Life 2.0
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 8: Falling
Week 5, Day 35 – Discharge
The hospital doors slid open, and Ji-Eun tasted freedom for the first time in five weeks. Real air. Not recycled through vents and tinged with antiseptic. Actual sunlight, unfiltered by venetian blinds.
It should have felt triumphant.
Instead, she felt exposed. Vulnerable. Like stepping out of a protective shell into a world that had kept moving while she’d been trapped in a bed learning to stand on one leg.
Brent pushed her wheelchair toward the parking garage, one hand resting lightly on her shoulder. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
“Liar.”
She managed a smile. “I’m terrified. Better?”
“Much. Honesty looks good on you.”
The drive to his condo was quiet. Ji-Eun watched the city pass—familiar streets that felt foreign now. She’d driven these roads a thousand times. Now she couldn’t even sit in the driver’s seat.
“Here we are.” Brent pulled into an underground parking garage. “Elevator building. No stairs to worry about.”
Small mercy. Ji-Eun wheeled herself to the elevator, hyper-aware of how much space the wheelchair took up, how the overhead lights reflected off the chrome frame, how VISIBLE her disability was now that they weren’t in a hospital where everyone used mobility aids.
The ride up to the eighth floor felt eternal.
Brent’s condo was bigger than she’d expected. Open floor plan—kitchen flowing into living room, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Clean lines, minimal furniture. Bachelor space that somehow didn’t feel sterile.
“So.” Brent gestured down a hallway. “Two bedrooms, two bathrooms. I’m in the master on the left. The second bedroom’s yours—it’s got its own bathroom, closet, everything you need.”
“Temporary,” Ji-Eun said immediately.
“Right. Temporary.”
But they both heard the lie.
Day 36 – The Eviction
The forwarded mail arrived via courier. Ji-Eun sorted through it in her new bedroom—bills, junk, a cheerful postcard from a friend who had no idea her life had imploded.
And at the bottom: the eviction notice.
Sixty days past due. Legal action initiated. Vacate premises within fourteen days or face—
Ji-Eun shoved it back in the envelope. She’d deal with it. Somehow. She just needed to figure out how to make coffee in a wheelchair first, then she’d tackle homelessness.
Brent knocked on her open door. “Everything okay?”
“Fine.”
He looked at the scattered mail, the envelope she’d hidden under a catalog. His lawyer instincts were too good.
“Ji-Eun.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Let me see.”
She wanted to refuse. Wanted to maintain some scrap of dignity, some illusion of control. But the eviction notice was going to become public record anyway, and Brent would find out eventually.
She handed him the envelope.
He read in silence, expression shifting from neutral to analytical. “How far behind are you?”
“Two months. Maybe closer to three by now.”
“And your landlord’s already filed?”
“Apparently.”
Brent sat on the edge of her bed—careful not to invade, just close enough to talk. “I can fix this.”
“You can’t fix bankruptcy with good intentions.”
“No. But I can negotiate. Offer a settlement—waive the arrears in exchange for immediate lease termination. Gets you out clean, no eviction on your record. Landlord gets to re-rent at current market rate without legal fees.”
Ji-Eun stared at him. “You’d do that?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because you need help. And I can provide it.” He stood. “Let me handle this. Please.”
Every instinct screamed to refuse. To insist she’d handle her own mess. But the math was brutal, and Brent was offering a lifeline she couldn’t afford to reject.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
Day 38 – Moving Day
Brent loaded the last box into his car while Ji-Eun sat in her wheelchair outside her old apartment building, staring up at the third-floor window that used to be hers.
She’d lived there for three years. Built a life in those 800 square feet. Come home every night to her space, her things, her independence.
Now it was someone else’s. Or would be, soon.
“That’s everything,” Brent said, closing the trunk. “Ready?”
No. She’d never be ready to lose this final piece of her old life. But ready wasn’t required.
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
Day 39 – Boundaries
They unpacked in her new bedroom—technically Brent’s guest room, but he kept calling it “your room” like repetition could make it true.
“So,” Brent said, setting down the last box. “How do we do this?”
“Do what?”
“Live together without driving each other crazy.” He leaned against the doorframe. “You need space. I want to help. We need ground rules.”
Ji-Eun hadn’t expected this. Expected him to just ... take over. Make decisions. Treat her like a patient who’d moved from hospital to home care.
“Okay,” she said carefully. “Like what?”
“Like: if you need help, you ask. I won’t hover. Won’t assume. Won’t do things for you unless you specifically request it.” He met her eyes. “But you have to actually ask. Deal?”
It sounded reasonable. Mature. Respectful of her autonomy.
“Deal,” Ji-Eun agreed.
She had no idea how hard it would be to keep that promise.
Day 40 – The Kitchen
Hunger was a problem Ji-Eun hadn’t anticipated.
Not the sensation of hunger—that was automatic, biological, unavoidable. But the logistics of satisfying it from a wheelchair in someone else’s kitchen.
