Diane’s legs had healed completely.
Not the dramatic, miraculous kind of healing people talked about—the kind that erased memory along with pain. Hers was slower. Intentional. Achieved with stubborn determination, aching muscles, and mornings where she stood in front of the mirror, stretching carefully, reminding herself that her body was not broken anymore.
The crutches were gone now.
They stood abandoned in a corner of her room, leaning against the wall like relics from a version of her life she refused to revisit. Sometimes, when she caught sight of them, her chest tightened—not from pain, but from memory. The helplessness. The humiliation. The night everything fell apart.
But she didn’t touch them anymore.
She didn’t need them.
Her legs carried her just fine now—up the stairs, do
