“Oh.” Her stomach gave a small, warning pinch.
“So I talked to an old college buddy of mine,” he rushed on, missing the shift in her voice. “I remembered he did a fellowship with a team studying peripheral nerve interfaces in humans. Have you heard of neural cuffs?”
She shook her head, a tight little motion, not trusting her voice.
“What they’ve done is just incredible,” he said, his excitement ramping up as hers did the opposite. “They wrap around damaged nerves and send signals past the lesion. Pairedwith a brain-computer interface, patients can control movement below their injury. It’s early-stage in people, but the data?” He shook his head, awestruck. “It’s unbelievable. Some folks regained voluntary knee motion.”
Her breath froze in her lungs as the first real words started to form in her head.
He wants to fix me.
“And that’s just the first thing,” he continued, not noticing her stiffen or the fact that she hadn’t said a word or reacted with the slightest…interest. “There’s also this stem-cell protocol—guided regeneration near the injury site. They use induced pluripotent stem cells. It could repair micro-damage. Combine that with epidural electrical stimulation and?—”
“Wade…” Her voice was barely a breath.
“And the robotics!” he barreled on, enthusiasm blinding him. “AI-driven gait tech. It reads micro-signals from your quads and translates them so you can walk with an exo-frame. Elise, you could hike, or dance, or?—”
“Wade.”
That time, her voice cracked and he finally stopped.
Confusion knit his brow. “What’s wrong?”
Elise blinked hard, fighting the sting in her eyes. “Why…why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I thought you’d want to know.” He leaned closer. “This is life-changing stuff. Real possibilities. I just…I wanted you to have hope.”
He wanted her to have hope—or he needed it himself?
“Hope for what?” she asked.
“For—” He swallowed. “For walking. Or standing. Or just…having more mobility and independence.”
Her entire body went icy. The barn, the falling snow, the warm light—all of it faded under the weight of his words.
“Do you think I’m not independent now?”
“What? No—Elise, no, that’s not what I mean.”
“You’ve been researching.” Her voice trembled. “Calling people. Studying things. Because you think I need to be fixed.”
His eyes widened. “Elise, no. That’s not?—”
“You literally said these treatments could help me have…hope. Make me normal, I suppose you mean.” Her voice cracked again. “So what am I now?”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“But that’s how it felt.” Her throat closed. “Like you see me as a lost cause you want to save.”
Wade shook his head. “I would never?—”
“You said that in the OR,” she continued. “That lost causes are your thing. That’s why you do oncology. And tonight, when you’re talking about all this research…it feels like I’m the lost causedu jour.”
“No! I’m not trying to fix you. I’m trying to help. To give you options. That’s what we’re both trained to do.”
“But you didn’t ask if Iwantedoptions.” Tears burned behind her eyes. “You didn’t ask if I’m okay with who I am now.”
He froze, some color draining from his cheeks.
