"Sorley Patrick Connor, this is not what we've agreed upon."

The voice scares the wits out of me and I turn completely red when I see grandma Meghan looking at us with an angry expression.

"Young lady, if you wish to stay here, I want you to honour my rules. Now go, back to the guest room. I've placed clean towels in the bathroom."

As fast as I can, I hurl myself of the bed and speed away from Sorley's room. Not until I'm under the shower, does my breathing calm down. And then I burst out laughing. I cover my face with my hands and bend over. Oh this is terrible. How can I face his grandma after this?

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Connor", is the first thing I say when I walk into the kitchen, all clean and wearing my least wrinkled dress. "It won't happen again."

She accepts my sorrow with a nod and motions at the breakfast table that is filled with the most delicious smelling food I've ever seen.

"Oh, wow, this looks amazing. I'm so hungry." Sorley isn't here yet, but I don't dare to ask about him. He comes in when I fill my plate for a second time and cheerfully smiles at us. His hair is wet, so he must have taken a shower as well. How would he do that?

Because his grandma sits with us, we don't say much. I do however, burst out giggling every time I look his way and after the third time, grandma Meghan clicks her tongue again. "You two as bad as my husband and I were at your age." A melancholy smile appears on her barely wrinkled face, so I don't think she minds very much.

---

After breakfast Sorley shows me his house. That everything is on the ground floor isn't so much a luxury, as a necessity.

"We moved here after my parents accident", he tells me. "It isn't very big, but big enough for the two of us."

The largest part of the house exists of the living room, kitchen and his grandmothers bedroom. The part on the right is the guest quarters, that is always tidy and clean, but never actually used. On the left is Sorley's domain.

When we enter the bedroom, I feel my cheeks heat up. We are both silent when I look around. I think Sorley is watching me, but I'm afraid to check. At least until my face cools down a bit. To distract myself, I look at the stereo. My entire musical equipment consists of my cellphone and ear-plugs, but Sorley even owns a gramophone.

"It belonged to my father." He rides his wheelchair close next to me. "He loved music and owned mountains of CDs and LPs. Almost all of that we got rid off, because it didn't fit in the room and I'm not much of a listener. I wanted to keep this thing, even though it mostly just collects a lot of dust."

I press a button, but nothing happens.

"Hmm, apparently there isn't even a disk in it." Sorley opens a drawer and rummages a little through the things inside. I watch over his shoulder, but see nothing I recognize.

"This one?" He hold up a CD an I say: "What ever you want, I don't know it. But I don't have to hear something necessarily. I'm not much of a listener either."

The disk vanishes in the drawer again and I bite my tongue. A bit of music would have broken the silence. Now the tension worsens every second in which we say nothing. Until I remember the bookcase.

"Hey, that library of yours, is that in the next room?" I point at the doors and look at Sorley, who relaxes the muscles in his jaws and nods.

"The left one. On the right is the bathroom."

Too much aware of the discomfort we're in, I mix up left and right and open the wrong door. Seeing the obvious meant-for-invalids toilet and special wheelchair, still wet from Sorley's shower this morning, makes me truly realize for the first time, why Sorley was so reluctant to tell me about his handicap.

"That ... is the wrong door", I hear him sigh behind me.

Should I close the door quickly and not say anything? That would probably make the both of us even more uncomfortable. It's better we deal with all my questions and remarks right away. To walk on egg shells all week is not something I look forward to.

Sorley is looking at his knees when I turn towards him. "Sorley, does it bother you to have to use these things?" I point my thumb over my shoulder and wait for him to look at me.

He does, with wrinkles in his brow. "Not exactly", he admits grudgingly. "I'm used to it by now."

"Do you think it bothers me to look at them?"

He gazes down again and clenches his jaws.

Should I kneel in front of him? No, that's what you do with a child, not with someone older than you. Still, I want to bridge the gap that was created because he can't see me eye to eye, so I move his hands out of the way and sit on his lap.

Surprise is written all over his face.

"Listen, I hadn't expected this, so you have to give me some time to adjust. If I say stupid things or do stupid stuff, you have to tell me, because I can walk in books, but I can't read minds."

A tiny smile forms on his lips.

I press a kiss on them and continue, softer: "If it doesn't bother you to use those things, it doesn't bother me to look at them, alright? It's a part of you and if I want to get to know all of you, I have to know about them as well."

