It was a heavy feeling, heavier than any steel beam that could crush my spine. Harrison Wells, flanked by his pack of board members, loomed over my hospital bed like vultures eyeing a carcass. I could practically see the dollar signs flashing in their eyes; their minds were already divvying up the spoils of my empire.
"Interim leadership?" I spat, my voice raw, yet full of venom. "Over my dead body."
Harrison's lips moved, a twitch, a quiver that almost but not quite turned into a smirk. "Now, Davis, let's not be so precipitous. Your health needs to be your main priority now. The company,
"The company is mine," I snarled, struggling to push myself up on my elbows. Pain lanced through my body, but I gritted my teeth against it. "I built it from nothing. You think a little fall is going to stop me?"
A ripple of uncomfortable glances passed between the board members. Good. Let them squirm.
"Mr. Anderson," Clementina interrupted, softly yet firmly. "This conversation perhaps can wait till you are feeling a little better."
I shot her a glare, but deep inside, I was grateful for the intervention. My head was spinning, and at the fringes of my consciousness, my body started to feel exhausted. But never, ever, could any sign of weakness leave my lips. Not now. Never.
"Fine," I growled. "But let me make one thing clear, gentlemen. I'm not going anywhere. Now get out of my sight."
As they filed out, grumbling amongst themselves, I met Harrison's gaze. His expression was chilly, calculating. This wasn't over, not by a long shot.
The next several weeks turned out to be a blur of pain, frustration, and soul-crushing boredom. Physical therapy was only a strange form of hell. Hours were spent in an effort to will motion from obstinate limbs, muscles that once hauled me to the pinnacle of the business world now serving as useless hunks of flesh.
"Come on, Mr. Anderson," my therapist, a disgustingly chipper young man named Brad was urging. "Just a little further. You're doing great!"
I wanted to tell him where he could shove his encouragement, but I was too busy panting with exertion, sweat pouring down my face as I struggled to lift a pathetically small weight with my atrophied arms.
This day, when they were to discharge me from the hospital, was to be a release. Instead, it filled me with trepidation. At least in the hospital, I could pretend all of this was temporary. Going home would mean coming face to face with my new reality.
As the nurse began to help me into the wheelchair, my new permanent mode of Transportation, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The man staring back at me was a stranger. Gaunt, pale, with hollow eyes and a beard I barely recognized. Where was Davis Anderson, titan of industry? Who was this broken shell of a man?
"Ready to go home, sweetheart?"
The sound of Beverly's voice snapped me out of my brooding. My fiancée, or was she? Did she still want to marry half a man? stood in the doorway, a forced smile on her face. She looked as exhausted as I felt, designer clothes hanging a bit looser on her frame than I remembered.
"Whatever," I muttered, turning my head away. I couldn't bear to see the pity in her eyes.
The ride home was silent, tense; I stared out the window of the specially modified van, watching the city I once dominated slip by. How many of those buildings had I had a hand in creating? How many deals had I brokered, fortunes made and lost, all from the lofty heights of my office? And now, here I was, brought low, quite literally grounded.
My penthouse apartment had been the culmination of my life's success, but now it felt like my jail. Everything was too high, too far out of reach. They'd installed ramps, lowered countertops, made a thousand little changes that screamed of my new limitations.
"We tried to make everything accessible for you," Beverly said, hovering nervously as Clementina helped maneuver my wheelchair into the living room. "If there's anything else you need,
"What I need, I snapped, "is for everyone to stop treating me like I'm made of glass. I'm paralyzed, not brain-damaged."
Beverly jerked back like I'd hit her. Good. Let her feel a fraction of the pain I was going through.
"Of course, Davis, she said quietly. "I just want to help.
I wheeled myself away from her, facing the floor-to-ceiling windows that once offered a view I'd been so proud of. Now they only served to remind me of how far I'd fallen.
"You want to help?" I said, my voice low and bitter. "Then leave me alone. Both of you. I don't need your pity."
I heard the sudden intake of breath from Beverly, followed by the sharp click of her heels as she hastened from the room. Clementina remained for a moment longer.
"Mr. Anderson," she started, but I forestalled her with a raised hand.
"Just go, Clementina. I'm tired."
The moment I was alone, I permitted a weakness to wash over me. My eyes scorched with hot frustration and searing anger, but I wouldn't give in. Davis Anderson didn't cry. He got even.
Days blended into an endless blur of physical therapy, doctor's appointments, and mind-numbing boredom. Beverly would try to keep me entertained, prattling on about wedding plans and renovating the house, just like nothing was different, like I wasn't confined to this shell of a body, this shadow of my former self.
"I was thinking a spring wedding," she said one morning, flipping through a bridal magazine. "The cherry blossoms would be lovely; don't you think?"
I stared at her, incredulous. "A wedding? You can't be serious."
She looked up, her perfectly manicured brows furrowing. "Why wouldn't I be? Davis, this doesn't change how I feel about you."
"Doesn't it?" I wheeled closer to her, my voice rising. "Look at me, Beverly. Really look. Do I look like the man you agreed to marry? Do I look like someone who can give you the life you wanted?"
"Davis, I love you," she insisted, reaching for my hand. I jerked away from her touch.
