I used to be a top ballet dancer.

The year I was diagnosed with a spinal hemangioma, my boyfriend Julian Blackwood said, "Wherever you go, I go."

We'd been together three years.

He walked beside me as I went, step by step, from the most luminous dancer on that stage to a woman in a wheelchair.

Every time the nerve pain hit and I collapsed, he was the one who lifted me off the floor.

Every round of electrostim and acupuncture, he sat in the corridor outside the therapy room and waited for me to come out.

Before I got sick, he promised me—the night I finished my final performance of Swan Lake, we'd sign the marriage license.

He'd bought tickets for that show three months in advance.

I never stood on that stage again.

And the marriage license never came up.

Until the morning I noticed the collar of his white dress shirt carried a smudge of lipstick that wasn't mine.

I heard him on the balcony.

A woman's voice on the other end.

"Mr. Blackwood, you left your jacket at the hotel last night. I'll bring it over."

I stared at that smear of red, and something in me snapped. I laughed.

"Send me to Westbrook. The locked-down rehab facility. I don't want to drag you down anymore."

Something flickered in his eyes—a brief, animal panic. Then he nodded.

He thought I meant rest.

He didn't know I'd already signed the papers to donate my body to science. I was going there to die.

I looked at my own haggard face in the mirror and hurled the glass in my hand at the corner of the bathroom wall.

The sound of breaking glass rang out, painfully loud in the empty room.

"Clara! What are you losing it for this time?"

Julian shoved the door open and came in.

I was on the cold tile, legs stretched out in front of me like two pieces of dead wood.

A minute ago I'd tried to stand up to wash my face and dropped like a sack.

"Losing it?" I laughed once, cold, and tipped my head up to look him in the eye.

"Right. That's exactly what I am. A woman who can't even stand up. A wreck."

His brow creased. He crossed to me in two strides and bent to lift me.

I fought him, palms slamming into his chest.

"Don't touch me. I can't stand it."

His body went still. Something exhausted and wounded flickered through his eyes.

"How long are you going to do this? I'm tired enough at work every day."

I pointed at the red on his collar. My voice shook.

"Tired? From work—or from a hotel bed?"

He looked down and saw the lipstick smudge.

His face changed in an instant. He covered his collar on reflex.

"Let me explain. It isn't what you think."

I bit down on the inside of my mouth. Tears welled up, but I refused to let them fall.

"Don't bother. I heard you."

The night before, I'd woken up at two a.m. with nerve pain in my legs, and I'd heard him on the balcony.

He'd said he couldn't do it anymore. That being tied to an invalid with mood swings was suffocating him.

The voice on the other end of the phone had been a woman, lilting. She'd told him she'd stay with him always.

I knew that voice.

It was his executive assistant, Sienna Harrington. Only daughter of Professor Richard Harrington—the country's leading neurosurgeon.

"Clara, calm down. There's nothing between me and Sienna."

He tried to take my hand. I wrenched it away.

"Nothing? Then why is she posting to her story in your shirt like she lives there?"

"Why is her lipstick on your collar?"

"Own it or don't."

I was shouting. My chest was heaving.

He went silent.

After a long time, he said quietly, "I can't leave Sienna right now. I need her."

I started laughing. I laughed until I was crying.

"You need her. Wonderful. You make me sick."

"If you need her that badly, then go. Get out. Why are you still standing here in front of this wreck?"

I grabbed the tube of cleanser off the vanity and hurled it at his head.

He didn't duck. It hit his forehead, and a red mark bloomed.

"Don't push me." His voice went cold.

I looked at him, steady.

"Send me to Westbrook. From now on, we go our separate ways."

Westbrook Rehabilitation Center was the most expensive private facility in the city.

Locked down, access-controlled. Without family consent, not even a fly got out.

Julian actually delivered me there.

While we were processing the intake paperwork, Sienna stood at his shoulder.

She wore a tailored designer suit and four-inch stilettos, and she moved like she'd been shot in a perfume commercial.

Once upon a time, I had been the most luminous swan under a stage light, bringing down the house with a single pointe.

Now I sat in a chair like a broken doll.

"Miss Ellsworth, this place will suit you beautifully." Sienna stepped forward and looked down at me. "Julian went to so much trouble to arrange the best suite. Really."

