I don’t Belong To You Anymore

"Do you hear us, Ana?"

"Fuck you!" I said

“That's really all you've got to say after everything?"

I stay quiet. I just sit there and stare at them. My legs. My fucking legs. They lie there, just where I left them - two corpses in bunny pajamas. Dead on the outside. Loud as hell on the inside.

"Do you hear us?" they ask again.

"I recognize the voice," I answer. "But the movement seems a little off."

"Sweetheart, movement is exactly what you're missing in life."

"You're what I'm missing in life." The words slip from my mouth.

A pause. Then the laughter. Maybe theirs. Maybe mine.

***

My name is Ana. Twenty-eight years old. Poliomyelitis, lower paraplegia - also known as "divorce from gravity."

I'm beautiful in a way that can be misleading. A goddess face, ruins underneath. People smile at me, then their eyes drop to the wheelchair. And then it hits them. That awkward guilt. They say something stupid like, "You're so strong.” I'm not. I'm still here.

Caleb's in the kitchen. Making coffee. Humming something soft. He has this warmth in his voice that makes you want to curl up inside his ribs and never come out. And me? I stare at the ceiling and feel my brain melt down my spine. Caleb is my partner. Father of Lizzie and Julie. Our girls. We never got married. I don't believe in paper.

"Look at him. Sweet. Kind. Bet you wonder why he's with you?" I hear it again. That loud voice from my legs won't shut up.

"I don't." The words came automatically.

"Liar."

I roll my eyes. “You're trying to kill me."

"You're not that interesting, babe. We're just commenting on your slow decline." Their words sound cynical.

***

Caleb talks about a trip. To a lake. Some cabin in the woods. He says we'll take my books, his records, chocolate, and blankets. Like he's planning a war escape.

I nod. "Sounds nice." In my head? Pure chaos.

"Wanna tell him you dreamed you jumped off the balcony? That for one second, you felt the weight of your body again?" The legs whispered.

"Shut up," I mumble, barely audible.

Caleb pauses. "You okay?"

"Just tired." I lied with a smile.

Caleb kisses me on the forehead and leaves after. But their voice stays.

***

Flashback.

I'm nine. Lying in a hospital bed, staring at the ceiling like it might blink first. My legs feel like strangers - cold, distant, already halfway buried. I thought it was punishment. For lying. For not finishing my vegetables. For not saying I loved God loud enough. I waited for someone to say it wasn't forever. But the doctor said it. Just like that. “She'll never walk again."

My father didn't say a word. Just stood there, looking out the window like maybe the world outside would explain this one. My mother crumpled into the plastic chair like her bones gave up, too. She didn't sob. Just those silent tears that burn longer.

That was the first time I wanted to disappear. Just dissolve into the sheets. And that's when I heard it. Low, calm, almost kind. “It'd be easier if you were gone."

It didn't shout. It didn't plead. It just… settled in. Like it planned to stay.

***

Writing is my outlet. I open a blank document. The blinking cursor is a goddamn SOS beacon.

I type: "Today, I didn't get up." I delete right away.

"I want to vanish." Delete it too.

"Do I know you?" I finally wrote it with a scream, and then it began. My legs stay quiet. Like they're listening. Like, for the first time, they want to hear, not just scream.

"Do I know you?" I ask myself in the draft. "When your body feels like a cage and your brain is the warden? When people look at you like you're an inspiration, and you can't even get up to wipe your own piss? "

***

I write for days. I don't post. I don't submit. I hoard pages like evidence. Proof I'm still alive. One night, Caleb finds me crying over the keyboard. He asks, "What can I do to make it easier?"

I say, "Nothing. Just… stay."

And he stays. Doesn't promise it'll be okay. Doesn't lie. Just stays.

The next day, I exploded on him for no reason. "Why are you still here?" He looks at me like a kid who just got lost in a store. "You don't want me. You want the idea of me. A victim. A fucking project. Is that what gets guys off these days?" I continued.

Caleb doesn't respond. Just leaves the room. The legs whisper, "There you go. You're losing him." And I… I crumble.

***

It is midnight.

I stare out the window, drinking water. Not wine. Water's cold. Real.

Inside my mind, I think: If I open the window right now and let go, their voice would be quiet. The kids are asleep. Caleb's probably gone for good. Maybe I finally did it. Perhaps I'm finally free. It's not a physical step. Just a mental one. Just a pull.

But, I hear Julie cries. My youngest kid. Probably had a bad dream. And that sound? It breaks me. Snaps me back like a blown tire on a highway. Lizzie – Julie's sister – she doesn't cry. She is older.

I take deep breaths. “That's why not," I whisper. "Because I won't let you win." The legs stay quiet. No sarcasm. No insults.

It reminded me how I told my therapist: "My mind is a flat where all the tenants breed poisonously. Every thought has a goddamn legal dispute." He laughed. I didn't.

I reached for my kids and hugged them. When Caleb returned, I kissed him. He didn't ask anything. Just held me like he knew. As if he never really left - just gave me space to take the first step.

***

In the story I'm submitting, there's no ribbon at the end. No miracle cure. No standing ovation. Just the truth: I didn't vanish. I don't write to inspire anyone. I write so I don't drown in silence. So that when the voice comes - the one that's lived in my bones since I was nine - I can answer back.

"Do you know us?" the voice still asks.

I breathe in. Feel the weight of my girls' arms around my neck. Caleb's hand resting on my shoulder like it's always known the tremor under my skin. And I say, quietly but confidently: "I do. But I don't belong to you anymore."