Chapter 1

In the third year after my brittle bone disease was confirmed, Pat Gilbert was the only reason I kept going.

She padded every corner of the furniture, laid non-slip mats across the floor, filled the bathroom with grab bars, and even helped me out of bed with the most careful hands.

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

Then Roderick Winfield came back from abroad.

He'd studied rehabilitation medicine, and he said the way Pat did things only reinforced my identity as a patient.

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

Pat stayed silent all night.

The next day, she pulled out the padding from around the house.

"He only won't walk because he's always afraid of falling. Let go, and it's really nothing."

Then she stripped the grab bars out of the bathroom.

"You have to learn to live with these risks."

She stopped turning me over in the middle of the night, stopped steadying me on every step of the stairs.

"You have to learn to rely on yourself."

Every time, Roderick stood beside her and nodded.

"Right. This is the correct approach."

Someone slammed into me in a mall corridor, and I clung to the wall, shaking with pain. When I lifted my head, the two of them were walking off side by side.

Roderick: "Hold on a little longer. He's almost able to be independent."

Pat: "How much longer?"

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

The crowd surged past, and he took the chance to slip an arm around her shoulders. She didn't move away.

That night, I walked into the bathroom alone.

Water still ran across the floor tiles.

The hand gripping the doorframe slowly loosened.

……

By the time footsteps came from outside the bathroom door, my body had already lost its balance, and I went crashing down hard onto the wet tile.

My knee struck the hard porcelain with a dull thud.

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

Pat and Roderick followed the sound to the bathroom doorway.

She saw me lying on the floor and panicked, moving on instinct to help me up.

I saw her alarm, and through the pain I reached out toward her without thinking.

Before, even the smallest bump and she would have carried me straight back to bed, checking every inch of bone, hardly daring to breathe too hard.

She would say, "Don't be scared. I'll take you to the hospital."

But Roderick reached out and caught her by the arm, his voice sure of itself.

"Don't help him, Pat. He's using the posture of the weak to pressure you. If you go to him now, you're just reinforcing his regression."

Pat stopped in her tracks.

She looked at me, and the alarm in her eyes gave way to a calm, distant coldness.

Roderick went on. "This is textbook overdependence. He knows you're afraid he'll break a bone, so every time he uses his body as a bargaining chip. You can't keep going along with it. You have to let him stand up on his own."

Pat pressed her lips together.

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

She looked at me across the threshold, her voice dropping low.

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

I froze where I was.

Roderick gave a slight shake of his head, the way you'd look at a child throwing a tantrum for no reason.

Pat folded her arms, that tired coldness back in her voice.

"The floor's cold. When you're done with the act, get up yourself. I'm not going to spoil you without limits the way I used to."

My fingers, still reaching into the air, stiffened one by one.

So my falling to the floor wasn't danger.

It was an act.

I gritted my teeth and pushed myself up against the wall, inch by inch.

With every movement, it felt like broken glass was stabbing deep in my shin.

Pat didn't look back. She only said to Roderick, "You're right. I used to spoil him too much."

Roderick pressed a cup of warm water into her hand.

"You've already done so well. A caregiver needs her own space to live too."

At two in the morning, the pain in my leg dragged me out of sleep.

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

I pulled open the nightstand drawer and reached 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.

Holding on to the wall, I moved to the study one step at a time.

Pat sat at the computer, studying blueprints, the light of the screen falling across her face.

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

"Pat, where are my painkillers?"

She kept her eyes on the screen.

"You won't need them anymore."

I braced myself on the edge of the desk, knuckles white.

"My leg hurts. It hurts inside the bone. Just give me the medicine first."

Pat finally looked up, a faint crease between her brows.

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

Roderick came out of the master bedroom.

"Lucius, painkillers only relieve. You can't live on them forever."

Pat shook out one vitamin tablet and set it on the edge of the desk.

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

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

She closed the laptop and stood, as if her patience had finally run out.

"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 her clothes with my fingers.

"Pat, please."

Her steps paused for a moment.

Roderick lowered his voice. "Pat, he's testing how obedient you'll be."

Pat's hand tightened at her side, then she pulled her leg free and walked toward the master bedroom.

"If it hurts, get through it yourself."

The lock clicked shut.

I lay facedown on the cold floor, a tearing pain rising from deep in the bone, so fierce that even my breathing shook.