Never a Hero

that.
    It was all in the past, anyway. If I settled down and had a family, maybe she’d be proud of me. Maybe having grandchildren would erase the grim scowl from her face.
    Of course, in order to marry a woman, I’d actually have to meet one first. And date her. I’d have to fall in love.
    Hard enough to do without letting thoughts of Nick Reynolds cloud my brain. And why should I waste my time obsessing about him, anyway? When I’d come home from Nick’s apartment the night before, I’d felt almost giddy, but in the cool light of day, the events with Nick began to seem far less romantic and far more casual. What had really happened? Nothing. I’d sat in his kitchen with him. I’d drunk half a beer. We’d exchanged pleasantries. Nothing more. Upon closer examination, I was sure he’d never actually been flirting with me. After all, why would he? Nick was gorgeous and confident and could probably have any man—or woman—he set his sights on. And what was I? A one-armed shut-in with borderline social anxiety.
    Why would he want me?
    By the time I heard him come home from work, I felt like I was back to normal. I found myself missing Regina, who I’d never even talked to. She’d been the cornerstone of my fantasy. The linchpin in my illusion that my life could ever be normal.
    I missed hearing her play.
    I went on like that for the better part of a week, alternately obsessing about Nick and doing my best to pretend he didn’t exist. I’d see him come and go from work, although I stayed out of sight. Occasionally I saw him in the backyard with his dogs, but I was too scared to go down and talk to him. I wished desperately for him to knock on my door again, to offer me another beer, but he never did. I spent hours debating how I could approach him, planning exactly what I’d say, only to have my courage fail when given the opportunity to follow through. Then, when the day had ended and the house was quiet both upstairs and down, I lay in bed scolding myself, telling myself I was just lonely, I needed a friend, but that finding a male lover was the last thing on my mind.
    Mostly, though, I went about my life as usual, which was to say, I stayed hidden in my home.
    When I finally spoke to him again, it was coincidence more than anything. I paid to have my groceries delivered to my front door each week. I requested they be left on my front porch. I paid online and left the driver’s tip under the mat. It was all arranged to allow me to avoid the grocery stores, the pointing children, the awkwardness of holding my wallet pinned to my body with my stump while rooting through it with my good hand, the embarrassment of the delivery man who didn’t know whether to hand me the groceries or whether to offer to bring them in.
    I was just stepping out onto my front porch to retrieve them when Nick arrived home from work. He could have waved, maybe yelled hello and gone on his way around the side of the house to his door, but instead he came up to the porch.
    Great. Now, instead of a delivery man, I had Nick to deal with.
    “What’s all this?” he asked, looking at the bags and boxes at my feet.
    “Groceries.” I gathered up most of the plastic bags by their handles and draped them over my left arm. My left elbow was intact, and I had nearly two inches of arm below that, so I could hang them from the bend of my stump.
    And that’s what it was—a stump. Some people preferred the term “residual limb,” but to me, that didn’t do it justice. It was like changing the diagnosis of “shell shock” to “post-traumatic stress disorder.” As if adding more syllables to it could alter the truth of the situation. As if having a longer phrase could make my arm longer too.
    I could feel Nick watching me as I looped the bag handles over the crook of my elbow, although it didn’t make me as uncomfortable as it usually did. He didn’t offer to help, either. Most people turned away and pretended not to notice my predicament, or they fell all over themselves trying to do it for me, but Nick just stood there watching. So many times, I’d been annoyed at people for helping when it wasn’t needed, but now I couldn’t help but wonder why he wasn’t.
    I picked up the last bag in my right hand, leaving only one box.
    “I’ll get that one,” he said.
    And in the blink of an eye, I did a one-eighty. I went from being annoyed because he wasn’t helping to being annoyed that he was. “You don’t have to do