After They Spurned Me, I Took Back My Legs

I'd just picked up a few bottles of painkillers from the hospital when I spotted Nathan Green, my husband, standing by the entrance. Next to his leg stood a sullen five-year-old boy, grumbling under his breath. "Dad, why do you always have to bring Mom to her follow-up appointments? She's disabled, and she's stuck there for hours every single time. This is such a waste of time, I won't get to see Lena now. Mom's so annoying." Nathan's face turned even colder, if that was possible. "You think I want to be here? If she hadn't used that system to swap legs with me after the car crash and taken on the pain of my shattered legs, I wouldn't have been stuck with this moral obligation hanging over my head for all these years," he said. "Just suck it up. Once I drop her off at home, I'll take you to see Lena. The three of us can sleep together tonight." I sat frozen in my wheelchair, the paper bag holding my phantom limb pain medication crumpling slowly in my fist until it was a tight, useless ball. Nathan turned around, and his eyes locked onto mine. He didn't bother apologizing, and I didn't snap at him. I just spoke, my voice steady as a rock. "Nathan, let's get a divorce." He scoffed, utterly convinced I could never survive without him. But I reactivated the swap system right then. I vanished off the face of the earth, taking my billions in assets with me. News of our divorce blew up the top trending spots overnight, and his doting husband public persona completely crumbled. His company took a massive hit, and he went down hard, flat on his face, right on a red carpet at a high-profile event. From that day on, his legs were completely useless, and he suffered through searing phantom limb pain every single day. He searched for me like a man possessed. When he finally saw me, standing on my own two feet and thriving at the peak of my career, he broke down sobbing, "Honey, I was wrong. Please come back to me, okay?" That was the future, though. At the moment, I didn't show a single flicker of what I planned to do. The second we got back home that day, I brought up the divorce again. Nathan's eyes flicked over my wheelchair, a sharp flicker of disdain in his gaze. "I said I'd take responsibility for you, and I meant it. I'll take care of you for the rest of your life," he said. "You'll always be my wife. You'll live in the lap of luxury, keep your high social standing, and never want for anything. So don't you ever mention divorce to me again. How can you even leave this family? You can't even leave your wheelchair." He sneered. "Plus, who would want you? Who would even dare to want you, hmm?" At his words, a crushing wave of cold grief and absurdity slammed into me, knocking the breath right out of me for a split second. That old decision to swap our legs using the system felt like the most ridiculous, laughable mistake in the world right now. Just then, our five-year-old son Noah finished a call with his classmate and zoomed right past me like I was thin air. He dove straight for Nathan's legs, tilting his little face up, his voice practically bouncing with excitement. "Daddy! Daddy! My kindergarten's holding a parent-child sports day tomorrow! Teacher says both mom and dad have to come!" He shook Nathan's arm wildly, practically bouncing on his toes. "Can you bring Lena with you? She was so good at riding the scooter with me last time, and she promised to teach me how to jump rope!" I stared at this tiny human I'd carried for ten months, the one I'd almost died bringing into the world. I spoke up to set the record straight, "I'm your mom." My son turned to look at me, then glanced down at my wheelchair. His little eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and he asked like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Yeah, you're my mom, but how are you gonna join the games? You can't run, or do the long jump, or the three-legged race… you can't do any of that stuff." He huddled closer to Nathan, his voice trailing off to a small, quiet murmur. "I wish you weren't my mom. Lena's so pretty, she wears nice dresses and dances, and she takes me to the amusement park to ride roller coasters… If she was my mom, I'd be so happy." Those few careless words from my son shattered every last bit of patience and sacrifice I'd clung to all these years. What had sacrificing my legs gotten me? Not just my husband's loathing, but outright rejection from my own flesh and blood. "I used to dance too…" I murmured as I stared at my withered, useless legs, remembering the truth everyone had long forgotten. But Nathan cut me off sharply, his voice sharp with irritation. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? You trying to remind me that I owe you a pair of legs for the rest of my life?" He loomed over me, staring down with not a single drop of warmth in his eyes. "You gave me working legs, I married you, gave you the fancy title of Mrs. Green, all the fancy clothes, and the high-society status you get with it. What more could you possibly want? What else are you not satisfied with? I'm a normal man with needs! You can't give me the excitement I want, so obviously I'm going to get it from someone else." He scoffed. "Just act like you don't see or hear any of it, and know your place. We'll both have a way easier time that way. If you don't, don't blame me for being harsh with my words or my actions." His tone was dripping with unapologetic blame, no shred of respect for his own wife anywhere in it. I stared at those strong, healthy legs of his—legs that used to be mine, legs that held him up high above me right now. Then I glanced at my son, huddled close to his side and looking at me like I was a stranger he couldn't stand. A sharp, bitter sense of absurdity washed over me, drowning out every last bit of pain. I wasn't mocking them. I was mocking my old self, the stupid girl who threw everything away for love. Seven years. They'd gone from putting on a show of caring about me to making no secret of how much they despised me. My husband stopped updating me on his work travel itineraries entirely, and our son ran off to stay with other people whenever he got the chance. They hated that I couldn't stand up, hated that I didn't wear pretty dresses, hated that I couldn't do fun, thrilling stuff with them, hated that I was too much of an embarrassment to bring out in public. All the signs had been there the whole time. I'd just been lying to myself, clinging to the stupid hope that my family wouldn't ever go this far. Now, I finally snapped out of it. And for the record? He was the one being unreasonable here. Click. If I'd been able to give him my healthy legs once, I could damn well take them back.