Page 68 of Vital Signs
Too fast.
The crutches slipped, and my balance went. Luckily, I caught myself on the counter hard enough to rattle the dishes. Anya was there in half a second, hands on my arms, steadying me like this was us now.
Something in me snapped. “You don’t have to do this,” I said.
She frowned. “Do what?”
“This,” I gestured weakly between us. The kitchen. The house. The way she hovered without hovering. The way she watched my face for pain I refused to name. “You don’t have to want me anymore, Anya.”
Her hands stilled.
“I’m not?—”
“This can be over,” I said. The words tasted like rust. “Whatever this is. Whatever it was. You didn’t sign up for this.”
I finally looked at her.Reallylooked. Her eyes were bright in that dangerous way. She wasn’t crying yet; she was holding back.
“I’m broken,” I said quietly. “I can’t — I’m not who I was. I can’t give you—” I swallowed. “I don’t want you wasting yourself on me because you feel bad. Or because you’re kind. Or because you’re loyal to a version of me that doesn’t exist anymore.”
That was the truth I had been dancing around for over a week. Notjustthat I was broken. But that the man I was had vanished with my leg. “I won’t be offended,” I added, trying to make it sound noble. Trying to make it sound like permission instead of fear. “If you walk away. I’d understand.”
That part was true. Iwouldunderstand. I just wouldn’t survive it the same.
She stared at me like I had just spoken a language she didn’t recognize. Then she laughed. And it wasn’t a funny laugh, either. That sharp, disbelieving sound someone makes when their heart is cracking.
“Desmond,” she said softly. “Do you really think that’s what this is?”
“I think?—”
“You think I only love you when you’re useful,” she cut in. “When you’re strong. When you’re the one holding everyone else up.”
I didn’t answer. Because she wasn’t wrong.
“You think I want you because you can stand for twelve hours and run traumas and be unbreakable,” she continued, that spark of anger I loved so much causing her nostrils to flare. “Like that’s the part of you I fell for.”
Fell for.
Love you.
She hadn’t said it before, and it hit me like a physical blow.
“I want you because you’re you,” she said. “The man who stayed with a scared resident at three in the morning because she couldn’t stop shaking. The man who brings bad coffee to the night shift because he knows it makes people laugh. The man who held my hand in the ICU when you were the one bleeding and still tried to make me feel okay.”
My chest hurt. And this time… not phantom pain. Genuine pain.
“I don’t want you less now,” she said. “I want you more. Because now I see all of you. Not just the parts that make you feel impressive.”
I shook my head. “You shouldn’t,” I whispered through the tears burning at my throat. “I’m not?—”
She stepped closer. Close enough that I could feel her heat. Close enough that I could smell soap and hospital and something that was just so uniquely her. “You don’t get to decide what makes you worthy of love,” she said. “Not for me.”
That was the part that broke me.
Because I had been deciding that my whole life.
I tried to look away, but she didn’t let me. Anya grabbed my faceroughly. Not like a doctor or a caretaker. Like a woman touching the man she loved.
And in that moment, I understood something terrible and beautiful: My leg was gone. But her love hadn’t even flinched. Only my pride had.
