Renewal and growth

Chapter 3

The next few weeks flew by, with enough IV and bland hospital food Avery found herself at 100lbs. She was still a bag of bones but now you couldn’t see every single rib in her rib cage. Avery got up from her hospital bed earlier than normal this morning, today was that Roger was to pick her up. She slowly made her way to the mirror. Her face looked livelier with her sensitive sunken eyes starting to look normal. Avery touched her cheeks which were well on their way to returning to their natural fuller appearance. Then a knock emanated from the door, she leaned over and knocked back, still unable to speak properly.

Roger popped his head into the room first looking for Avery. She smiled as their eyes met and gestured for him to come in. He entered the room with a small canvas travel bag. Roger said, “I brought you a change of clothes its starting to get a little cold out there.” After placing the canvas bag on the bed, he took the contents out, and Avery grinned as she saw what he brought. She scribbled quickly on her board and showed Roger the reply: Perfect!!! Let me get changed, but first can you get some scissors? Roger read the message and gave a slightly puzzled look but obliged replying, “Give me a moment.” He turned to the door and abruptly left. A few minutes passed as he came back with a pair of medical shears. Avery had a message already written: Can you please cut my hair right above the split ends? Roger gave wary look as he said, “I’m more of a butcher than a barber but I can give it a shot.” Avery scribbled quickly: Whatever you can do is better than this. She showed off her extremely frayed hair to emphasize the point.

Roger walked over to Avery by the mirror as he said holding her hair where he thought she would want it cut, “So about here?” Avery gestured with her hand pointing upwards causing Roger to adjust his cut line until she switched from pointing upward to a thumbs up. With 4 slips all her split ends were removed. Her blond hair looked somewhat healthy now resting halfway down her neck. Roger threw the split end riddle remains in the trash Avery scribbled down: Thank you. My hair went from the longest its ever been to the shortest. They both chuckled after Roger read the statement. Roger said, “I will wait outside while you get changed, just knock when you’re ready.” He left the room gently closing the door behind him.

Avery then walked up to the clothes neatly laid out before her, and she took off her hospital gown. She couldn’t help but turn to the mirror again. Her breasts had gone from flat to barely an A cup with her time spent recuperating at the hospital. Her ribs were still highly visible as were her collar bones but the few pounds she did gain made her go from skeletal to just emaciated. Her thighs were still spindly, and her prized muscular butt was still nonexistent for now. She turned back to the spread of clothes before her. She first put on her extremely loose underwear before putting on a pair of sweatpants which required her to pull quite a few inches of drawstring out before she could tie them to stay on her boney hips. Then threw on a plain long sleeve t-shirt with felt like a tent and finally a sweatshirt with her college softball mascot and her number on the back.

Roger stood patiently to the right of the door out of the pathway of the hinges looking at his notepad crossing an item out with a few more lines below it he tapped with the tip of pen with the cap clenched between teeth. The door opened abruptly opened with Avery popping her head out to see if Roger was there and giggled a little at the sight of him with the cap in his mouth reviewing his notes before flashing her whiteboard: I’m ready. He took the cap out of his mouth stashing both the pen and the notepad, “Great. I will get the bag and we can check out.” Avery stuck her other hand out with the empty bag towards Roger. He replied, “Thanks. Now all we have to do is check out.”

They made their way to the front desk where the head nurse gave a little glare at Avery as she handed both Avery and Roger release forms and an oaktag folder with documents to Roger. After the forms were completed, they made their way out the front door to Roger’s car, He opened the passenger car door for Avery, she smiled and scribbled as fast as she could: Thank you. Roger grinned he closed the door behind her and quickly made his way around the front of the car do the driver’s side. A few minutes after they started driving Avery started to write on her board again, and once they got to a red light she showed him the message: Any update on why the Network failed, and any word on Jenna?

Roger looked at the message and said, “Well we still don’t know what happened. I do have an update on Jenna.” Avery’s eyes lit up and heart stopped, and Roger continued, “I have good news and bad news regarding Jenna. Good news is we were able to find her and save her. Actually, we saved her close to 5 months ago at the 3 months after the Network fail.” Avery gave a deep sigh of relief and quickly jotted down, “What’s the bad news????” Roger frowned, “Her pod failed a little differently from yours, she can still speak…” He paused as Avery raised an eyebrow and scribbled: WHAT? Roger cleared his throat, “The feeding system failed and just didn’t stop feeding her. After 3 months she gained 85lbs.” Avery’s eyes popped out of her skull when processed what exactly Roger just said. Roger followed up, “I pulled her file they gave her gastric bypass returning her stomach to a normal size and lost 15lbs already, but she is still very self-conscious about her size. I was able to reach out to her and there is a letter for you in the glovebox.” Avery instantly opened the latch for the glovebox and opened the letter.

After a few minutes’ silence Roger looked over to see Avery with tears in her eyes. Roger made the comment, “At my house I have a stack of stamps, notepads, and envelopes in the guest room waiting for you. I think it would be good for both of you to write and encourage each other.” Avery looked at Roger and nodded in approval with a big wide smile. Roger took a deep breath and said, “On another note, I saw your diploma on the wall when we rescued you from the Network pod. Were in a critical shortage of any engineers. I studied engineering in college, and the assembly asked all the available engineers to act as a consortium. Once we get you back to your old self, or if you feel up for it we could use the help with your mechanical engineering knowledge?” Avery smiled and then turned back to her whiteboard to write: So that’s why you wanted to take me in? Roger replied solemnly, “I just know what it’s like being underweight and trying to get to a healthy muscular size. The engineering part only made the decision easier.”

Avery grinned before turning back to the whiteboard and wrote quickly: Can I ask you a question? Roger saw the message and said, “What’s the question.” Avery quickly erased and wrote, “Why did you shave? You looked cute with a short beard.” Roger blushed a little as he replied, “Well normally I shave every other day. When I was trying to save people from their pods for 5 months, I didn’t shave at all. Now that they are wrapping up operations, I finally could take a deep breath and shave.” Avery nodded as the car turned onto a gravel driveway. They passed row upon row of a modern well maintained orchard driving up to a small collection of buildings and a nice large farm house. Roger said as he put the car in park outside the steps to the front porch, “Well here we are.”