Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

"Harder,"

she begged.

File name: Untold Stories

Passcode: 8675309

PEYDRAN

"The goal today is to start picking up one of these lacrosse balls. They are sturdy, not fragile, and they are substantial. You don't need to squeeze it. We will have other balls for the motion of squeeze. This exercise is extend your fingers, connect to the ball, and grasp it if you can. We can work slowly up to the grasp. If you'd like, you can first take the ball with your right hand so your brain receives the sensory input and you can then work with that feeling to imagine grasping the ball with your left hand. When you imagine it and focus on it, you are sending a signal to the relay to move the augment and pick up the ball," Jeanin, my physical therapist, explained patiently.

We'd been doing simple exercises three times a day for a week. Grasping was a big step up from raising my fingers off the table or making a fist. I was supposed to practice like that supervised— not stressing the bones of my elbow— so I wouldn't accidentally interrupt the healing of the metal grafted into the bone.

But I liked to make my fingers dance around when no one was looking. I practiced typing with my eyes closed. I couldn't feel the augment. There was no sensation in the metal. But I was programming the relay in my brain to think of the augment just like it had my hand, and I felt like I was making excellent progress.

I lifted the augment. Focus. I touched the metal fingers to the ball. Focus. I widened the fingers and imagined wrapping the palm of the metal hand around the ball. The augment moved and wrapped around the ball.

Focus. Grasp it. Make a fist with the ball inside.

Focus. The augment picked up the ball. I held it. I didn't drop the ball.

Focus. I lowered the ball to the table. Pure joy! I smiled up at Jeanin, and she smiled just as big at me.

"Excellent. Would you like to keep going?" Jeanin asked. I nodded, and we went through more grasping exercises. The last thing, the very hardest thing, was a tissue and I was too tired to grasp it. The dexterity to pick up something so flimsy just wasn't in me.

After Jeanin left, I had to rest my eyes for a few minutes. It was so hard. So much patience. It was so slow. And I had only barely begun. Next week, if all went well, I would be out of the hospital and back in Media Oasis at home. I had to keep working hard in therapy so I could be independent. I could do it. I would do it.

"Peyyyydraaan!" Ryst sang out as she came in. "I have good news—or, I think it's good news? Well, I got a message from a client. I think it's a client."

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"Client? What do you mean, like, a research subject?"

She shook her head. "No, a woman— or 'Wonder Mom' is the name on the request— sent me an inquiry asking if I'd be willing to talk to her on a video. She said she read my anxiety article— I finally finished it a couple of days ago—"

I cut her off, "It's good, Ryst. I read it. It's really down-to-earth and relatable. I think it will really help people." It had helped me. I had used my right hand to try it while I read the article— tapping on my cheek. If I got really good at it, then once I could move my left arm, I'd try it with the augment.

I did that now, all the time. I noticed everything my skin touched. All my movements. Always taking in the sensory input and thinking about what it would mean to do it with the augment. I was slowly building a catalog of sensation and movement to program my brain to operate the mechanical hand.

"Thanks, Peydran," she said with a soft smile. "Argh, that article was a beast to finish. Oh well, she asked if I'd be willing to talk to her about the article. So, I assumed she meant it like a client— a patient, you know. I guess she could have other motives, but it felt authentic."

"Really, like you sensed her, through the stream?" That was another thing I did. Ryst had extra-human senses. I noticed senses because of the augment, so I noticed that Ryst sensed things that the rest of us did not. Sensory awareness: one of my new hobbies.

"Umm, no, I don't think so. Maybe I could if I tried," she screwed up her face in disgust. "No, that feels wrong. Unnatural. No, I think it was just the fact that someone sent me a request about an anxiety article, not anything other than that. I mean, most people don't want to talk about stuff like that with strangers, but women tell their obgyenecas things they don't tell other people."

"Yeah, Ryst, and you're really approachable. I think people just naturally want to talk to you because you don't have a puffed-up attitude, know what I mean?"

"Thanks again, Peydran. Look at you, so full of compliments today."

I let my current pride shine out in a smile. "You are talking to a ball-grasping augment. I picked up that ball on my first try, and I picked it up good. I showed that ball." I managed to say without bursting out laughing.

"Peydran! Amazing! Your first try! I'd stick to lacrosse balls for now, but maybe eventually there's some other ones—"

She broke off and ran to the bathroom in fits of giggles. "Pervert!" I yelled at her.

When she came back, she asked, "Peydran, have you ever been in love?"

Love? Me? "What, are we really doing past partners? Is that what this is?"

She cocked an eyebrow and said sardonically, "Well, you do know all the sordid details of my ill-advised marriage, and my fraught invisible lover situation, so I was just curious if you've ever had a serious boyfriend."

"Fair enough. Nah— I tried some casual stuff, even tried a— no, wait I can't say, 'I tried a girl.' That sounds really, really, wrong. A girl and I tried. It didn't work. Sands, this is a weird conversation. In the end I decided two things: no girls. Not ever. And no casual. It's not for me. But I had a massive, massive crush on this guy in Media University. Smokin,' and he had noooo idea."

She looked so eager and happy, I decided to go on. "Tall, dark skin, dark eyes you could stare into for days. Aaaaaand— I couldn't get him to talk to me. He was all absent-minded-professory. Totally dreamy and lost in his own thoughts. I'd see him glancing at me across campus, but he clammed up whenever I talked to him. He was two years older, anyway, so he was gone pretty quick."

"Was he really just shy or something? Did he date much?"

"As far as I knew it, he never dated. He was kind of a loner, always with his head in the clouds."

"You should ask him out, Peydran! Is he still in Media?" Was he? Was Ren around? Last time I'd looked, he'd been traveling all over. I looked at the augment. Metal touching hands. Metal on bare skin.

Ryst saw me looking at the augment. I tried to smile, "Maybe, Ryst. Maybe. I'll get there. Maybe."

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