"Carrying another person's whole life on your shoulders. It wears you down."

"Reginald, I saved you because I chose to. I never wanted to guilt you into it, never wanted to hold some debt over you."

"How about this. Just put me in a nursing home."

But Reginald refused, flat out.

"Don't be so cruel to me, Priscilla."

"Let me stay by your side and take care of you."

"This isn't suffering for me. It's redemption."

But now, that redemption had turned into suffering, completely and utterly.

And this relationship should have ended too.

I don't know how many bottles Reginald put away that night.

I don't know how many times I said I was sorry.

Until he was so drunk he could barely stay conscious.

He gripped my hand and asked.

"If you could do it all over again, would you still save me in that accident?"

I nodded without hesitation.

Of course I would.

Even if it left me crippled. Even if it cost me my life.

I would never let anything happen to Reginald.

But he pushed me away, a bitter little laugh on his lips.

"If I could do it over again."

"I'd shove you away as hard as I could."

"Priscilla Fox, I don't want to owe you anymore."

Looking into his eyes, I froze for a moment.

Then something in my nose stung sharp.

So it turned out they were right after all.

A great kindness becomes a great grudge.

I never once meant to trap Reginald with the debt of what I'd done.

I only, only wanted to keep him from getting hurt.

And yet, in the end, he was the one I'd trapped.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!"

If that was how it was.

Then in the next life, I'll keep my distance. I won't save you again.

Reginald was dead to the world.

But the tears kept sliding from the corners of his eyes, on and on.

His heart was full of bitterness.

If I go two days without changing the bedding, sores break out on my skin.

My stomach is weak too. Prepackaged meals always upset it, always leave me doubled over with cramps.

So Reginald cooked every single meal for me with his own hands.

And then there were the medical bills, the enormous ones.

After I lost my leg, my parents cut all ties with me and moved abroad.

The last thing they said to me was this.

"As far as we're concerned, we never had this daughter."

So in this whole country, all I had left was Reginald.

He couldn't stand to watch me rot in the mud like some useless thing.

So he worked himself half to death, earning money, then came home and cared for me day and night.

No matter how exhausted other people get, at least they have room to rest.

But he'd been chained to me, this dead weight, for three years.

Never once able to catch his breath.

"Don't cry, Reginald. It's all my fault..."

I turned my wheelchair gently and stopped beside him.

Carefully I reached out to wipe away his tears.

But he caught my hand on instinct.

"May, don't go..."

"Don't leave me."

I went still, my expression frozen along with me.

May. May McClain.

That was the name of the girl from earlier that day.

I'd heard they met while he was working one of his side jobs.

Reginald worked himself to the bone at those jobs to earn my medical bills.

All so he could fit me with the most expensive prosthetic leg.

And him, working that hard, shining bright in the middle of the crowd, that was exactly what caught May's eye.

May was a college student who'd come back from studying abroad.

They were kindred spirits who fell for each other at first sight.

They'd often have lunch together, take walks together.

They'd even talk about their dreams for the future, their philosophies of life.

I knew that, to pursue Reginald.

May had given up the whole prestige of being a returnee from studying abroad.

She'd actually gone and taken a part-time job at a coffee shop right downstairs from our place.

Just so she could see Reginald Gilbert every single day.

That was it.

Even the mug I'd broken by accident.

It was the one May McClain had given him with her own hands, on his birthday.

No wonder he'd been so furious when it shattered.

I even remembered how, every time he took me out for a walk.

Reginald always made a small detour, bringing me to sit for a while at that café.

He'd order only the cheapest coffee on the menu.

Sipping it in tiny sips, drinking it slowly, so slowly.

When we left, May would chase after us and press a paper bag into his hands, saying it held fresh-baked cinnamon rolls.

When Reginald took it, his ears went red.

Yet all he gave was a polite, gentlemanly thank-you.

I sat in my wheelchair, tilting my head up to look at the side of his face.

And that little ache in my chest, I forced it back down.

The truth was, I should have known long ago.

The moment May McClain appeared.

Reginald had stopped belonging to me.

And I couldn't use the fact that I'd saved his life.

To bind him to my side by force.

He was born to be a bird that soars a thousand miles; he should fly toward the sky that belonged to him.

So that night, while Reginald was in the shower, I dug through his contacts and reached out to May.

"Hello, is this May?"

"Who is this?"

"It's Priscilla Fox."

The other end went silent for a moment.

"What do you want from me?"

"Could we meet in person?"

Sitting across from me at the café, May was so lovely to look at.

