” He shuffles papers, and it’s clear that our appointment is coming to an end. Which is good, because we’ve been here forever.
I could have stress fractures. Girls in the company would get them on occasion, especially before an audition. The added classes worked us all ragged, because we wanted to be the best. There was do or fail, with no middle ground.
Did running through the woods from Greyson make my pain worse?
Did my exercising do this?
Mia pats my knee. “This isn’t the outcome we wanted, but it’s okay, Violet.”
It’s so far from okay, it isn’t even funny.
“For now, my assistant will call for a prescription to help with the pain—”
“It doesn’t hurt,” I blurt out. “I might’ve moved it wrong, so today isn’t accurate—”
“Violet.” Dr. Michaels takes off his glasses. “I’m so sorry. But as of right now, dancing isn’t an option.”
That hope inside me? It grew and grew and grew, and now it pops. The pain is sharp, like being stabbed with a hot poker. Every beat of my heart seems painfully hard.
I stand. My leg doesn’t hurt like he says it should. Not really.
“I can dance,” I tell Mia. I grab her hands. “Please.”
“Violet,” she says softly.
Dr. Michaels clears his throat. “I’m going to recommend aquatic therapy. It’s been known to have great success with patients with nerve pain. Then we should see you to reassess.”
I swallow. Water therapy, basically. Swimming and whatever nonsense they’d have me do in a pool.
“Oh, and Violet,” he adds. “Please stop by the receptionist’s office on your way out. She’ll schedule your next appointment and get your insurance on file.”
Uh-oh. “Insurance?”
He gives me a measured look. “If you have it. Otherwise, we’ll bill you. Or your mother?”
Why the fuck didn’t I think about money? My mom is well-off, sure, but she’s not… pay-for-a-random-doctor-visit rich. And she’s definitely going to get the bill. I’m on her insurance for now. Until I can do my own thing.
Suddenly, I hate that I don’t have that figured out.
And there’s no way in hell I’m letting Mom find out about this. Any of it.
Which means… this isn’t happening. It can’t.
I nod and leave Mia and Dr. Michaels behind. I stop at the receptionist desk and tell her that I don’t have insurance, that she can bill me directly for the visit. She tuts, sympathetic, when she passes me the invoice.
“I’ll just need to take a day… I’ll pay it soon.” I swallow, my shame eating me alive. “I’ll call to schedule the MRI back in Crown Point.”
That’s a lie.
My finances haven’t been an issue because I have a fund my dad set up. He put money into it to pay for everything I could need to get me through college. Mom put some of the money from his life insurance into it, too. But with my junior year coming to an end, I can’t pay thousands of dollars—what I’m imagining this will cost without insurance—without a job to back it up.
I’ve always been sensible about money, and this feels largely out of my scope of knowledge.
I need to get out of here. I can’t breathe. The walls of his office press in close. My fingers go numb. I want more than anything to run away—so I do. I manage a quick apology and bolt out of the office.
I might be ruining my relationship with Mia. Not that it fucking matters anyway.
I burst through the doors and onto the sidewalk, my chest heaving. I brace my forearms on my thighs, head bowed, and focus on sucking in deep breaths. My lungs are in a vice. I rasp with every inhale, like my throat has actually seized up on me.
Minutes later, my chest loosens. I take deeper inhales, counting to five on each exhale. But that doesn’t negate the need to get out of here. I take two steps when the doors open behind me.
“Violet,” Mia calls. She slings her purse over her shoulder and catches up to me. “I told you I would give you a ride.”
I wrestle my emotions under control. Fuck, it’s really hard not to burst into tears. I mean, I felt like a crazy person two seconds ago, but sobbing my eyes out would make it worse. I think. Money and nerve pain and more tests. It’s all going down the drain.
Even this bill will set me back. Stupid for it to not even dawn on me that I’d pay for this myself.
I imagine my mother walking away from me, leaving bits and pieces in her wake. I’m the thing she keeps trying to leave behind, and something keeps picking me up and returning me to her. Only to be set down again.
It’s okay—I can take her hint. She doesn’t return my phone calls, she only calls or texts me when she absolutely has to. Like with Mia. And the newspaper article.
“Besides,” Mia adds, “walking would suck.”
I choke on my laugh. She’s got a point. She gestures to her car, and I slip into the passenger seat. She pulls away from the curb, and we’re well on our way before she glances over at me.
“You know I broke my ankle?”
I start. “What? When?”
“My prima ballerina years. I was nineteen and voracious. At a particularly brutal rehearsal—in which I was chasing my dreams and cast as principal—I took a bad leap. I landed wrong, and the thing snapped under my weight.” She goes quiet.
We’ve all heard horror stories of that happening, but I didn’t realize it had happened to her.
“I was out for a year.” She peeks at me. “I wanted it so badly. I went through three surgeries before my ankle was able to hold up. Now, I’m not advising that. I’m just saying, it might be a no for now—but because of something that could get better. Not because of the accident that broke your leg.”
I nod once and fix my gaze on the side window. Vermont is very pretty. There’s more snow covering the ground here, and most of the pine trees are lush, dark green. I can see why, of all the places, a specialist orthopedic surgeon chose to come here.
“It’ll be okay,” Mia says again. “You looked nervous about the insurance. Are you?”
“Mom and I aren’t in the best place right now.” I sigh. “If she finds out, then it’ll be a nightmare. And since I’m on her insurance…”