My throat tightened. “This is my responsibility.”
“No.” His fingers closed around mine. “Getting better is your responsibility. Let me handle everything else.”
The prosthetics specialist began explaining the next steps, but I barely heard her. I watched Lev’s thumb move slowly across my hand. For weeks, I had looked at my future and seen nothing but everything I had lost… walking, working, dancing, and moving through a room without needing help.
Lev looked at the same future and spoke as though none of it was over. As though I was still worth investing in. As though my body hadn’t become too difficult to love. I tightened my fingers around his and for the first time since waking up after surgery, the future didn’t feel like a door that had slammed shut. It felt like something I might eventually learn how to walk toward.
CHAPTER 27
Navy ‘Nay’ Prescott
Months Later (27thBirthday)
By the time the makeup artist asked me to look up for the third time, my eyes had already drifted back toward the mirror and not on my face but my leg. The black silk of my dress had been arranged carefully over my thighs, but the slit opened whenever I shifted in the chair, exposing the sleek prosthetic beneath it. The socket had been custom-made to blend against my skin, while the lower portion was finished in polished black and brushed gold because Lev refused to let me choose something that looked like it belonged in a hospital supply closet. The microprocessor-controlled ankle adjusted when I walked, helping me balance on uneven ground and move more naturally in heels, though naturally was still a word I struggled to use when every step required thought.
I had spent months learning how to stand without looking down, how to trust the weight beneath me, and how to stop reaching for furniture every time I crossed a room. Some daysI moved well enough to forget what had happened for several minutes at a time. Other days, the socket rubbed against tender skin or phantom pain shot through toes I no longer had, and I wanted to throw the whole expensive contraption across the room.
Today, it fit perfectly. Lev had made sure of that too. He’d arranged for my prosthetist to come to the house two days earlier and adjust the socket after I mentioned once that the pressure near my knee felt different. By the time I woke up the next morning, the appointment had been handled, transportation had been arranged, and the woman who worked with my rehabilitation team was standing in the foyer carrying equipment.
That was how he loved me by listening when I talked, even when I thought he wasn’t paying attention, then quietly removed whatever problem stood in front of me. “Chin up, birthday girl,” the makeup artist said, gently lifting my face with two fingers.
“I’m trying.”
“You’re thinking too much.”
Everybody had been telling me that lately. The makeup artist’s name was Camryn, although I had heard Lev call her “the makeup lady” twice before she corrected him. A hairstylist worked behind me, running a flat iron through the last section of my hair while another woman steamed the bottom of my dress near the window. Together, they had taken over the sitting area of the bedroom as if they were preparing me for an awards show instead of dinner. At least that was what Lev claimed we were doing.
He’d refused to tell me where. All I knew was that he wanted me ready by seven and that I wasn’t allowed to wear anything simple or any of the loose clothes I had hidden inside since leaving the hospital. The dress had arrived that morning inside a garment bag, along with a pair of black heels made specifically towork with my prosthetic foot. The silk hugged my body without clinging too tightly, and the one-shoulder neckline left my collarbone bare. The slit began high on my left thigh and opened down the side, deliberately revealing the prosthesis instead of hiding it beneath layers of fabric.
My first instinct had been to ask for another dress. Then I remembered who I was dealing with. Lev had probably chosen this one because he knew I would try to hide. My phone rang on the vanity beneath a row of birthday messages. Since sunrise, flowers had arrived almost every hour. My former coworkers from the hospital sent an arrangement so large Lev’s housekeeper had to clear an entire table for it. Nurses from the emergency department recorded a video singing happy birthday in the break room, with two of them waving handwritten signs telling me they were still holding my position whenever I was ready.
I watched the video twice before answering. I missed working more than I expected. I missed twelve-hour shifts, bad coffee, and patients asking how long they would have to wait as if I controlled the entire emergency department. I missed moving without measuring every doorway. Mostly, I missed being needed for something that had nothing to do with what happened to me. My doctors kept reminding me there was no deadline. I could return when my body and mind were ready but neither one was there yet.
“Okay,” Camryn said, stepping back. “Look.”
She turned the chair toward the full-length mirror and for a second, I didn’t recognize myself. My hair fell straight and shining past my shoulders, parted down the center with each strand lying perfectly in place. My skin looked warm beneath the soft makeup, and the red lipstick she’d chosen made my mouth look fuller against the black dress. My diamond studs sat perfectly in my ears, which were another gift from Lev thatappeared on the vanity without explanation, and a thin gold bracelet circled my wrist.
I looked beautiful and just that realization choked me up. “Wow.”
Camryn caught my expression in the mirror and smiled. “Don’t start crying. I just finished.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I have allergies.” I lied.
“To your own reflection?” She smirked.
The hairstylist laughed behind me. I pressed the tips of my fingers beneath my eyes before the tears could disturb anything. “Y’all are annoying.”
“We’re also done,” Camryn said. She gathered her brushes while the other women packed their things. “And for the record, that dress was the right choice.”
I looked at my leg again. Before it happened, I would’ve thought a prosthetic leg only replaced what was missing. Nobody explained that it became something everybody noticed before they noticed you. Children stared without shame. Adults stared and pretended they weren’t. Women looked at me with pity. Men looked at me with curiosity or turned their eyes away too quickly.
However, Lev never looked away. There was a knock on the bedroom door before it opened. He stepped inside wearing black dress pants, a crisp white shirt, and a black jacket that looked made for his body. His beard had been freshly shaped, and the waves beneath his low haircut were still sharp from the barber. The cologne reached me before he crossed the room looking and smelling all expensive, the same scent that lingered on his side of the bed every morning.
He stopped halfway inside as his eyes moved over me slowly, beginning at my face and traveling down the length of the dress.They paused at the slit and the leg beneath it before returning to my eyes. The women exchanged looks and started gathering their bags faster.