"I only think of Reginald as a brother."

"I think… he should have his own life, a home, a career of his own."

"May, could you help me talk him into it? Into giving me up?"

May let out a cold little laugh.

The look she gave me carried a trace of hostility.

"Aren't you the one who's been clinging to him all this time, holding your life-saving debt over his head?"

"Are you really that kind-hearted?"

I lowered my head.

"I never wanted to cling to him."

"Before, it was my fault. I held Reginald's whole life back."

"But now, I'm letting him go."

The guardedness and hostility in May's eyes slowly faded.

"So you do have a conscience after all."

In the days that followed.

Reginald came home later and later.

And the smiles on his face grew more and more.

When he went to shower, I leaned in close and smelled his clothes—there was a faint trace of perfume.

Exactly the same scent I'd caught on May that day at the café.

Reginald still did all the things that came with caring for me, every day.

But his movements grew more and more mechanical, like a robot running a preset program.

When he wiped me down.

He no longer spoke to me, just kept his head down and worked.

When he massaged my legs, he was rushed too; sometimes he'd finished before I even registered it.

Then he'd take a call and hurry off again.

Even on my birthday, he was out the entire day.

From the moment the sun rose, I'd been praying quietly in my heart.

"Please, please."

"Please let Reginald remember that today is my birthday, all right?"

"Let me have the last birthday cake of my life."

Every year before, Reginald would buy me a big cake for my birthday and let me make a wish.

But this time, I waited from before dawn until the sky went dark, praying quietly all the while.

And that cake never came.

Neither did Reginald.

At ten that night, I only got a phone call from him, full of apology.

"Sorry, Priscilla, I was busy working today and forgot to come home to make you dinner."

"There's some leftover rice in the fridge. Just heat it up and eat."

But in the background of the call came May's excited voice.

“Reginald, come look at this one. Isn't it beautiful? Do you think it suits me?”

Reginald sounded flustered. He mumbled a few words and hung up in a hurry.

After the call ended, I sat by the window and stared into nothing the whole night.

Reginald didn't come home all night.

Dawn was almost breaking, and he still hadn't come back.

I turned my wheelchair slowly and rolled into the bedroom.

With great effort, I reached the trunk buried at the bottom of everything and opened it.

Inside lay a wedding gown.

The wedding gown I had secretly hidden away.

Reginald had bought it for me.

He always said he'd work himself to the bone to earn the money, that he'd heal my leg.

And on the day I could stand again,

he'd give me a splendid wedding.

So I pressed the gown down at the bottom of the trunk, and I waited, and waited.

Waiting for the day I could stand, so I could put on this gown looking beautiful, and marry Reginald in glory.

But that day would never come for me now.

So with trembling hands, I picked up the scissors.

Again and again.

Until it was shredded to pieces.

“Reginald.”

I said softly, and yet I laughed until the tears came.

“You don't have to be trapped by me. I'm setting you free.”

But I never expected it. The moment I finished cutting the gown apart and threw it in the trash,

Reginald walked in, saw the scene, and his face went dark.

“It was perfectly fine. Why would you cut it to pieces?”

That wedding gown had cost Reginald three months of savings when he bought it.

Bought so I'd have something to hope for, a reason to stand again.

Like a child who'd done something wrong, I bowed my head low.

“Because……there's no use for it anymore.”

“Who says there's no use for it?”

My head snapped up. I stared at him, stunned.

But the next second, Reginald gave my head a helpless little pat.

“I talked it over with May.”

“Going on like this isn't any kind of solution.”

“So I've arranged a blind date for you.”

My mind went blank.

“……A blind date?”

“That's right.”

Reginald's tone was gentle, a rare thing. He said there were plenty of good men out there.

That even though I was disabled, I was still a kindhearted girl, one who deserved to be treated well.

That maybe I'd meet a good man, someone who could take care of me for the rest of my life.

I only listened obediently, and then I nodded.

“I'll do whatever you say.”

“I know Reginald would never do anything to hurt me.”

Reginald smiled, satisfied.

“Priscilla's such a good girl.”

When the neighbors heard that Reginald had arranged a blind date for me, they couldn't stand it, and one after another they came to talk me out of it.

“This is Reginald treating you like dead weight, plain and simple. He's sick of you, that's why he's so set on marrying you off.”

“No wonder he's been getting so close to some other girl lately, making eyes at her.”

“Turns out he's been carrying on an affair!”

“What did he say back then? He said outright he'd care for you like a wife.”

“And now? How can he be such an ungrateful wretch?”