Chapter 3

When I opened my eyes, Pat was standing beside the bed with a glass of milk.

"It's just a soft-tissue bruise. Nothing serious."

My hand went for my phone on reflex and closed on nothing.

"Give me my phone."

Pat looked away.

"Roderick thinks we should cut off your outside contact for a while. Otherwise you'll keep going to Dr. Matthews for painkillers and getting dependent on them."

Roderick came in carrying his notebook.

"Dr. Matthews's conservative plan isn't right for the stage you're at now."

"To keep it from interfering with your recovery, I deleted his number."

Pat held the milk out to me.

"Drink it. And stop looking at him like that."

I didn't take it.

Her patience ran out. She set the glass back on the table.

"The day you walk like a normal person is the day you get your phone back."

I didn't plead with her. There was nothing left in my eyes but a dull blankness.

The way I looked at her seemed to unsettle her. She turned and picked up the car keys.

"I'm taking you somewhere in a bit."

Half an hour later, she drove me to the foot of an abandoned pedestrian overpass on the edge of the city.

The steps were high and steep, the concrete edges chipped and crumbling.

My feet froze.

Three years ago, on this same overpass, Pat had almost missed a step. To catch her, I shoved her back and went tumbling down dozens of steps myself. Both legs shattered in multiple places, and it left me with a terror of stairs I couldn't shake.

From that day on, I never went down a flight of stairs on my own again.

Pat gripped my shoulders and pushed me toward the edge of the steps.

"Facing your fear is the only way to walk again."

I grabbed the iron railing beside me and held on for dear life.

"Pat, don't."

Roderick stood behind her, flipping open his notebook.

"Lucius, the muscle memory has to be rebuilt. You need to trust Pat. She's helping you."

Pat's palms pressed harder.

I was forced to the top of the steps, my support gone, both legs swaying like they'd give out beneath me.

"I'll fall and die."

Something flickered in Pat's eyes.

Roderick said in a low voice, "That's the fear talking. Don't let him drag you along with it."

She closed her eyes for a moment, and her voice hardened.

"Lucius, I'm so tired."

I froze.

Pat looked at me, her voice worn through with exhaustion.

"I just want you to go back to being the normal person you were, the one who could run and jump. Can't you spare a little sympathy for me too?"

I stopped struggling and let go of the railing.

Roderick slid an arm around her shoulders.

"Pat, step back a little. Don't give him any signals with your eyes. Desensitization is supposed to be like a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon."

They withdrew a dozen meters away.

Under the overpass there was only me, facing that long flight of steps.

Bracing myself on the concrete railing, I lifted my right leg, the one webbed with old fractures, and set it on the first step.

A pain like a drill bored up my spine and into my skull.

I bit down on my lip and didn't cry out.

Over three hours I climbed four flights. My knees scraped open on the concrete, and blood mixed with dust smeared across the hems of my pants.

Every time I forced myself up, I could hear the faint "crack, crack" from inside my bones.

Pat stood off in the distance for a long time. At one point she took a phone call and turned her back.

Roderick scribbled in his notebook, glancing up at me now and then, a smugness in his eyes.

I could hear my own breathing, very faint.

So it turned out they didn't want me healthy.

They wanted me to stop being a burden.

By evening, I finally reached the top of the overpass.

Pat came up, saw me drenched in sweat, and frowned deeply.

She handed me a tissue.

"Wipe your face. See? You did it after all."

I took the tissue with a trembling hand, but inside, my heart was going cold, inch by inch.