I'm still pointing my thumb over my shoulder, although by now I've turned, so I'm actually pointing outside.

Sorley finally seems more at ease, even though there lies a fragile expression in his eyes. With half a grin he says, trying to sound casual: "Really? So you would like to know all about the toilet?"

I burst out laughing and hit his chest. "You know what I mean."

For a moment he contemplates and then he crosses the shallow hill, that's probably a wheelchair friendly threshold, into the bathroom. "Woops." I hop up and down and throw my arms around his neck for support.

That makes Sorley laugh, but he doesn't say anything else. It seems to be up to me, to bring the walls down, so I ask: "You say you have some feeling in your toes, but you can't stand at all, right?"

Making sure I look him in the eyes when I ask my question, I hope he knows I am genuinely interested. Not so much that I would make a study out of it, but I meant what I said, I want to know everything about him.

"No. On rare occasions I feel something in my upper legs, but that always only lasts a few seconds."

"So you do everything with your arms?" My eyes fly to the muscles who are clearly visible through his T-shirt and mumble with my cheeks on fire: "That explains a lot."

When I look back into his eyes, I see how the vulnerability is replaced by a sparkly expression.

Without encouragement he then tells me: "It's not so bad if these", he taps on the armrests of his wheelchair, "become a little wet, but in the shower I use the other one."

I follow his gaze to the white wheelchair without armrests and tilt my head a little. How would he do that? Both chairs next to each other and hop? But wouldn't the armrest of this on be in the way? As if he read my mind, he folds one of the armrests up. "Ah, that's how you do it."

The wet floor beneath us shines. "Did you ever fall?"

"Of course", he answers immediately. "And then it takes me a whole lot of trouble getting back into my chair. But that was when I was just learning to do things on my own. Now I don't fall any more."

In for a penny, in for a pound and so I bravely face the toilet. There are rods next to the seat. It's not as if I never saw a toilet like this before. Every public space has them, however I never really thought about how they operate.

"Do you want to test it?"

Startled I look at him and when he bursts out laughing, I quickly hide my head in my hands. "Ha ha", I mutter between my fingers, that get pulled away by two strong hands.

"Don't get shy now, you wanted to know everything, remember?"

He's right, I'm being a baby. "Thank you", I tell him, and when he raises his eyebrows, I explain: "For not sending me away, when I arrived here."

"What? Are you crazy? I've never been so happy with an unexpected visitor in my life. I'm sorry I got so mad. I was afraid everything between us would change once you knew. I should have known better."

My heart jumps when I see how much he means those words.

"Have you seen enough? Or do you want a demonstration?"

He's teasing me and after sticking out my tongue, I say: "Come on and show me that library already."

When we ride into the room, me still in his lap, my eyes shoot wide open. The space behind the door is much bigger than I expected and houses, besides the enormous bookcase, also some fitness equipment. Two out of three I can tell what they're for straight away. A rowing device and a weight lifter. What the third one is for, I have absolutely no idea.

"Get of my lap, I'll show you."

I jump up and watch curiously how Sorley rides his wheelchair next to the device, puts on the brakes and moves himself with ease from one seat to the other.

It's kind of a chair, but the back is made of rounded foam pillows. Sorley places his feet on the pedals and straps them in so they can't slide, then he smoothly makes a few crunches, with the back of the chair moving along. Effortless he moves left and right and up and down and he can also train the muscles in his arms with help from elastic straps.

Incredibly impressed, I watch how Sorley gets back into his wheelchair. "Wow, that explains the six-pack", slips my tongue.

Surprised he eyes his stomach and the smirk he then throws at me, takes my breath away. I quickly turn around, so he won't see my scarlet face. Luckily the bookcase is now in front of me to distract me.

Some copies are in a disorderly pile and those are the titles I recognize immediately. All the other books I've mostly never heard off. I take a few of the shelves to read what they're about, without actually taking in the information and I keep doing that until my emotions are firmly back under my control. At least, as much as possible. It's a good thing grandma Meghan made some rules. I'm certain Sorley only has to look at me like that and I'll do anything for him. Alright, that sounds very wrong and is absolutely not helping to reduce the colour in my cheeks to normal.

