“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.”
