Emma laid a hand on my back. “If it helps, you’ve always seemed whole to me.”
“Because you can’t see what’s underneath. I get phantom pains in my leg daily. I know it’s not really there, but sometimes, I can still feel the leshane biting through the bone.” I winced, as if I could feel it now. “It’s just my mind playing tricks on me. A fanciful illusion. Though it doesn’t stop my brain from thinking my leg is throbbing at the worst times.”
“Why haven’t you ever told me?” Emma’s eyes narrowed in concern.
“I’m pretty good at keeping a mask on,onawilke. I don’t let it slip, not even to myself,” I said.
I took a breath. “Sometimes... if I pretend like something’s not happening to me, I can convince myself it isn’t. I can never forget that I’m an amputee. But I can act like it doesn’t affect me.”
“That’s not true. I can tell it bothers you, Ethan. It’s written in your eyes every day,” Emma said softly.
I hated that I couldn’t hide it from her, or anyone else. “I realize that, Emma, and it kills me. I know at some point I’ll adjust, and become accustomed to it. But I’m resisting because I’ve had to adapt toeverythingsince my father died. It gets old, having to change all that you knew. Nothing’s the same anymore.I want to fight for a little normalcy, even if it’s already gone.”
“Then fight for a new normal,” Emma said. “There’s no use looking back or looking ahead. The only moment that matters is now, and what’s going to make you feel comfortable with your disability in this moment.”
“That’s the thing though, Emma. I can’t get comfortable,” I protested. “My prosthetic is top-of-the-line, but I still get sores and discomfort from using it, especially if it’s more than I should be. There are more days than not I’m walking around in pain.”
I scowled. “I know it’s because I should be resting my leg, and taking time off from my prosthetic, but I hate having it off. I don’t feel whole without it. I feel like less of a man.”
“But you aren’t, though.” Emma moved closer. “You’re just a person, like the rest of us.”
“I shouldn’t be complaining. I’m the lucky one. I lost my leg— my father lost his life,” I said. “And I’m responsible for that.”
“You’re not responsible. You have survivor’s guilt,” Emma said. “Don’t blame yourself for that.”
My shoulders tensed. “I hate knowing I have something that sets me apart. I never wanted to be different. I grew up as a royal— I’d never been excluded. Then that cursed leshane changed everything, and I became an outcast in my own home. Someone who had nothing to offer, a cripple with no value.”
“You want to know what I hate?” Emma asked. “When people say,if you don’t have your health, what do you have? My health is shit, and you know what? I have a lot. I have my friends, and my school, and you, and all the things I ever dreamed of doing. I’m still a whole person even though I’m sick. I think it’s quite discriminatory to say that if someone isn’t healthy, they have nothing. Because with so many disabled people in the world, that’s just not the truth. I don’t have to be healthy to have value.”
Emma looked at me. “And that’s true for you as well. You’re whole despite what you lost. On the inside and the outside. Having a disability can be awful. It can be gut-wrenching, and painful, and cruel.”
Emma shrugged. “And then sometimes, it’s just another day. I’m starting to think that my body’s just different from everyone else’s, and not necessarily in a bad way. It functions in a way that requires more care and more creativity, but that doesn’t mean my body is wrong, or undeserving.”
Her words inspired hope in me. “You think so?”
“Why not? My medicine is a tool to help me function. You don’t have a leg, so you use a tool to get around. It puts you apart from other people but doesn’t make you inferior. Like what you said once about Unseelie and Seelie fae. You don’t knowbetter, you just knowdifferent.”
She kicked out her legs. “I think Stefan was onto something when he said we needed to stop comparing ourselves. I’m sick of comparing myself to healthy, able-bodied people, because I’m never going to be one and I can’t judge myself by that standard. I live a completely different lifestyle. What they can do can’t match up to my own barriers.”
“When did you get so wise?”
“I didn’t. I accepted reality.” She tore her eyes away from the skyline to look at me. I have to be okay knowing I’m different, and become accustomed to possibly living a short life.”
“Onawilke, don’t talk like that.”
“But I’m not afraid of death. I’m afraid of living a life that doesn’t mean anything,” Emma said. “To live and be forgotten without making my mark on the world. I want to change people’s lives while I’m here. Even if the only extraordinary life I get to live is my own.”
“I fear nothing but losing you,” I confessed. “Everything else has been taken from me. You’re all I have in the world,onawilke.Which is why you’re going to die a very old lady, next to me in my bed. And not anytime sooner.”
She gave a coy smile. “Is that an order from my alpha?”
“Yes. And you’d better obey it.” I squeezed her tightly to me. Gods, to think of her death... never. I wouldn’t permit myself to fantasize about such a nightmare.
Emma let out another yawn. “Finally getting tired?” I asked.
“Yes. Which is strange. I think I can finally rest, with you by my side.”
“I know how you feel. I’ve been an insomniac myself since my father died. The first few weeks I slept all day and stayed awake all night. I couldn’t rest during the night.”