She put a small, deliberate weight on his name—like a claim.

I looked at her, cold.

"You don't need to stake your claim in front of me. I don't rifle through trash I've thrown out."

Sienna's color changed. Then she pressed her fingers to her mouth and laughed, playful.

"Such a sharp tongue. A shame. All that fight doesn't change the fact you can't stand up."

"You—" My hands went white on the armrests of the chair.

Julian stepped between us.

"Enough, Sienna. Step out."

Sienna pushed out a little pout. "Julian, I'm only worried about Miss Ellsworth—"

"Out."

Sienna stamped her heel and left.

The room emptied down to just me and him.

The air was so heavy it was hard to breathe.

He crossed the room, crouched, reached toward my leg.

"Dr. Calloway here is the best rehabilitation specialist in the country. He's going to—"

I jerked the chair back, hard, out of reach.

"Is the performance over? If it's over, leave."

His eyes dimmed. He stood.

"I know you hate me. But your condition can't wait. Cooperate with the treatment."

I gave one dry laugh.

"I'm not your problem anymore. Go worry about your new girl, Mr. CEO."

He looked at me for a long moment, then turned for the door.

"I'll be here once a week to see you."

"Don't bother. I don't want to look at your hypocrite face."

I cut him off without mercy.

The door closed.

I sat alone in that big, cold suite, watched the gray sky through the window, and finally let the tears come.

Then I pulled out my phone and called Dr. Calloway.

"Dr. Calloway. That high-risk experimental nerve bypass you mentioned last time—I want to do it."

There was a beat of silence.

"Clara. That procedure has a success rate under ten percent. If it fails, you could be brain-dead on the table. Are you sure you've thought this through?"

I looked at my own legs, which had forgotten they were part of me.

"I'm sure. I'd rather gamble than keep existing like this."

"Even if I die on the table, at least I'll go with some dignity."

Life at the rehab center was harder than I'd imagined.

Day after day of electrostim therapy and acupuncture, and my legs still would not wake up.

Dr. Calloway was a gentle man. He was patient with me.

"Clara, your muscle atrophy isn't severe. If the surgery works, there's a real chance you'll walk again."

I smiled at him, tired.

"Don't sugar-coat it. I know my odds."

That afternoon, I was in the therapy room stretching my legs on a resistance machine.

The door opened.

Sienna walked in. Two bodyguards in tow.

"Oh—still grinding away on a lost cause?"

She walked right up to me and looked down at the sweat on my forehead with open distaste.

I stopped. I looked at her, cold.

"What do you want? You're not welcome here."

She laughed, soft, dragged over a chair, and sat down.

"I came to see how pathetic Julian's ex really is."

She took out a gold-embossed invitation card and dropped it across my legs.

"Julian and I are getting engaged next month. If you manage to stand up by then—you're welcome to come raise a glass."

I looked at the red card. It was bright enough to sting.

I didn't blow up. I calmly brushed the invitation onto the floor.

"Congratulations. A snake and a rat—what a perfect match. Keep an eye on him, won't you? Don't let him wander off again."

Sienna's face went chalk. Then she surged up and slapped me across the face.

The sound cracked through the therapy room.

My cheek swelled. Blood beaded at the corner of my mouth.

"Who the hell do you think you are? Talking to me like that."

She jabbed a finger at me.

"You can't even stand. Julian was done with you. If you hadn't been clinging to him like a leech, he'd have dropped you ages ago."

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I looked at her.

"You're pathetic. Do you actually think he loves you? He's using your father's name."

"Liar!" she shrieked.

"Julian loves me. He was willing to ship you off to this wasteland to let you die—for me."

Her words drove into my chest like a blade.

I closed my eyes to hide the despair in them.

"Are you done? Then leave."

Sienna leaned in and dropped her voice.

"Do you really think Dr. Calloway is going to do that surgery for you?"

My eyes snapped open. Fixed on her.

"What are you saying?"

She lifted her chin, smug.

"My father is Dr. Calloway's mentor. One word from me, and he cancels you."

"You'll spend the rest of your life exactly like this. Sitting."

She swept out with her goons.

I sat in the chair, cold all the way through.

Her words rang in my head like a spell.

If even Dr. Calloway pulled out—the only door left was the one I'd already been heading through.