CHAPTER 2 – THE ACCIDENT THAT WASN’T SIMPLE
Nathan did not remember the crash clearly.
He remembered rain. Headlights. The slick curve near the cliff road. A sudden failure in the steering he had checked only a week earlier. Then pain, metal, glass, and Vanessa’s voice on the phone sounding shocked in all the right places.
The doctors called him lucky.
His family called it a miracle.
Vanessa called it tragic.
Nathan noticed that last word.
Not terrifying. Not heartbreaking. Tragic.
As if his accident were a public relations inconvenience wrapped in romance.
At first, he told himself trauma made people strange. Vanessa stayed beside his hospital bed for the first two days, posed for concerned photos, and cried softly when visitors arrived. But when they were alone, her patience thinned.
“You need to try harder,” she said once, while he struggled with physical therapy pain.
“I am trying.”
“You don’t understand. People are watching us.”
That sentence stayed with him longer than the pain.
His best friend and doctor, Miles Carter, noticed the tension too. Miles was the one who later discovered the recovery might be better than expected. Nathan’s legs were weak but not permanently useless. With therapy and time, he could regain movement.
“You should tell Vanessa,” Miles said.
Nathan almost did.
Then he heard her outside his hospital room talking to her mother.
“I can’t marry a man in a chair forever,” Vanessa whispered.
Her mother answered, “Then make sure the wedding still gives you leverage.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
That was the first crack.
So he stayed silent.
He let people believe he was helpless while his body slowly returned to him. He learned to stand in private. First three seconds. Then ten. Then a step. Then five. Every movement hurt, but every movement also revealed something no scan could show:
Who approached him with love.
Who approached him with calculation.
Vanessa failed every test.
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But Nathan kept waiting.
A part of him still wanted her to surprise him.
