She’s the Obstacle, He’s the Hero, I’m Just the Plot They’re Skipping Chapter 01

She’s the Obstacle, He’s the Hero, I’m Just the Plot They’re Skipping Chapter 01

I’d been living with ALS for two years.

The comments started scrolling right after I fumbled another bottle cap and spilled water all over my boyfriend.

[God, I can’t take this anymore. She’s sick, why won’t she just let people help her?]

[She insists on doing everything herself, then makes a mess every single time.]

[Relax. The placeholder girlfriend’s about to be completely paralyzed anyway, then our guy’s finally off the hook.] [It kills me watching our girl sneak around just to see him every day.]

[Once he dumps the placeholder girlfriend in a nursing home, they can finally make it official!]

I stiffened and pushed away the new bottle Ethan Carter was already holding out to me.

“Never mind… just open it for me.”

“Sorry.”

***

Ethan’s hands went still.

I looked at him, soaking wet, and it hit me that asking him for anything right now felt ridiculous.

“Go dry off first. You’ll catch a cold.”

“I can wait.”

He frowned but said nothing, then disappeared through the doorway.

A minute later, he came back with an armful of new bottles and a dry towel.

He dried my wheelchair first, then patted the damp edge of my sleeve.

Then he pressed a fresh bottle into my hand.

“There you go. You almost had it, Olivia.”

“You just squeezed the bottle a little too hard. That’s all.”

“Don’t get upset. One more try, okay?”

I bit my lip, studying the careful way he was watching me.

[He’s terrified she’s about to go off again, isn’t he?]

[Every time she tries to do something herself and fails, she screams at him. Who could live like that?]

[The placeholder girlfriend’s pitiful, sure, but our guy isn’t at fault either.]

The comments weren’t wrong. I knew that much.

My temper had turned vicious since the diagnosis.

I couldn’t stand the slow, grinding loss of basic motor skills, unscrewing a cap, pulling on a sock, tasks that used to take zero thought.

Every time something slipped from my fingers and hit the floor, something in me cracked open too, and I’d start screaming, hurling things, taking it all out on whoever happened to be nearest.

That person was always Ethan.

And he had never once complained.

I’d been so buried in my own suffering that I forgot he was human too, with limits of his own.

If he never showed them, it only meant he’d been bottling it up.

Everyone has a breaking point.

Ethan watched me stare at the bottle without reaching for it, and something like panic flickered behind his eyes.

[What’s she worked up about now?]

[She’s awful at communicating. Expects him to read her mind.]

[If he guesses wrong, she explodes. If he guesses right, she denies it and explodes anyway.]

[Let her throw her fit. We’ll see if the nursing home staff takes her crap.]

I forced a smile as fast as I could.

“No, I’m done trying.”

“Could you just pour it into a cup for me? With a straw?”

Ethan’s expression didn’t soften.

But he did it anyway.

I stared at the water still puddled on the floor and made my decision.

If I was going to end up in a nursing home no matter what, I might as well start learning how to make myself easier to live with now.

Maybe then Ethan would still care enough to find me a decent one.