I could hear her shift slightly. Giving me space without leaving. “I hate that you have to see it,” I said, softer now. The truth that had been festering. The one thing I didn’twantto say.
“It’s not gone,” she said quietly. “That version of you. He’s not gone.”
“Feels like he is.”
Her hand moved, sliding up between my shoulders, then higher until her fingers brushed the back of my neck, the same way she didwhen she was trying to steady me without making it obvious. “You don’t have to be perfect at this nine weeks in,” she murmured.
“I’m not trying to be perfect.” It came out sharper than I meant. “I just don’t want to feel like this every time I take a step.”
Her fingers curled slightly at the nape of my neck. “You won’t,” she said, and when I dared to glance at her, a gentle smile curved across her face.
But there still wasn’t pity. “I don’t want you to have to do that,” I said quietly.
Her grip didn’t change. “Do what?”
“Catch me, fix me,” I muttered, my gaze dropping for a second before I forced it back up. “Hold me up like I’m?—”
Her hand slid from my neck to my jaw, fingers curling there, steady but insistent, forcing my attention back to her. “If you had fallen before, I would’ve caught you,” she said.
“That’s not the same.”
“Why?”
“I wasn’t like this,” I said instead.
Her thumb brushed slowly along my cheek, grounding, patient. “You’re still you.”
I let out a breath that almost felt like a laugh, but there was nothing light in it. “Doesn’t feel like it.”
Her other hand shifted, sliding to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair in a way that made something in my chest loosen despite everything else. “Then let yourself feel different, Desmond,” she murmured. “I thought we were learning together.”
I swallowed, my grip on her tightening without thinking, pulling her closer until there was no space left between us, until I could feel the steady rhythm of her breathing, the solidness of her beneath my hands.
I closed my eyes for a moment, letting my weight lean into her just enough to feel it — her steadiness, her presence, the way she held without making it feel like I was collapsing.
Chapter 48
Anya
Itold myself I wouldn’t hover.
I’d really meant it, too.
But it was a lie I carried into the emergency department with my coffee cooling in my hand and my spine locked so straight it hurt. Desmond walked beside me, not quite matching my pace, not quite lagging either — his temporary prosthetic hidden under dark scrub pants that still looked a little too new, a little too stiff, like they hadn’t adjusted to the shape ofhimyet.
He smelled of aftershave and stubbornness.
Everyone tried to be normal. That was the worst part. Claps on the back that stopped short of his left side. Jokes that landed a beat too late. Eyes that flicked down and away as if they were ashamed of being curious. Desmond grinned through all of it, chin high, voice steady, as if he performed the right version of himself long enough the world would forget what had happened.
HR had agreed to let him back on a conditional basis. Equal time spent sitting, doing paperwork, as he spent on the floor. I tried to talk him into more rest and less… mess. But he wouldn’t have it.
Automatically, he moved faster than he should have. I saw itimmediately — the way his shoulders tightened, the way his jaw locked when he turned too quickly to answer someone behind him. The micro-hesitation before each step, almost invisible unless you knew where to look. Unless you’d watched him relearn how to stand in his own living room with sweat dripping down his back and fury lighting his eyes.
“Again,” he’d said to the therapist that morning. Again, again, again — like repetition alone could bully his body into obedience.
When he reached for a stack of reports and twisted at the waist, and I saw the flash of pain before he swallowed it. My hands itched to steady him. To take the weight. To remind him that surviving wasn’t failure.
I wrapped my fingers around my coffee cup instead and watched him push too hard.
