“I guess now you have two hearts. Hang onto that one, I may need it someday.” Sam’s father joked, pointing to the purple medallion hanging from Sam's hospital gurney. He had never been a great father to Sam, but Sam had never needed him to be. From age 8, Sam had been able to take care of himself. His friends and family all looked up to him. He was their strength. Truth be told, he was a lot of things. He was a hard-working young man with a bright future and a nervous laugh. But the world never stops turning. And for Sam, it all went by too fast. The average person gets 27,375 days to build a life for themselves. But it only takes one day for it all to come crashing down.

“You served your country well, son. It’s gonna be alright.” Sam’s father hated awkward silences. He patted Sam on his shoulder and said "I'm proud of you," as he left the room. It was a cliche Sam had anticipated, and it meant nothing to him. 'What is so great about pride?' he thought to himself. Sam lost both of his legs serving in Iraq, and had not spoken a word since. For months, he didn't smile, he didn’t cry. He just sat there, cycling through the same thoughts over and over in his head, trying to pinpoint the exact moment that changed his life forever.

Sam thought it was a good idea to enlist after high school. His mother had just passed away, and he didn't have money for school after all they had spent on her cancer treatment. His attempts at a baseball scholarship never panned out. And, Carla, the girl of his dreams, told him she thought a man looked good in uniform. That was enough to convince him to enlist in the most dangerous occupation on the planet. “Sign me up,” he said to his local recruiter. He was thinking about her and dreaming of their future together when he signed up. He was thinking about her when the bomb took his legs away too.

Sam was playing cards that fateful day. He had promised his late mother he would never gamble. But it wasn't the first time he had broken a promise. He promised Jessica, his childhood sweetheart, he would love her forever too. That ended the moment Carla came into the picture. She got him thinking he could do better. If you’re a nine, why settle for an eight? ‘I should be with a nine, or maybe even a ten.’ Sam thought to himself. ‘I should be with a hot blond with a nice pair of legs, like Carla’s legs.’

Sam was stationed at the lookout. He was in charge of everyone's safety. He was the one with the gun. "Sammy." Garcia, Sam's best friend, called out to him. "Not now, man, I'm on a roll." Sam replied. "Sammy, you should come look at this." Sam came over and saw a van in the distance speeding towards them. A soldier near the gate rushed ahead and signaled for the vehicle to stop.

When the lighting was just right, Sam could see the driver was a young mother, with what appeared to be three kids in the back. The children were crying. "Stop! Khalass! Khalaas!" The soldier cried out to them. But the van didn't stop. Instead it sped up, crashing through the gate. "Fuck," Sam said to himself. He pointed the rifle at her, and screamed for her to stop. With tears in her eyes, she slammed on the accelerator. The Children screamed. Sam got off a round, a bulls-eye. The kids screamed louder but it was too late. Sam's hesitation gave the van just enough time to crash into the lookout post. The vehicle exploded, for it had been rigged with explosives. And then the screaming stopped.

Sam doesn’t remember much after the explosion, only that he was subsequently rushed to a nearby hospital in Baghdad. When he regained consciousness, he screamed and flailed around unable to grasp what transgressed. But the nurses restrained him. His legs were gone. He had burns on his sides and significant spinal damage from the waist down. But he still had some feeling left in the stubs of his flesh, just enough to still feel the pain. The pain, however, was not the worst part. The worst part was the smell, the smell of his burnt dead flesh. He wanted to puke. It wasn't until weeks into his recovery that Sam discovered Garcia had perished in the explosion.

After Sam’s father left the hospital, Carla stopped by to visit. Sam was mortified to discover she had brought a man with her. The man wore a baseball cap on backwards and Ray Ban sunglasses with the price tag still attached. He introduced himself as “Jelly, you know, from TV.” She told Sam that Jelly was a reality TV star, and the two were getting married. Mr. Jelly was nice enough to give Sam an autographed picture of himself. “Anything for the troops. No charge.” He said with a smirk, while making an obvious attempt to avoid eye contact with everyone in the room. All Sam could do was laugh. Sam always laughed when he was in pain. And there was not a moment in his life more painful than that one.

