PART 2
PART 2
The ballroom didn’t react at first.
It wasn’t disbelief exactly.
It was the kind of silence people fall into when something they were certain about stops being true.
The girl’s knees trembled violently as she stood, her fingers still locked around the boy’s hands like they were the only stable thing in the room.
Her father took a step forward.
“Enough,” he said sharply. “Sit down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
The boy didn’t move.
Neither did the girl.
“I’m not forcing her,” the boy said quietly.
His voice wasn’t defiant. Just certain.
“She asked.”
The father’s eyes flicked to his daughter.
And for the first time, something shifted in his expression—not anger, not control.
Fear.
Because she wasn’t sitting back down.
She was standing there, shaking, but standing.
The girl swallowed.
“I wanted to know,” she whispered, voice cracking. “If I could still do it.”
A murmur spread through the crowd.
The father shook his head. “You can’t. The doctors said—”
“I know what they said,” she interrupted softly.
Then she looked down at her own legs like she was meeting them for the first time.
“But I never tried since then.”
The boy gently adjusted his grip, not pulling, just steadying.
“You didn’t have anyone to try with,” he said.
That sentence landed heavier than anything else in the room.
The father’s jaw tightened. “Who are you?” he demanded.
The boy hesitated.
Then, simply:
“Someone who also couldn’t walk once.”
The ballroom went still again.
The girl looked up at him sharply. “You… couldn’t?”
He nodded.
“For a long time. Until someone stopped telling me I couldn’t.”
A few guests shifted uncomfortably.
The father stared between them, like the ground under him was changing shape.
“You’re not a doctor,” he said.
“No,” the boy replied.
“Then you don’t belong here.”
The boy looked around the ballroom—at the lights, the silence, the expensive faces watching a child stand like it was a mistake.
Then back at the girl.
“I think she does.”
The girl’s legs wobbled harder.
Her knees almost gave out.
The father stepped forward again—
But she didn’t fall.
May you like
Not because she was strong enough to hold herself.
Because the boy didn’t let go.
