DANCING ON MY OWN (Charlie Puth)

T W E N T Y E I G H T

Charlie's p.o.v

"Miss Hendricks, I believe it's time that we discuss the possibility of crutches." Her face lights up like a kid on Christmas morning at his words.

"Wait, really?" She is glowing with pure excitement, I haven't seen her this happy in a while. I mean, sure, she's generally happy, but the level of happiness on her face right now doesn't even compare.

"Yes. You are improving much faster than we had initially anticipated. It's going to be very difficult at first, because now your muscles are going to have to learn to support themselves again. But hear me now, this does not mean that you get to spend all day walking on crutches. The wheelchair will still be in your life. You can gradually increase your walking time per day as time passes, deal?" The doctor knows fully well how eager Mia is to recover, which means he knows that she would probably take advantage of this new opportunity.

She crinkles up her nose at the mention of the wheelchair, but nods her head nevertheless and shakes the therapists hand.

"I'll go dig some up, and we'll see what you can do!" He tells her with a smile before leaving the room.

"One step closer baby girl." She grins huge and throws her arms around my neck.

"I have happy tears!" She lets out a muffled laugh and a joyous tear slips down her cheek.

"I gotta tell everyone." I say as I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial Shawn. This is really big news for us, we weren't even sure that we would would make it this far, especially not so soon.

The therapist walks in with a set of crutches and I step over to the corner so I wouldn't be a disruption. Shawn finally answers.

"Hey man, what's up?" He greets.

"Hey are you around Camila?"

"Uhhhh yeah." He says with confusion laced in his tone.

"Cool, put it on speaker, I have something to tell you guys."

"Okay, you're on." Shawn cues.

"Mia's learning how to walk with crutches!"

"No way!" Shawn exclaims, and Camila squeals with delight in the background.

"You know what this means..." Shawn says, getting excited.

"It means we gotta fucking celebrate tonight. Have your asses ready by seven!" It sounds like Camila snatched the phone from Shawn to yell that in my ear.

"Okay, okay!" I wince, pulling the phone away from my ear before I go deaf.

We hang up after saying our goodbyes and I make my way over to Mia, who is struggling to keep herself supported with the crutches. I quickly swoop in and decide to be superman by helping her.

We spend the rest of therapy working on walking with the crutches and Mia starts to get the hang of it.

"It just feels so good to use my legs." She whispers, even though she's kind of frustrated that she hasn't perfected it yet.

When we get back to the apartment, Mia switches out the crutches for her wheelchair.

"Tired already?" I ask.

"Yeah, shush." She waves me off.

"Well, you better rest up, because Shamila wants to party tonight."

"Shamila? Is that a fucking ship name Charlie?" She rolls her eyes and laughs.

"Of course it's a ship name!"