Chapter 1

Three years into my diagnosis with brittle bone disease, Quinton Gilbert was the only reason I kept going.

He padded every table corner, laid non-slip mats over the floors, filled the bathroom with grab bars, and even lifted me out of bed like I might break in his hands.

"Take your time. I won't let you fall."

Then Lena Winfield came back from overseas.

She'd studied rehab medicine, and she told Quinton that everything he did only reinforced my identity as a patient.

"The more you protect her, the less she dares to live like a normal person."

Quinton was silent all night.

The next day, he took the padding out of the house.

"You're afraid to walk because you're always afraid of falling. Let go and you'll see it's really nothing."

Then he unscrewed the grab bars in the bathroom.

"You have to learn to live with a little risk."

He stopped turning me over in the middle of the night, stopped steadying me on every single step.

"You need to learn to depend on yourself."

Every time, Lena stood beside him and nodded.

"Yes. This is the right way."

In a mall corridor someone knocked into me, and I stood there trembling with pain, one hand braced against the wall. When I looked up, the two of them were already walking away side by side.

Lena: "Just a little longer. She's almost independent now."

Quinton: "How much longer?"

"Once she doesn't need you anymore, you'll be free."

The crowd surged past, and she took the chance to slip her arm through his. He didn't pull away.

That night, I walked into the bathroom alone.

Water was still running across the tiles.

The hand gripping the doorframe slowly let go.

……

By the time footsteps sounded outside the bathroom door, my body had already lost its balance, and I went down hard onto the slick tile.

My knee cracked against the hard porcelain with a dull thud.

The pain tore through my nerves in an instant, and I curled up, cold sweat soaking through my nightgown at once.

Quinton and Lena followed the sound to the bathroom doorway.

He saw me sprawled on the floor and panicked instantly, already bending down on instinct to lift me.

I saw his panic, and through the pain I reached out for him without thinking.

Before, if I so much as bumped myself, he would have carried me straight back to bed, checked every inch of bone, barely daring to breathe too hard.

He would have said, "Don't be scared. I'll take you to the hospital."

But Lena's hand caught his arm, her voice gentle and certain.

"Don't help her up, Quinton. She's using the posture of a victim to pressure you. If you go and lift her now, you're only reinforcing her regression."

Quinton stopped where he stood.

He looked at me, and the panic in his eyes gave way to a cold distance.

Lena went on, "This is textbook over-dependence. She knows you're terrified of her breaking a bone, so every time she uses her body as a bargaining chip. You can't keep playing along. You have to make her get up on her own."

Quinton pressed his lips together.

I lay in the cold puddle, a piercing pain drilling up through my shin.

He looked at me across the threshold, his voice dropping low.

"Carol Henson, look. It's not like you've broken an arm or a leg, is it?"

I froze where I was.

Lena shook her head slightly, the way you'd look at a child throwing a tantrum.

Quinton rolled up his sleeves, that tired coldness back in his voice.

"The floor's cold. Once you're done with the act, get up on your own. I'm not going to spoil you without limits like I used to."

The fingers I'd stretched into the air went stiff, inch by inch.

So my falling on the floor wasn't danger.

It was a performance.

I gritted my teeth and dragged myself up against the wall, little by little.

Every movement felt like broken glass grinding deep in my shin.

Quinton didn't turn around. He only said to Lena, "You're right. I spoiled her too much before."

Lena pressed a cup of warm water into his hand.

"You've already done so well. A caregiver needs space for his own life too."

At two in the morning, the pain in my leg wrenched me awake.

My right shin had swollen all the way around, and even the corner of the blanket brushing it made me suck in a sharp breath.

I pulled open the nightstand drawer and felt for the box of painkillers.

The drawer was empty, except for a single bottle of ordinary vitamins.

I stared at the plastic bottle for a long time, my palm gone cold.

Bracing against the wall, I inched my way to the study.

Quinton sat at the computer studying blueprints, the light from the screen washing over his face.

I set the vitamin bottle on the desk, my voice badly hoarse.

"Quinton, where are my painkillers?"

He kept his eyes on the screen.

"You won't need them anymore."

I gripped the edge of the desk, my knuckles going white.

"My leg hurts. It hurts down in the bone. Give me the medicine first."

Quinton finally looked up, his brow faintly creased.

"Lena says you've developed a psychological dependence on painkillers. This much pain is still within what you can bear."

Lena came out of the master bedroom.

"Carol, painkillers only mask it. You can't live on them forever."

Quinton shook out a single vitamin and set it on the edge of the desk.

"Take this. Get through tonight and you'll be fine. Stop treating yourself like porcelain that shatters at a touch."

The pain bent me double, and I clung to the chair, unable to straighten up.

He shut the computer and stood, as if his patience had finally run dry.

"I have to be up early for work tomorrow. Don't drag this out too long."

Half-kneeling on the floor, I caught the hem of his clothes with my fingers.

"Quinton, please."

His steps paused.

Lena murmured a reminder. "Quinton, she's testing how far you'll obey."

The hand at Quinton's side tightened, then he pulled his leg free and walked toward the master bedroom.

"If it hurts, tough it out yourself."

The lock clicked shut.

I lay flat against the freezing floor, a tearing pain rising from deep in the bone, hurting so much that even my breathing shook.