“No.” I moved the wheelchair closer to where he was sitting. “Say it again.”
“You were beautiful. You are beautiful. You have always been beautiful, Elellanar. The wheelchair doesn’t change that. The broken legs don’t change that. You are intelligent, kind, brave, and, yes, physically beautiful.” Her voice grew prouder. “The twelve men who rejected you were blind idiots. They saw a wheelchair and stopped looking. They didn’t see you. They didn’t see the woman who learned Greek just because she could, who read philosophy for pleasure, who learned to forge iron despite having broken legs. They didn’t see any of this because they didn’t want to.”
I reached out and took his hand, his huge, scarred hand, capable of bending iron, but holding mine as if it were made of glass. "Do you see me, Josiah?"
“Yes, I see you all. And you are the most beautiful people I have ever met.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. "I think I'm falling in love with you."
The silence that followed was deafening. Dangerous words. Impossible words. A white woman and a black man enslaved in Virginia in 1856. There was no room in society for what I felt.
"Ellaner," he said carefully. "You can't. We can't. If anyone knew, they would..."
"What would they want? We already live together. My father already married me to you. What difference does it make if I love you?"
“The difference is safety. Your safety. My safety. If people think this arrangement is dictated by affection rather than obligation.”
“I don’t care what people think.” I stroked his face with my hand, reaching out to touch him. “I care what I feel. And for the first time in my life, I feel love. I feel someone sees me. Really sees me. Not the wheelchair. Not the disability. Not the burden. You see Ellanar. And I see Josiah. Not the slave. Not the brute. The man who reads poetry, creates wonderful things with iron, and treats me with more kindness than any free man has ever had.”
“If your father knew.”
"My father arranged everything. He brought us together. Whatever happens, it's partly his fault." I leaned forward. "Josiah, I understand if you don't feel the same way. I understand it's complicated and dangerous. Maybe I'm just lonely and confused. But I needed to tell you."
He was silent for so long. I thought I'd ruined everything. Then: "I've loved you since our first real conversation. When you asked me about Shakespeare and actually listened to my answer. When you treated me like my thoughts mattered. I've loved you every day since then, Elellanar. I never thought I'd say that."
“Say it now.”
"I love you."
We kissed. My first kiss at 22, with a man who, according to society, shouldn't have existed for me, in a library surrounded by books that would condemn what we were doing. It was perfect.
But perfection doesn't last long in Virginia in 1856. Not for people like us.
For five months, Josiah and I lived in a bubble of stolen happiness. We were cautious, never showing affection in public, maintaining the facade of devoted protégé and designated guardian. But in private, we were simply two people in love.
My father either didn't notice, or chose not to. He saw that I was happier, that Josiah was attentive, that the situation was working. He didn't question the time we spent alone. The way Josiah looked at me, the way I smiled in his presence.
In those five months, we built a life together. I continued to learn the art of blacksmithing, creating increasingly complex pieces. He continued to read, devouring books from the library. We talked incessantly about our dreams of a world where we could be together openly, about the impossibility of those dreams, about how to find joy in the present despite the uncertainty of the future.
And yes, we became intimate. I won't go into the details of what happens between two people in love. But I will say this: Josiah approached physical intimacy the same way he approached everything with me, with extraordinary sensitivity, attentive to my well-being, with a reverence that made me feel loved and not used.
By October, we had created our own world within the impossible space society had forced us into. We were happy in a way neither of us could have ever imagined possible.
Then my father discovered the truth and everything fell apart.
