When Jason Morgan stepped inside his sister’s room at the rehab center, he immediately ducked as a plate crashed over his head.

“It’s not that bad,” Emily assured her roommate, not having seen her brother enter the room. Her attention was completely on her best friend. Elizabeth grabbed the tray that had once held her lunch off her lap and started to hurl it in the same direction as the plate when she noticed Jason in the doorway.

“Who are you?” Elizabeth demanded, lowering the tray back to her lap.

Emily glanced over and squealed. “Jason!”

“Hey, kid.” He sat in the chair next to her hospital bed before glancing at her roommate. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Just another one of Beth’s tantrums,” Emily replied cheerfully. “Jason, this is Elizabeth Webber, my best friend and Beth, this is Jason Morgan, my brother.”

“I kind of caught that,” Elizabeth remarked dryly. She started searching her among her sheets.

“What’re you looking for?” Emily asked.

“The call button. I have to go to therapy,” Elizabeth muttered.

“Oh don’t worry about that, Jason’ll help you into the chair,” Emily replied. “Right?”

“Sure,” Jason said standing. He crossed to her bed. “What do you need?”

“My chair’s in the corner,” Elizabeth said dully. He pushed it out and then reached to lift the petite young woman into his arms before lowering her into her wheelchair. She was light—almost too light, he thought.

“Thanks.” She looked to Emily. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

“But your session is an hour.”

“Twenty minutes,” Elizabeth repeated as she wheeled herself towards the door. When she was gone, Jason turned to his sister with a quizzical expression.

“Her therapy isn’t going well,” Emily told her brother. “She never stays—there’s never any point.”

“Oh.” He sat back down. “What was wrong with her today? With the plate and tray?”

Emily’s face lit up. “I can wiggle my toes.” She yanked the sheet up and she demonstrated.

Jason grinned and hugged her. “That’s great!” When he sat back down, he frowned a little. “What does have to do with Elizabeth?”

“Oh. It…it just depresses her I guess,” Emily sighed. “The therapists have really stopped concentrating on helping her regain the use of her legs and are trying to teach her to you know…live as a paralyzed person.” Emily shrugged. “I don’t think that’s what’s really bothering her.”

“Oh?”

Emily sighed. “She’s been here a year longer than I have and her parents and family never come to see her. And my family and friends are always in and out, you know? I love her to death, but I always try to time visits for when she’s in therapy or something. I don’t want shove my family in her face.” She pushed her hair out of her face and smiled at her brother brilliantly. “So, how long are you here? And why didn’t you call?”

“I wanted to surprise you,” Jason told her. “And I rented an apartment in town. Monica came to see me before I left Port Charles to visit and mentioned that they’d be tied up most of the summer with the hospital and she wanted to know if I could extend my visit.”

“So wait, you’re here all summer?” Emily squealed. “This is the absolute freaking best. Patients can’t leave unless a relative or a friend goes with them and has transportation and all that. I mean, it’s not prison but I can’t drive and the therapists are trying to convince Beth to get a license for handicapped people but as you can imagine, that’s not going so well, so now you can get us out of here.”

“I’d be glad to take you guys anywhere you want to go.” Jason suppressed a smile. “But I’m also here on coffee business. Sonny is investing in a warehouse here and I’m going to oversee that.”

“What, are you going national or something?” Emily asked. “Oh, whatever, I don’t even care. I’m just so psyched that you’re here. Now I can even get sprung out overnight and stuff.”

He laughed. “I’m glad to see a year here hasn’t broken your spirit or anything.”

“Oh, please. I’ve got Beth, Zander flies down once a month–which is as much as he’ll let Sonny pay for. Lucky, Nikolas and Grace came for two weeks last month. Barely a week goes by without someone from the family finding an excuse to come out here.” Emily shrugged. “I see everyone more than when I lived at home.”

“So your therapy’s going well?” Jason asked. “They think you’ll make a full recovery?”

Emily nodded. “Now that I can wiggle my toes and even move my legs from side to side, I get to start the more extensive therapy. It’s more exhausting but it’ll be so worth it.” She sighed and cast a glance at one of the many pictures that decorated her nightstand. She and Elizabeth were seated at the edge of the outdoor pool of the clinic, each in bikinis, their legs dangling in the water as part of their exercise routine. They had their arms around each other’s shoulders and were smiling into the camera. “I just wish Beth were doing better.”

“She shouldn’t make you feel guilty,” Jason chastised. “It’s not your fault she’s not recovering.”

“Oh, no, no, that’s not what was happening before,” Emily explained, her words coming out so fast, they were almost jumbled together. “Our therapist was in just before you got here. He gave us the new therapy schedule and well, Beth was curious about why they were different. You see, up until now, we’ve had mostly the same kinds of exercises and that’s when she got the news her parents had okayed a change in treatment.”

Jason frowned. “I thought you guys were the same age–why would her parents get a say in something like that?”

“They still pay her bills here,” Emily explained, “so management defers to them. And they don’t think she’s got any hope, you know? So they okayed the change to start giving her classes on being able to live on her on and survive in a wheelchair. And even before that, the counselors and therapists were pushing her to learn those things and I guess finding out her parents had lost hope just upset her even more.”

“And that thing about twenty minutes?” Jason asked.

