Home Entertainment Game Technology Six months after a bullet left me paralyzed, my fiancée secretly ordered the staff to stop my afternoon therapy because she believed helping me was pointless, but the exhausted aide earning twenty-five dollars an hour refused to treat me like a lost cause. I had spent my life surrounded by men terrified of my name, yet it took one brutally honest woman washing my back to make me realize the person wearing my engagement ring had already abandoned me.352

No celebration.

She only said, “Tomorrow we try thirteen seconds.”

That became our secret.

At three every afternoon, I worked.

Some days nothing improved.

Some days I got worse.

There were mornings when spasms left me exhausted before breakfast.

Afternoons when I couldn't balance without both hands.

Once I threw a resistance band across the room.

Tessa picked it up.

“You done?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

She began packing the equipment.

I watched her.

“That easy?”

“You said you're done.”

“I am.”

“Then I'll tell Patel.”

She zipped the bag.

Something in me flared.

“That's it?”

She looked at me.

“What do you want me to do, Vincent? Give you a speech?”

It was the first time she had used my first name.

“You've been pushing me for weeks.”

“Yes.”

“So push.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can help you stand. I can't make you want to.”

Silence.

Then she added, “And if you're going to quit, at least have the courage to admit you're quitting. Don't blame your body for the decision.”