Rehabilitation was grueling, and Sam’s sudden vow of silence and lack of willpower did not help the process. At first, he would be taken from the hospital to the therapist’s office every morning and dropped back off at the hospital every night. After several weeks of this, Sam was permanently relocated to his own living quarters within the Rehab center. Everyone kept reassuring him that he was receiving the best treatment possible. The nurse even said his therapist was the same one that treated the NFL’s own Adrian Peterson after his injury. She would smile at Sam as he glared back at her.

There were others living at the rehab center as well. There was Georgiana, another vet who lost her left foot, Katie, a college student who broke her spine in car accident, and Rosa, an old lady with a rare bone disease, but no Adrian Peterson. Apparently, the football star was only at the facility for a day, to use some of their equipment, and left shortly thereafter. He held the door for Rosa, and she won’t stop talking about it.

Georgiana’s husband brought her kids in to see their mom every morning. “Mommy, mommy, is he ok?” They would say as they passed by Sam’s room. “He’s fine honey. He’s a soldier, like mommy.” She would say with a concerned look on her face. Sam never spoke with any of them. He just sat there, staring out his window, thinking about that fateful day.

Katie, the wheelchair-bound college student, would occasionally come to visit Sam around lunch-time, if only to ask for his pudding. Sam wouldn’t say anything, which Katie took for an affirmative. “It’ll be alright, you know.” She said as she touched Sam on the shoulder. Sam shuddered at her touch, frightening Katie, who immediately pulled her arm back. No one had touched him so gently since the incident.

“My daddy was a cop. I always worried about him. Funny how things turned out.” Katie said. Sam didn’t reply. He simply stared out the window. So Katie decided to stare with him.

As the days went by, Katie’s visits became more and more frequent. It was Katie who got Sam to start talking again. They talked about random bits and pieces of their lives – the male nurse they both thought looked like Zach Galifianakis, Katie’s sailor-mouthed professor, Sam’s negligent father, his funny mother. But most astonishingly, she got Sam thinking about his future. But as soon as she’d leave his room, Sam snapped back to the reality of his limitations.

About a month after Sam moved in, Georgiana was released, at which time she saluted Sam on her way out. Rosa transferred out a week later, but merely to a different facility. But Katie kept coming everyday for Sam’s pudding, like clockwork. Until one day, she just stopped coming. Worried something had happened, Sam hopped in his wheelchair and wandered up and down the hall for about a minute before realizing he had never been to Katie’s room before. Without saying a word, the nurses smiled and pointed Sam in the right direction.

When Sam got to Katie’s room, the nurse had already finished helping her pack. "The doctors say I can go home. So I guess this is goodbye." She said, as she rolled herself over to hug him. This came as quite a shock to Sam, but all he could mutter was "Oh, ok." For some reason, he suddenly found it hard to look at her. So he just stared out the window instead. Deep down, Katie did not expect Sam to say much. But she hoped he would at least say goodbye. But Sam just kept staring. This angered her.

For the first time in her life, the usually calm and collected Katie was overcome with a rush of emotions. "What are you staring at? What's so great out that window? All you do is sit there. I've been visiting you every day for two months. Can't you take a hint? I don't even like pudding.” Katie cried out, fighting back tears. “I get it. We lost a lot. My boyfriend stopped talking to me since the accident. My parents are broke from all the money they're spending on me. I hate my life too. But I don't want it to be like this forever. I dont..."

"That's enough sweetheart." The nurse said, as she placed a hand on Katie's back, then proceeded to wheel her out of the room, shaking her head as they left.

Sam was speechless – a response which was now practically automated. For the past two months, the only thing Sam could think about was that fateful day. He repeated it in his head, thinking of how he would have, should have done things differently. Maybe if he had been more prepared, or better trained, or made better decisions, or maybe if his mom didn’t have cancer. Things could have been different. He was stuck in the past. Sam was stuck in that moment of time, cursed to replay that day over and over again in his mind, because that was the day that changed his life forever. Suddenly, Sam came to a stark realization.

"W... wait." He said, but his voice was parsed and soft. 

"Wait, wait." He cried out again.

"Wait!"

Every day is a day that can change your life forever.

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