My Life, Deleted Read Online Free PDF Page B

private plane to Las Vegas in a couple of days to watch Taylor’s cheerleading team perform at a national championship. I’d seen cheerleaders on TV during the playoffs, but Joan said Taylor’s team did moves that were more like dancing and gymnastics—two more terms for me to tuck away and figure out later.
    After months of training, Taylor was torn between wanting to go and staying home until I got out of the hospital. She didn’t want to go without us. As she tried to describe her conflicted feelings, she broke into tears. “I don’t want to leave Dad,” she said. “I’m scared. I don’t like that he doesn’t know anything.”
    She was worried, she said, because I wasn’t bouncing back like I usually did. Joan told me that I’d had nine surgeries on my ankles, knees, and shoulders, and I’d usually felt well enough to stop at the office on my way home from the hospital. I honestly didn’t know what to think about the man I used to be because everything I knew about him came from stories like these, filtered through my family’s perceptions. That said, they were all I had to go on. My new life depended on them.
    Joan took Taylor into the hall, but I could still hear them talking. “This is your national competition,” she said. “Your team is counting on you. He’s going to be discharged. He’s going to be fine, and we’re just going to go home.”
    I would soon learn that Taylor had been on the team for more than eight years, she’d been practicing several days a week for this contest, and she was one of the best on her team. Joan had gone to most of Taylor’s competitions with her, but the three of us usually went to this national event together to cheer her on.
    Joan continued to juggle calls with the charter company handling the flight and also with the other family that was supposed to fly with us as she developed a contingency plan. She kept me abreast of what was going on, but I maintained my poker face, not revealing that I didn’t know any of the people she was talking to. Oddly enough, I still had my critical thinking skills and a vague sense of how some things worked, so I was able to suggest other options for Taylor, such as taking a later flight after I was released. But often when Joan thought I was exercising my previous problem-solving skills, I was actually just parroting back what I’d just heard her—or someone on TV—saying.
    For example, when I reassured Taylor that it was okay for her to go on her trip, I was actually reinforcing the parental message I’d heard Joan delivering to her in the hallway. “You should go be with your team,” I said. “Make us all proud, and don’t worry about me. I’m going to be just fine.”
    When I told her to focus on doing well for the team and to keep her mind off the stresses that my injury was causing her, I later wondered if I’d been somehow drawing on my years of team sports and leadership as a captain even though I couldn’t remember a single play on the field. Taylor, not entirely convinced, went to the gym to practice.
    Around 7:00 P.M. there was a knock on the door.
    â€œThere he is,” a big booming voice said. “Scottie, what are you doing here?”
    The voice came from a fit-looking black man in his midfifties. His graying, closely cropped hair was balding in spots, he was dressed in casual business attire, and both he and the heavyset black woman who came in behind him looked concerned.
    Feeling the hair stand up on the back of my neck, I sat right up in bed. I didn’t understand why this guy was coming into my room unannounced, and I didn’t like feeling unprepared for this visitor.
    How do these people know me?
    With nothing to rely on but my friend-or-foe senses, I felt that this guy was the latter, and I wanted him out as soon as possible.
    â€œJD,” Joan said, “I