Because I can feel my chest. My arms. My hands. I can make fists, can grip the bedrail hard enough to make my knuckles white. But below my waist? Nothing. Just a void where my legsshould be, like someone erased half my body and forgot to tell me about it.
The first time I tried to move my toes—really tried, put all my focus into that one simple movement—nothing happened. The signal traveled down from my brain and disappeared somewhere around my lower spine. Gone. Lost. Like trying to control limbs that don't exist anymore.
The panic that followed was immediate and visceral. I grabbed the bedrail and hauled myself up, ignoring the screaming pain in my chest, desperate to see them. To confirm they were still there even if I couldn't feel them.
They were there. Pale. Thin. But there. Just not mine anymore. Not really.
That's when the nurse came rushing in, telling me to lie back down, that I needed to stay calm, that the doctor would explain everything. Like there's a good way to explain to someone that their body betrayed them.
The doctor came maybe an hour ago. Or two hours. I can't keep track. He had that careful, measured way of speaking that doctors use when the news is bad but they're trying to soften it with technical jargon.
Spinal cord damage. Lumbar region. The bullet didn't hit the cord directly but the swelling, the trauma, the surgery—all of it damaged the nerves. Partial paralysis. Some sensation in my upper thighs but nothing below my knees. Motor control severely compromised.
Will it get better?
Maybe. With physical therapy. With time. Six months minimum before we know the full extent. Could regain most function. Could be like this permanently. Too early to tell.
How long have I been out?
Three weeks.
Three weeks of nothing. Three weeks of the world turning without me. Three weeks of my body lying here useless while my club, my people, my responsibilities all continued without me.
I want to ask about Valentina but something stops me. Fear, maybe. That she moved on. That three weeks was too long. That she realized she doesn't want a man who might never walk again.
So I don't ask. I just lie here in this too-bright room with machines beeping their steady rhythm and my legs lying dead beneath the blanket.
The door opens. I expect another nurse with another goddamn penlight.
It's Zay.
He stops in the doorway when he sees me propped up, eyes open. For a second his face goes through about five different emotions—relief, joy, grief, fear—before settling on something carefully neutral.
"You're really awake," he says, voice rough like he's been screaming or crying or both.
"No shit," I mutter. My voice sounds wrong—unused, rusty, like it belongs to someone else. "How long?"
"Since you woke up? About two hours. They called me right after," he says, crossing the room to drop into the chair beside the bed like his legs won't hold him anymore.
"No. How long was I out?"
"Three weeks." He leans forward, elbows on knees, and I can see it now—the exhaustion carved into every line of his face. The dark circles under his eyes. The way his shoulders curve inward like he's been carrying the weight of the world. "Three fucking weeks, X."
The number sits wrong in my head. Three weeks of nothing. Three weeks of darkness.
"Fuck," I say.
"Yeah," he agrees quietly.
I lean back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling. "How much do you remember?" Zay asks.
"Gunfire," I say, closing my eyes and pulling at the fragments. "Getting shot. Someone shouting. Then nothing."
"That's probably for the best," he murmurs.
"My legs." I open my eyes to look at him directly. "The doctor said?—"
"I know what the doctor said," Zay interrupts, voice careful and controlled. "Partial paralysis. Might get better. Might not."
