‘Right,’ Oti agreed. ‘So they would remove a working nerve from a donor site in the shoulder, close to the damaged section of nerve preventing the signal from reaching the lower arm, and then use that working nerve to effectively bypass the damaged section. Then it is connected back to the spinal cord. But where, previously, they might have used one donor, here we would be talking about two, or even multiple.’
‘And then I can move my arms again. As if by magic,’ Edward ground out, getting angry again, his bitterness intertwined with frustration and sheer exhaustion.
She couldn’t blame him; she could only imagine what he was going through. He’d been like this for the better part of four years.
Oti weighed her options. She could go in gently, or she could see if the tough love option was still her best bet.
‘Not by magic,’ she told him firmly. ‘The s
urgery is just the start of it. After that you have months of rehab and hard work.’
‘Sounds appealing,’ her brother gritted out.
‘Or years of rehab, if you don’t put in the effort.’
He didn’t answer for a moment. But when he finally did speak, Oti wasn’t prepared for it.
‘So, what you’re saying is that I’m going to need to put my back into it.’
She blinked at him.
‘But I will,’ he continued, deadpan. ‘Because I know that you, my sweet baby sister, will have my back.’
‘Hilarious,’ she managed, still shocked.
It was a terrible pun, but she wasn’t sure she cared. It had been so long since Edward had made a joke about anything—certainly not his disability—that she couldn’t help feeling this was progress.
It was certainly better than calling himself a head on a stick.
She thought that particular self-description had broken her heart worst of all.
‘Edward...’
‘It’s going to be just spine.’
And then, without warning, he laughed.
It was a slightly stiff, awkward laugh. But it was a laugh all the same. And Oti didn’t know if it was hearing Edward make bad puns, or the emotion of her marriage to Lukas—or perhaps it was the fact that she knew she never could have dreamt of offering Edward this glimmer of hope had she failed to go through with the marriage to Lukas—but she lost it.
It rushed over her and she dropped her head in her hands and sobbed.
‘Don’t cry, Oats,’ Edward growled.
He hadn’t called her by that childhood nickname for years. Somehow, that only made her cry a little harder.
‘Please, Oats,’ her brother tried again after a moment. ‘I feel useless—I can’t give you a hug. I can’t even take your hand.’
Sniffing hard, half crying and half laughing, she took his hand. What she wouldn’t give to have her brother haul her into one of his old bearlike hugs and tell her everything would be okay.
But he couldn’t.
And she needed to be the one to be strong for him. There was no one to be strong for her.
Lukas?
The question popped, unbidden, into her brain. Oti stuffed it back down hastily.
Lukas Woods couldn’t be trusted with the truth.