"You love who I was," I spat. "That man is gone. He died the moment he hit the ground."
Beverly's eyes welled up. "You don't mean that. You're still you. We can get through this together."
I laughed, a hard, harsh, bitter sound. "Together? There is no 'together' anymore, Beverly. There's just me, stuck in this chair, and you, tied to a cripple out of what? Guilt? Pity? Do us both a favor and just go."
"Davis, please,"
"Go!" I roared, slamming my fist onto the arm of my wheelchair. The pain that shot through my arm was almost welcome, a reminder that I could still feel something.
Beverly whirled and ran from the room, her sobs continuing down the hall. I sat there in my chair, my chest heaving, wondering why I didn't feel relieved. Wasn't this what I wanted? To push everyone away before they could leave me in their own various ways?
Clementina found me there hours later, still staring at the spot where Beverly had been.
"Mr. Anderson," she said softly. "Your new caregiver is here. Shall I send him in?"
I grunted without looking at her. I'd already been through four caregivers; this one would be no different than all the others, irritating.
The man who came in was tall and muscular, his face wearing a no-nonsense mask that drew me in. Almost.
"Mr. Anderson," he said. His voice was deep and even. "I'm Jake. I'll be assisting you with your daily needs."
I eyed him warily. "And what makes you think you'll last longer than the others?"
Jake met my gaze unflinchingly. "Because I don't scare easy, Mr. Anderson. And I've dealt with tougher cases than you."
I bristled at his words. "Tougher cases? Do you have any idea who I am?"
"You're a man who needs help," Jake said simply. "That's all that matters to me."
His matter-of-fact manner threw me off kilter. I was so used to people tiptoeing around me, as though I'd break at any moment. Jake's bluntness was. refreshing.
For a few days, it seemed as though things were on the mend. Jake was capable, professional, and, thank God, free of that sugary sympathy I had learned to hate. As the days wore on, though, I began to feel his presence chafe on me. Each time he needed to help me with some mundane thing, bathing, dressing, using the toilet, it was just another sobering reminder of how far I'd fallen.
The breaking point came a week into Jake's employment. I was having a particularly lousy day, pain radiating through my body, my useless legs feeling like lead weights.
"Come on, Mr. Anderson," Jake urged, trying to coax me out of bed. "You have physical therapy in an hour. We need to get you ready."
"I'm not going," I growled, turning my face away.
"That's not an option," Jake said firmly. "You know how important these sessions are for your recovery."
Something inside me just clicked. "Recovery?" I snarled, wrestling myself up. "What recovery? I'm never going to walk again. What's the point of all this?"
Jake's face relaxed a bit. "The point is to get back as much independence as possible. To get stronger,
"Stronger?" I spat a humorless laugh. "I used to be the strongest man in any room. Now I can't even take a piss without help. You call this strength?"
"Mr. Anderson…."
"No," I interrupted him. "I'm done. With therapy, with you, with all of it. You're fired. Get out."
Jake didn't back down. "You don't mean that. You're just frustrated…"
"I said get out!" I bellowed, snatching the closest thing, a book from my nightstand, and hurling it at him. Jake dodged it with ease, his face a mask of professional calm.
"Okay," he said softly. "If that's what you want. But let me think for a second, Mr. Anderson. You're alienating everybody around you. It is not going to make you any stronger. It's only going to leave you alone.
With that, he turned and strode from the room, closing the door softly behind him. I sat there, chest heaving as my anger and frustration roiled and boiled inside me. But deep down beneath it all, a little voice whispered that maybe, just maybe, Jake was right.
I heard muffled voices outside my door, Jake speaking with Clementina, no doubt. Then silence. I'd done it. I'd driven away the fifth caregiver in a month. I should have felt triumphant. Instead, I just felt hollow.
As the sun began to set, casting the shadows across my room, I saw myself in the mirror across from my bed. There was a stranger in that mirror, the man was angry, bitter, alone. Is this who I'd become? Is this who I wanted to be?
For the first time since the accident, I really let myself look at the man in the mirror. Past the anger, past the bitterness, I saw something I'd been trying to ignore: fear. I was terrified. Of this new life, of the uncertainty of the possibility that this was all that was left for me.
Night had fallen, and I sat in the dark, the weight of my actions crushing me. I'd pushed away Beverly; the only woman I could ever love. I'd alienated Clementina, arguably the most loyal assistant a man could have. I'd fired Jake, who, to my mind, could well have been the only individual who'd ever dared stand up to me.
What next? Where did I go from here?
Musing thus, I stared out at the city lights which once seemed to bow to my every whim, and it slowly dawned on me that the greatest battle I fought was not against my paralysis, nor the board trying to oust me, nor even the pitying looks from those around me.
Yet the real war was with myself, against the anger and fear that somehow seemed to crave to engulf me, against that part of me which would gladly give up and let the darkness claim its victory.
And so, while I sat alone in the darkening night, the decision had been made. Tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow, the fight would begin. Not against the world but against the bitterness rooted within my soul.
Tomorrow, Davis Anderson would rise again. Different, broken, but never defeated.
The rest of the night stretched in a dark, silent witness to my vow that this fight for my life, my real life, and not just for survival, was far from over. And this time, I was going to win.