Six months after a crash left me in a wheelchair, I went to prom expecting pity, silence, and to be quietly forgotten in some corner of the room. Instead, one person crossed the floor, changed everything, and gave me a memory that stayed with me for the next thirty years.
I never thought I would see Marcus again.
When I was seventeen, a drunk driver ran a red light—and in an instant, everything changed. Six months before prom, my biggest concerns had been curfews, dresses, and whether my friends liked the same songs I did. Then suddenly, I was waking up in a hospital bed, listening to doctors talk around me as if I weren’t even there.
My legs had been broken in three places. My spine was damaged. Words like rehab, prognosis, and maybe floated through the room like something abstract and distant.