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

“Again.”

I swore at both of them.

Then tried.

My thigh shifted.

Less than an inch.

Maybe half.

Patel froze.

Tessa's hand flew to her mouth.

I looked from them to my leg.

“Did I—”

“Yes,” Patel whispered.

“Do it again.”

I tried.

Nothing.

Panic rose.

“Again.”

“Vincent—”

“Again.”

I shut my eyes.

Reached into that black silent space beneath my ribs.

Commanded.

Begged.

Something moved.

Tiny.

Ugly.

Real.

My left leg moved because I told it to.

I laughed.

Then, without warning, I began to cry.

Not dignified tears.

Not one cinematic drop.

I folded forward and sobbed so violently Patel had to steady me.

Six months of rage came out.

The bullet.

The bed.

The chair.

Arya's averted eyes.

Men who stopped visiting.

Every morning I had woken before opening my eyes and forgotten for half a second that I couldn't move.

Every half second of hope followed by memory.