Chapter 2

I lay on the floor like that until the sky went light.

Quinton walked over and dropped a set of outdoor gear on the ground.

He looked down at me, sweat-soaked and shivering, and his voice was flat.

"Get changed. At noon we're going out to the campsite to see some old classmates."

I shook my head. The pain was so bad I didn't even have the strength to sit up.

Quinton bent down, gripped my wrist, and hauled me up off the floor.

"An outdoor setting is the most effective stimulus. You can't sit in a wheelchair your whole life and deteriorate."

He yanked me hard enough to make me stumble, and red marks came up fast on my wrist.

"I'm not going. My legs can't walk."

Lena leaned in from the doorway, her voice coaxing, like she was talking to a child.

"Carol, running from it only makes the bone more brittle. You have to give Quinton a little faith."

Quinton glanced at her, and his eyes softened for a second.

When they turned back to me, his grip only tightened.

"Behave. Don't make this hard for me."

The sun at the campsite was harsh.

A dozen or so people stood around the grill, all friends who'd watched Quinton handle me so carefully these past three years.

Someone saw me and teased with a laugh.

"So his wife finally decided to get on her feet. It's been a rough three years for Quinton."

I stood at the edge of the uneven grass, leaning on a hiking pole, my ankle tightening in waves.

Lena handed me a cup of water and said to everyone, smiling,

"Don't look at Carol like she's disabled. Overprotecting her strips away her ability to survive. She can actually manage on her own now, right, Carol?"

A dozen pairs of eyes settled on me.

I opened my mouth, but the pain was so bad no sound came out.

Quinton sat in a folding chair, tapping the tabletop with his fingertip.

"Say something. Stop making people cover for you."

Someone laughed a little.

"Brittle bone disease isn't terminal. Come on, that's enough already."

"Right, Quinton's been circling around you day and night. Anyone would be worn out."

"Lena comes back and, a few tricks later, you drop the wheelchair. A professional really is different."

The words drilled into my ears like soft nails.

I gripped the hiking pole, and my body started to shake beyond my control.

Lena bent down and, as if by accident, pulled away the one empty chair beside me I could have leaned on.

"See, the regression's showing. Don't be scared, we're all helping you."

Her perfume drifted close.

It was the scent that had been on Quinton's clothes last night.

I flinched back hard, and my right foot came down in a hole. There was a single crack.

My whole body slammed to the ground.

Mud spattered onto Quinton's shoes.

The campsite went silent in an instant.

Quinton looked down at the mud on his shoe, wiping it slowly with a wet wipe, the veins standing out on the backs of his fingers.

I couldn't breathe through the pain. I curled up on the ground and dug my fingers into the roots of the grass.

"Back to the car. Quinton, please, take me away from here."

Before, at a moment like this, he would have crouched down without hesitation and carried me off steady on his back.

But this time, he only looked at me coldly.

"Are you done putting on a show?"

Lena caught his sleeve and pleaded gently, "Don't blame her. This is withdrawal. If you go pick her up now, all the desensitization work is wasted."

Quinton closed his eyes for a moment, then turned and sat back down.

He picked up his beer, his voice pressed very low.

"Carol Henson, get up on your own and walk to your seat."

I looked up at him.

Tears blurred my vision, and all I could see was how close he and Lena were sitting.

Lena passed him a tissue, her fingertips resting in his palm for a second.

He didn't pull away.

I stared at him in despair, tears dropping into the mud. "And if I can't get up?"

Quinton looked at me, nothing left in his eyes but tired indifference.

"Then stay down. I won't lift a finger for you again."

Someone said under their breath, "Quinton finally grew a backbone."

Lena raised her can and lightly tapped it against Quinton's.

"Quinton, you did well."

The whole crowd went back to laughing and talking. No one looked to see whether I was in enough pain to pass out.

Quinton even laughed along with them.

The string I'd held taut for three years suddenly snapped.

My fingers were still hooked into the mud, blood seeping out along the edges of my nails, and yet I felt no pain at all.

Slowly, I pushed myself up.

Quinton seemed to breathe easier.

"That's more like it. Stop making everyone revolve around you."

I threw down the hiking pole and dragged myself, step by step, toward the highway outside the campsite.

Quinton didn't come after me.

With shaking hands I fished my phone out of my pocket, meaning to call my orthopedic doctor.

But before I could hit the call button, everything went black, and the pain crashed over me all at once.