How to Walk Away

by Katherine Center

clouds actually sit on columns of rising air, and that turbulence happens when you cut through those columns.

My mom had a remarkable talent for making things worse.

I hadn’t died, I kept telling myself. But what if this was worse?

You can’t ask someone to love you or be there for you or do the right thing—and you certainly can’t guilt them into it. Either they will or they won’t.

“I’m Ian Moffat. Your physical therapist.”

I’m Scottish.”

twenty-eight

candidate.”

Her BF?

resentment.

“And that was the moment when I knew for sure. Our dad is not my father.”

“I was an ‘unfortunate accident.’ With someone who was not Dad.”

Keep in mind that the struggle makes her stronger.”

Ian began his lesson, but I didn’t even listen. I was too busy trying to catch another whiff of him.

“It’s the trying that heals you. That’s all you have to do. Just try.”

I had to see what I wanted. I had to want what I wanted. I had to create a vision to move toward.

“I want to marry you, Margaret. But I think I can’t.”

“I think,” he went on, “in the end, you’re not going to let me.”

“I really, really need you,” I said, “to get me the hell out of here.”

It hit me out on that roof for the first time. I was alive.

Staying hopeful was exhausting.

Somehow, the presence of Chip in that recovery fantasy had been the lynchpin holding it all together. Without him, the whole thing fell apart.

But let’s be clear: I had nothing—nothing—to look forward to.

My mother was always very helpful—when you did exactly what she wanted.

“I have to figure this out,” I said, my voice a little softer as I looked over at my dad. “You can’t do it for me. I have to do it myself.”

This might have been the first time in my life that I did something difficult not for how it would matter to somebody else, but for how it would matter to me.

“As good as it feels to win a battle, I want you to win the war.”

‘Our struggles lead us to our strengths.’”

“I will think about you after you’re gone. I expect I’ll think about you often.”

‘When you don’t know what to do for yourself, do something for someone else.’”

“No. Your Scottish boyfriend.”

Sexual tension is my primary language!”

I did believe in fun when Ian was around.

I liked driving him crazy.

sometimes Ian seemed like a different guy entirely. An easygoing, smiley, likable guy.

“I hate everybody,” he said. “Except you.”

“And that’s another reason you’re not safe.”

Maybe he was so lonely, any live girl would do—even a broken one like me.

“How does he look at me?” “Like you’re a waterfall in a desert.”

“What restraint at what lake?”

“When he wasn’t standing outside your room listening to you sing.”

it truly hit me: I wasn’t going to walk again. I really wasn’t.

The only thing that was real anymore: I was going to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair.

There was no hope anymore.

As sad as I was, I felt a little happy, too.

“His name,” she said, “was Derin Buruk.”

“He was Turkish. An exchange student.

“I came back to get the car keys. But I found myself eavesdropping instead.”

I said, “Marry me.”

Plus, and this is not a minor point, I was utterly, breath-stealingly in love with him.

“Ian,” I said then, my breath swirling cold in my lungs like water. “The thing is, I’m in love with you.”