Life 2.0
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 5
Week 1, Day 1 – Morning
Ji-Eun woke to sunlight slicing through venetian blinds and the mechanical beep of monitors she’d already learned to hate. Her right leg ached—bearing weight she’d never asked it to carry alone. Her left leg...
She didn’t look. Couldn’t look. Not yet.
The door opened. Keisha walked in carrying a tablet and the kind of no-nonsense energy that made arguing seem pointless.
“Morning, Ji-Eun. Ready to work?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Always.” Keisha pulled up a chair, settling in like they were about to discuss weekend plans, not the wreckage of Ji-Eun’s body. “But here’s what happens if you don’t: muscles atrophy, joints stiffen, phantom pain gets worse, and in three months when we’re ready to fit a prosthetic, your residual limb won’t cooperate. So, yeah—you have a choice. But only one of them gets you walking again.”
Ji-Eun stared at her. Most medical professionals soft-pedaled everything, wrapping hard truths in pillows of sympathy. Keisha just ... told her.
“Okay,” Ji-Eun said quietly. “What do we do first?”
“We dangle.”
“We ... what?”
“Dangle. You sit at the edge of the bed, put your right foot on the floor, and let the residual limb hang. Gravity helps reduce swelling, gets blood flowing, starts building tolerance for eventually bearing weight on a prosthetic.”
Ji-Eun’s stomach twisted. “You want me to just ... hang it there?”
“Yep. For about a minute today. Maybe two if you’re feeling ambitious.” Keisha stood, moving to the bed. “We’ll do this three to five times a day. Build up gradually.”
“Three to five times?” Ji-Eun’s voice pitched higher. “A day?”
“Welcome to physical therapy.” Keisha smiled—genuine warmth beneath the professional efficiency. “You’re going to hate me for about two weeks. Then you’re going to realize I’m the best thing that’s happened to you since the accident.”
“Bold claim.”
“I haven’t been wrong yet.”
The door opened again. Brent walked in carrying two coffees and what looked like a laptop bag. He stopped when he saw them, uncertainty crossing his face.
“Sorry—I can come back—”
“Actually,” Keisha said, “you’re right on time. Ji-Eun’s about to do her first dangling session. Could use an extra set of hands.”
Brent’s eyes found Ji-Eun’s. She saw the question there: Do you want me here?
She nodded. Barely. But enough.
“What do you need me to do?” he asked.
Twenty minutes later, Ji-Eun understood what terror actually felt like.
Keisha had positioned Brent on her left side—the side where the residual limb would hang, wrapped in its bulky dressing and rigid knee splint extending from mid-thigh down over the bandages. The side she couldn’t hide.
“On three,” Keisha said. “One, two, three—”
Ji-Eun pushed off the bed. Her right leg straightened, taking her full weight, and every muscle screamed protest. Brent’s hand caught her waist—instinct overriding instruction—and she grabbed his forearm hard enough to leave marks.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
The residual limb hung between them. Heavy. Present. Impossible to ignore.
“Breathing, Ji-Eun.” Keisha’s voice cut through the panic. “In through your nose, out through your mouth.”
“It’s burning.” Ji-Eun’s voice came out strangled. “Why is it burning?”
“Edema draining. Completely normal. You’re doing great.”
“I’m not—I can’t—”
“Sixty seconds,” Keisha announced. “You just did a full minute. That’s perfect for day one.”
Ji-Eun collapsed back onto the bed before Keisha finished speaking. Her hands shook. Her right leg trembled. Tears burned behind her eyes, and she blinked hard, refusing to let them fall in front of Brent, in front of Keisha, in front of anyone.
“Hey.” Brent crouched beside the bed, eye level with her. “That was brave as hell.”
“I stood for one minute.”
“On one leg. With gravity pulling on a surgical site that’s barely two weeks old. Yeah—brave as hell.”
Something in his voice cracked through her defenses. Ji-Eun looked at him—really looked—and saw no pity. No careful sympathy. Just ... steadiness. Like standing on one leg for sixty seconds was exactly as impressive as he’d claimed.
“Next session is at three,” Keisha said, packing up her supplies. “We’ll go for ninety seconds.”
Ji-Eun groaned. “You’re a sadist.”
“That’s what they all say. See you at three.”
After Keisha left, silence settled over the room. Brent was still there, still crouched beside her bed, looking uncertain for the first time since he’d walked in.
“I can go,” he said. “If you need space—”
“Stay.” The word came out too fast, too desperate. Ji-Eun tried again. “I mean ... if you want to. You don’t have to.”
Brent smiled—small, but real. “I brought work. Figure I can set up in that corner, stay out of your way.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I know.” He stood, grabbing his laptop bag. “But I want to. If that’s okay.”
Ji-Eun watched him settle into the visitor’s chair, opening his laptop like working in a hospital room was the most natural thing in the world. Like he hadn’t just seen her at her most vulnerable. Like he planned to come back.
“Brent?”
He looked up.
“Thank you.”
His smile widened. “Anytime.”
Week 1, Day 1 – Afternoon
At 3 PM, Keisha returned. This time Ji-Eun was ready—or as ready as anyone could be for voluntary torture.
Brent closed his laptop without being asked, moving to her left side before Keisha could position him. The routine was already forming: him there, her pushing off, his steadying hand, the moment of weight transfer and burning and terror.
Ninety seconds felt like ninety hours.
“Doing great,” Keisha said at the sixty-second mark. “Thirty more.”
“Easy for you to say,” Ji-Eun gasped.
“I never said it was easy. Just necessary.”
“Inspirational.”
Brent’s hand tightened slightly at her waist—reassurance or maybe suppressed laughter. Ji-Eun focused on that touch, using it as an anchor while gravity pulled and her right leg shook and time crawled.
“Time,” Keisha announced. “Back down.”
This time Ji-Eun managed to control her descent, Brent guiding her back to sitting rather than collapsing. Small victory. Microscopic, really. But something.
“Better,” Keisha said. “See you at seven.”
After she left, Brent didn’t return to his laptop immediately. He stood there, hands in his pockets, looking like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how.
“What?” Ji-Eun asked.
“Nothing. Just ... you’re doing really well.”
“I’m standing for ninety seconds. Children do that.”
“Children have two legs.”
The bluntness of it—the refusal to dance around the obvious—made Ji-Eun laugh. Actually laugh, not the bitter sound that had been escaping her since the accident.
“Fair point,” she conceded.
Brent grinned. “I have them occasionally.”
“Occasionally?”
“Don’t push it. You need your strength for the seven o’clock session.”
Week 1, Day 2 – Morning
The second day hurt worse than the first. Muscles Ji-Eun hadn’t known existed screamed protest. Her right leg felt like it might give out just walking to the bathroom (with a walker, with a nurse hovering, with humiliation burning in her throat).
When Keisha arrived at nine, Ji-Eun was already at the bed’s edge, determined to get this over with.
“Eager this morning?” Keisha asked.
“Eager to be done with it.”
Brent walked in mid-session, catching them mid-dangle. Ji-Eun wobbled when she saw him, and Keisha’s steadying hand shot to her other side.
“Easy. Don’t turn your head—you’ll lose your balance.”
“Sorry,” Brent said quickly. “I should’ve knocked—”
“You’re fine,” Keisha said. “We’re at two minutes now. Twenty more seconds.”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.