DDR Recovery Edition
“I wish I were better,” she said. She was in the middle of putting her shoes on. Her left foot was shod but the other shoe was giving her trouble; she had started to unlace it. Water was pattering against the large window behind her.
“Better how?” I asked. I was sitting on the couch, my hand lazily gliding along the surface of the cushion next to me. It was still warm from where she’d been sitting moments before. The rain seemed to be letting up some, the sound and fury of the thunderstorm mostly spent.
“Like, able to do more. To help more. I feel like I’m letting everyone down.” She had gotten her other shoe on and was gathering her things. The front door was open. I could see the driveway through the storm door, it was covered in waterlogged twigs shaken loose by the storm’s wind.
“You’re really going to go straight to work?” I asked. “You didn’t get much sleep with all that thunder.”
She finished getting her jacket on and then picked up her backpack.
“People there are counting on me,” she said. “This project will wrap up soon and then I can rest. And besides, it’s almost the weekend.”
“Aren’t you volunteering this weekend?” I asked. I had gotten up and walked over to her, knowing she would be departing soon.
“Yes, but that’s a one off,” she said. It was the fourth “one off” that month.
She turned to me before leaving and gave me a hug, but I pulled her back as she tried to break the embrace. We stood still, looking each other in the eyes as the last dregs of the storm fell.
“Promise me you’ll take some time for yourself,” I said. She was quiet, and broke eye contact.
“I mean that,” I said. “I’m worried about you. When’s the last time you had some fun?”
She looked somewhere up and behind me as she pondered the question.
“Why don’t you blow off that thing you got roped into and come to DDR tonight?” I asked.
“Maybe I will,” she said.
“You better.”