“You assumed,” she said. “You assumed that I want to be fixed or saved or…improved. Or maybe it’s worse than that.”
He winced. “Worse?”
“Maybe you can’t think about an ‘us’ until both of us are…normal.”
Wade inhaled like she’d struck him. “Elise, that’s not it. I—I love seeing you exactly as you are.” His voice shook. “I wasn’t saying you needed anything. I was excited and stupid and I should’ve asked first.”
But the damage was already threading its way deep into her heart.
“I can’t do this conversation right now.” She turned her chair toward the open barn doors.
“Elise—please?—”
“My parents are waiting.” She grabbed the excuse and prayed it was true as she wheeled outside. Snowflakes kissed her cheeks as she looked around the dark for her parents, who were across the quad near the firepit, deep in conversation with old friends.
She headed that way, everything quiet except for the noisy, horrible, notnormalcrunch of her wheelchair rolling over fresh snow.
“Elise!” Wade hurried after her, reaching her side quickly. “I didn’t mean any of it the way it sounded.”
She didn’t turn. “Then why were you researching? Why look up ways to fix me?”
“Because I care. Because I…I wanted to help.”
“By changing me?” She wiped her cheeks with her sleeve. “By making me someone who can fit into your world?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Maybe not,” she conceded, her breath coming out in shaky puffs. “But that’s how it feels.”
“Elise, I don’t want to change anything about you,” Wade insisted. “Nothing. I swear. I just got excited about possibilities. I thought I was giving you good news.”
“Well, you made me feel like I’m not enough,” she said. “And do you really think I don’t know about some of those things? That I haven’t looked into…all the possibilities?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “We haven’t talked about it and that is entirely on me. I should have asked you first. Hundred percent. I’m sorry.”
She eyed her parents, watching them rise to say goodnight to their friends. Her eyes shimmered with tears she could no longer blink away.
“This was all too good to be true,” she whispered. “I should’ve known.”
“Elise—please—don’t say that. I care about you. I want to be with you.”
“You want tofixme,” she said softly, wheeling toward the firepit. “That’s not the same thing. Good night, Wade.”
“Will I see you tomorrow?”
She looked up at him, seeing the hurt and worry in his eyes, believing he was sorry, but that didn’t make this ache any less.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Thank you for the help. Merry Christmas.”
She got a glimpse of his face as she rolled away, the look in his eyes absolutely heartbreaking.
Who was she kidding? What made her think a guy like Wade Reynolds would want…a cripple?
Somehow, like she always did, she managed to bury her pain and the loss of the life she was supposed to have. She smiled and gave a wave to her parents, whose love had never wavered whether she walked or wheeled.
That’s what she needed in her life—not someone who wanted tochangeher. She couldn’t be changed, and if Wade Reynolds couldn’t accept that, then he was not the man for her.
There might never be a man for her, she knew, and that was just…fine.