When Sorley takes a book from the shelf with a special type of extended pincers, that explains how he can reach the ones on top, I admonish myself and focus on his words.

"This is the book I planned to show you, if I was one day brave enough to tell you about my handicap." I take it from him and scan the back. It's about a boy who, just like him, has an accident and ends up in a wheelchair. Like the one Isla gave me. Would it have a happy ending?

When I think about my own question, I conclude that not every happy ending has to mean all problems get solved. To learn how to deal with the new situation, both physically and psychologically, is a victory in itself.

"What really happened?" I ask, tentatively looking sideways. I don't want to push him too much, however Sorley doesn't seem to mind my question.

"We were driving home. I was twelve and just came from my first summer camp. The weather was clear, my parents cheerful and happy. It would take about an hour more before we reached the house, so we looked for a place to pull over. Drink something, stretch our legs."

I look at his eyes that are miles away. He remembers a lot of details. How often would he have had to tell this? How often would he still dream about it?

"My father did everything right. The truck driver didn't. We were scooped up and thrown against a tree. My parents were killed in an instant. I had already unfastened my seatbelt, very stupid, but we were almost at a complete stop. I flew out through a window, after the car overturned twice, I landed my back on a rock."

Tears run down my cheeks, but I don't bother wiping them away. When Sorley sees me crying, he smiles tenderly and pulls me back unto his lap. "Hey, it's okay. It's a long time ago, it doesn't bother me to talk about it any more."

I bravely nod, although it takes some effort to stop the tears. I don't need a book to envision the images and when I think about little Sorley, flying through the air, almost getting killed, I hide my sobs against his shoulder.

After a while I hear Sorley say: "I think I'd better not let you read it."

Sniffing, I crack a small smile. "No, please don't. At least, not in our way. If you want me to, I'll read it on paper."

He smiles and shakes his head. "It's no longer necessary. Now I'd rather go with you to an uninhabited island."

I feel I'm blushing and quip: "What happened to that guy that only read intellectual literature?"

"He met a girl that showed him the better parts of life." He kisses me and whispers: "Shall we visit Charlie's factory together some day? I ran out of candy."

I burst out laughing and ask: "Did you eat the whole bear?"

"Of course. It was the tastiest gift I ever got."

His thumbs wipe away the last traces of tears from my cheeks and then he asks: "Will you meet me inside a book tonight? I've got a same one twice."

"But I'm already here."

I can swear his ears turn red and I can't figure out why, until he says: "I enjoyed last night very much, but I don't want to disobey my grandma."

Now my cheeks burst into flame as well. Again. I feel like a traffic light, only with white instead of green. It's a good thing grandma Meghan calls us for lunch. Time sure flies.

---

When we sit at the table, once again enjoying the best meal I ever tasted, Meghan says: "You should go out with the bikes. Tomorrow it's going to rain, so you'll be cooped up all day."

Bikes?

"Eh, gran, Zara can't really ride a bike with that leg."

"Me not ride a bike, what about you?"

"Oh, right, I totally forgot. Sorry lass. Well, then you'll just have to do some sun bathing on the terrace. I can't believe your parents let you come all this way with a broken leg." Shaking her head, Meghan stands up to pour some more lemonade.

I bend over to Sorley and whisper: "What did you tell your grandmother about me?"

He can't answer straight away, because Meghan returns, so he replies instead: "I have a hand bike."

The name implicates he can ride the bike with his hands, I'd like to see that some time. But not right now, because I'm getting tired again and it's not even mid day. I'm such a weakling.

Outside on the terrace it's wonderful. There are a pair of high deck chairs, in which Sorley easily sets himself. And when I stare at him with my hands on my hips and my lips pursed, he innocently inquires: "What?"

"In your sweats? Seriously? How do you ever want to get rid of those white stems when you don't get them in the sun?"

"Nobody sees my legs", he mutters, but that's not a reply I accept.

"I do, so go, put on some shorts and if you don't have any, put on your swimming trunks, cause I know you have those."

He grins at me, than sighs overly frustrated and hoists himself back up into his wheelchair.

"Sorley?"

The wheelchair stops and he spins my way.

"I eh... you'll tell me, won't you? When I say stuff you really can't do or won't. I mean, you can tell me everything, you don't have to be a tough guy, alright?"

His grin is replaced by a sweet smile. I don't get an answer, but I don't need one.