Brent had gone to his home office for a work call. Ji-Eun wheeled herself to the kitchen, determined to make lunch without asking for help. Sandwich. Simple. She’d made thousands of sandwiches in her life.
The bread was on top of the refrigerator.
Ji-Eun stared at it. Tried to calculate if she could reach from the wheelchair. Maybe if she stretched—
No. Too high. Definitely too high.
Okay. Bread in the pantry then. She wheeled over, opened the door. Bread on the second shelf. Reachable.
Success.
She grabbed the loaf, set it on her lap, wheeled back to the counter. Opened the fridge for turkey and cheese.
And realized she couldn’t carry the sandwich supplies and wheel at the same time.
She tried balancing items on her lap. Dropped the cheese. Tried again. Dropped the turkey.
By the time she’d made three trips between fridge and counter, she was exhausted and close to tears.
The sandwich itself took twenty minutes. Cutting it required holding the plate steady, which required bracing it against her body, which meant crumbs everywhere.
When Brent emerged from his office, Ji-Eun was eating her hard-won sandwich surrounded by scattered ingredients and crumbs.
“Hey, how was—” He stopped, taking in the disaster zone. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You want help cleaning—”
“I’ve got it.”
He hesitated, clearly wanting to say something. Then nodded. “Okay. I’ll be in the office if you need me.”
After he left, Ji-Eun cleaned up the mess—awkward, time-consuming, ridiculous. By the time she finished, the sandwich felt like a hollow victory.
But she’d done it herself.
That had to count for something.
Day 42 – The Shower
The shower bench Brent had installed in her bathroom was practical and humiliating in equal measure.
Ji-Eun sat on the edge, staring at the bench, the grab bars, the raised toilet seat. Her bathroom. Except it didn’t feel like hers. It felt like a medical facility disguised as domesticity.
She’d promised Keisha she’d shower before today’s outpatient therapy appointment. Which meant transferring from wheelchair to shower bench, managing the shrinker removal, bathing, drying off, putting the shrinker back on, and reversing the transfer.
Alone.
She could do this. She’d been doing therapy for five weeks. She was strong enough.
The transfer onto the bench went smoothly. The shrinker came off without issue. Actual showering—fine.
Getting out was the problem.
The bench was wet. Her hands were wet. Everything was slippery, and her right leg—exhausted from bearing all her weight—trembled when she tried to push up.
She grabbed the grab bar. Pulled. Her hand slipped.
For one terrifying second, she was falling—
Her other hand shot out, caught the second grab bar. She hauled herself up through sheer panic and stubbornness, landing hard on the wheelchair.
Ji-Eun sat there, dripping and shaking, heart hammering against her ribs.
She’d almost fallen. Almost cracked her head open on tile because she was too proud to ask Brent to stand outside the door in case she needed help.
A knock. “Ji-Eun? You okay? I heard something.”
“I’m fine!” Her voice came out too sharp. “Just dropped the shampoo.”
Silence. Then: “Okay. Therapy’s in an hour—let me know when you’re ready.”
She didn’t answer. Just sat there dripping, trying to stop shaking.
Day 44 – The Shrinker
Putting on the shrinker sock was supposed to get easier with practice.
It didn’t.
Ji-Eun sat on her bed, door closed, residual limb exposed. The compression sock lay beside her like a accusation.
Roll it up. Slide it over the end. Unroll gradually, ensuring even compression without wrinkles. Simple in theory. Torture in execution.
She tried for twenty minutes. Got it halfway up. Realized it was twisted. Started over.
Forty minutes. Getting closer. But the compression felt wrong—too tight at the bottom, too loose at the top.
Start over.
Sixty minutes. Her hands ached. Her residual limb throbbed. The shrinker mocked her from its puddle of failure on the bed.
A soft knock. “Ji-Eun? You coming out for dinner?”
“In a minute.”
“You’ve been in there over an hour. You need—”
“I said I’m fine!”
Silence. Then footsteps retreating.
Ji-Eun looked at the shrinker. Looked at her closed door. Thought about how easy it would be to open that door, ask Brent to help, and have this done in five minutes.
Instead, she tried again.
Ninety minutes later, she emerged with the shrinker on—imperfectly, uncomfortably, but on. Victory.
Brent was in the kitchen. Looked up when she wheeled in, took in her exhausted expression, the set of her jaw.
“Dinner’s ready,” he said neutrally. “Made extra in case you’re hungry.”
“Thanks.”
They ate in silence. If he noticed the shrinker was slightly crooked, he didn’t mention it.
Day 46 – The Groceries
“I can come with you,” Ji-Eun said when Brent grabbed his keys for the grocery run.
He hesitated. “You sure? It’s a lot of people, might be exhausting—”
“I’m sure.”
The grocery store was hell.
Too many people. Too many stares. Aisles too narrow for the wheelchair. Other shoppers who didn’t move, who blocked her path, who looked at her with pity or curiosity or careful studied ignorance.
Ji-Eun powered through, refusing to let Brent see how much it cost her. She reached for items on low shelves, asked strangers to grab things from high ones, navigated the chaos with gritted teeth.
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