“Elizabeth is going to refuse to do the new type of therapy. She still wants to try and get better and she says until they put her back on the old schedule, she won’t do therapy.”

“Stubborn girl huh?”

Emily laughed. “You have no idea.”

—

“Come on, Webber.”

Elizabeth glared at Summer Holloway. The tall statuesque blonde had been her main therapist since her arrival two years ago and she was more than familiar with her most difficult patient’s tantrums.

“No,” Elizabeth said stubbornly.

Summer sighed and leaned against one of the balance beams in the clinic’s gym. “Look, honey, I know it’s difficult to accept the idea of being paralyzed for the rest of your life–”

“I’m just not recovering as fast as you guys think I should be,” Elizabeth accused. “You’re tired of my slow progress and want me out of here. That’s why you’re shoving all this down my throat.”

“Slow progress.” Summer drew the words out slowly and sighed. “Liz, you haven’t made any progress in the two years you’ve been here. You can’t wiggle your toes, you can’t move your leg even a centimeter.”

Elizabeth’s eyes burned with tears. “I can still do this. Not everyone recovers so fast.”

“No,” Summer allowed. “But most of the progress people make are in the first year and well, the management thinks we’ve given you enough time to show improvement. That’s why they went over your head to change the therapy.”

“You’re supposed to be on my side!” Elizabeth retorted.

“I am on your side and this is the best thing for you.” Summer patted Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Come on, we’ll study to get you a new license–I’m sure your parents will spring for a suitable car. And we can tackle moving around an apartment in a wheelchair–getting up and down stairs, in and out of bed, cooking for yourself. It’s a whole new challenge–”

“I don’t want to be paralyzed for the rest of my life!” Elizabeth spat out. “And you can’t make me do this.”

“Liz, if you don’t start cooperating with this, the people in charge here are going to petition to have you released,” Summer informed her. “You’ll be sent back to your parents in San Diego and I know you have your heart set on following Emily back to her hometown.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes. “You can’t make me accept this. I–I’m not permanently paralyzed. I–I can’t be.”

“There are all kinds of new treatments coming out all the time,” Summer tried to assure her. “New surgeries, new kinds of therapies. We just want to prepare you to live until they become available.”

“You don’t understand,” Elizabeth said shaking her head not even trying to stop the tears from sliding down her cheeks. “My parents will wait until I learn all this stuff, they’ll take me out of here and put me in some apartment back home and I won’t have my diploma, no skills–no job, no way to even pay or go to college. I’ll be living off of them and they’re not going to pay for more treatment.”

Summer sighed. “You don’t know that. They’ve paid for two years so far–”

“Because there’s still a shot I can recover and they can wash their hands of me and now you had to go and tell them there’s no hope. You’re sentencing me a horrible kind of prison.” Elizabeth’s voice broke. “Please, don’t do this.”

Summer took a deep breath, forcing herself to speak over the sudden lump in her throat. She knew what Elizabeth was talking about was true–it was hardly the first case of a wealthy kid shipped off to a clinic and than forced to live a life to their parents’ will. “Liz, this came down from above. And just so we’re clear, I fought this because you honestly want to improve. I know that about you. But I was overruled.”

“I want to go back to my room,” Elizabeth said painfully. She gripped the sides of her chair and started to wheel herself towards the door.

“Liz, come on–” Summer’s words fell on deaf ears as the brunette moved through the open doors and started down the hall.

—

She saw Emily’s brother walking down the halls towards her and she slowed her movements. “What are you doing down in this area?” she asked, a little confused. “Em doesn’t have a session today.”

“No,” Jason agreed, “but I’m spring her for dinner and a movie and she wanted to me see if you wanted to go.”

She hesitated. She hadn’t been out of this place in ages–not since Emily’s parents took her out for her birthday three months ago. But all she really wanted to do was go back to her room and curl up the best she could to cry herself to sleep.

“No.” Elizabeth started to roll herself past him and heard his footsteps as he turned his body and started to walk next to her.

“So, it was less than twenty minutes,” Jason found himself saying.

Elizabeth let out a frustrated breath. “I thought I could talk some sense into my therapist but no dice. So I’m going to be labeled non cooperative and probably shipped back to California.” She all but punched the button for the elevator.

“Would it just make more sense to go along with the therapy and hope something changes?” Jason asked.

“Yeah, well, let’s see you sit in a damn chair all day without being able to even walk to damn bathroom or dress yourself without help.” She rolled her chair into the car and bit down on her tongue to keep from going on. This was Emily’s brother–one of her favorite family members. So far, she’d avoided pissing off Emily’s family and friends and out of love for the only family Elizabeth even felt like she had anymore…she wasn’t going to do alienate them.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a minute. “I…I’m not exactly a sunshine kind of person on my best days but you managed to show up on a very…very bad one.”

“Emily told me…she told me that your parents changed your treatment.”

Elizabeth’s lips twisted into an ugly smile. “Yeah. I knew from the start that they didn’t think I could recover. They only shipped me here to tell their rich friends they were doing something for their poor…poor daughter.” Her voice was bitter with a hard edge to it. “They used to yell at me at the hospital after the accident like it was my fault Josh happened to come to the intersection the same time some stupid drunk driver came along and killed him–” her voice broke then and she stopped talking abruptly.

The doors slid open before he could find the words to respond to that and she took off the down the hall–as fast she could move the chair.

← Prologue |