My Last Gift Is Your Freedom

After my legs were taken from me, I used to think I was the luckiest girl in the world. I had two people who refused to let me go.

One was my little sister, Sadie. When we were children, I ran into the woods to draw the abductors away from her. They caught me, and they shattered my left leg so I couldn't run again. After we were rescued, Sadie became my legs. She carried me on her back to school, to clinic after clinic, until her own spine curved under my weight. When our parents talked about putting me in a state facility to ease their own burden, Sadie held a kitchen knife to her own wrist, screaming that she would bleed out on the linoleum if they threw me away. That was how she kept me alive.

The other was Jude. He was the boy in the cellar, the one I traded my right leg to save when the captors grew impatient.

To buy me the customized prosthetics that might let me stand again, Jude dropped out of high school. He worked illegal, grueling shifts before throwing himself into the underground bare-knuckle fight rings, turning himself into a desperate, fearless madman who welcomed pain if it paid. The moment he turned eighteen, he proposed to me, swearing an oath to protect me for the rest of his life.

They were my twin stars. They were the only reasons I didn't use a blade on myself during those long, quiet nights.

Until Sadie, weighed down by the anchor of my existence, sank to the very bottom of the marriage market.

That afternoon, after her latest suitor ran out of our houseterrified by the sight of my two mangled stumpsI saw Jude pull her into his arms in the hallway.

"I couldnt stop myself from falling in love with you," Jude whispered, his voice thick with a desperate, agonizing pain. "But youre forcing me to marry her. Ill do it. Ill marry her. But what about your happiness, Sadie? What about us?"

Sadie didn't push him away. Her tears were a sound of pure desolation. "Don't, Jude. Please, don't. Georgia... she has nothing left but us."

Judes voice sounded as if it were being dragged through gravel. "Ill kill her. Ill kill her, and then I'll end my own life to pay for it. I can carry her on my back forever, Sadie, but I won't let her drag you to the grave with her."

In the kitchen, my hand trembled. I reached into my cardigan pocket, my fingers brushing against the diagnostic paper from the clinic.

Thirty days. A month-long countdown to my death.

I wiped the dark, hot blood leaking from my nose, and for the first time in years, I smiled.

Death didnt seem so terrible after all. It was the only real gift I had left to give the two people I loved most.

I scrambled to wipe the blood and tears from my face, desperate to slip back into my room unnoticed. But as I spun my wheelchair, my grip slipped. The chair tipped, crashing hard against the linoleum. The metal frame dug violently into the sensitive, scarred edge of my right stump.

The pain was a blinding, white-hot flash.

As I dragged myself across the floor, trying to crawl away before they could see me, the hallway door flew open.

Sadie ran in first, her face instantly draining of color.

"Georgia!" She dropped to her knees, her hands shaking as she reached for me. "Oh my god, how long have you been out here? Why are you bleeding? Im taking you to the ER right now."

I forced my lips into a gentle, reassuring smile. "I only came out two minutes ago to get some water, and I fell. What were you two doing in there?"

Its okay, I wanted to tell her. You dont have to be afraid. I didn't hear a thing.

Sadie let out a ragged breath, but her face remained deathly pale. "I shouldn't have left you alone. Its my fault. Im so sorry I didn't take care of you."

A sharp ache bloomed in my chest, pulling me back to a memory from our childhood. I was fourteen, shivering with a high fever from an infected bone spur in my stump. Sadie had woken to my whimpering. She was only thirteen, but she had hoisted me onto her back and run through the freezing rain toward the town clinic, sobbing apologies the entire way because she hadn't protected me. From that night on, she never slept through the night, always keeping one ear open for the sound of my breathing.

Suddenly, Jude stepped forward and kicked the overturned wheelchair aside.

The movement was so violent that the metal scraped against my bare, sensitive skin. I bit my lip until it bled to keep from screaming.

"Georgia!" Judes breath hitched, his chest heaving with a mixture of anger and panic. "Youve been in that chair for ten years! How do you still manage to fall in your own living room? Sadie is wearing herself to the bone keeping watch over you. What more do you want from her?"

Listening to his ragged breathing, I squeezed my eyes shut. "Im sorry. Im just... useless."

Judes anger deflated into a hollow exhaustion. He closed his eyes, knelt down, and lifted me into his arms. "Im sorry," he muttered into my hair. "I just panicked. Did you hurt anything else?"

Before I could answer, the diagnostic slip slid out of my pocket and fluttered to the floor.

Jude frowned, leaning down to pick it up.

Panic seized me. I scrambled out of his arms, tumbling onto the floor to snatch the paper before his fingers could touch it. Both of them stared at me, startled by my frantic reaction.

"Its... its a surprise for Sadies birthday," I lied, my voice trembling as I stuffed the paper back into my pocket. "If you look at it now, it'll ruin the surprise."

Judes hand hung in the air. He looked at Sadie, who was already using her sleeve to gently wipe the fresh blood dripping from my nose. Then, with a heavy, deliberate movement, he lifted me and dropped me onto the sofa.

"If you want to give her a surprise," Jude said, his voice laced with bitter restraint, "try not being her anchor for once."

"Jude, stop!" Sadie snapped, but when she looked at me, a flicker of bone-deep weariness crossed her eyes.

In that split second, I understood. Sadie felt the exact same way.

As I fumbled to wipe away the blood that wouldn't stop flowing, my mind drifted back to our high school graduation. Our parents had packed their bags and left town, leaving us behind. Judes parents had threatened to disown him if he didn't take his college scholarship and go abroad. But Jude had torn the acceptance letter to pieces right in front of them. I owe her my legs, he had told them. Im staying.

I had held a kitchen knife to my throat back then, begging them to leave me, to stop ruining their futures for a cripple. But they had both thrown themselves over me, weeping, pinning my arms to my sides.

You are not a burden, Georgia, Sadie had sobbed, kissing my forehead. Wherever you are, thats where my future is.

Were trees from the same root, Georgia, Jude had whispered, his hands shaking as he took the knife from me. If the root dies, we die. You aren't my burden. You are my life.

They had tied their lives to mine. One had bound her youth to my body; the other had paved my path with his blood. And I, a useless creature with no legs, had made them suffer so much.

I pressed my sleeve against my nose and let out a soft, hollow laugh. "You know, in the movies, when someone gets constant nosebleeds, it means theyre dying of some tragic disease. What if I have one of those?"

Sadies hands began to shake violently. She grabbed her purse, dumping every faded bank card and crumpled bill onto the coffee table.

"Georgia, whats wrong with you? Were going to the hospital. Right now. If youre sick, well sell everything. Well find a way."

Jude remained standing by the window, motionless. But after a long, agonizing silence, he walked over and gripped the handles of my wheelchair.

"Were going to get you checked," he said quietly. "If youre sick, Ill just take on more matches."

A lump formed in my throat. I looked at Sadies thin, faded t-shirtshe hadn't bought herself anything new in three years. I looked at Judes right hand, where his pinky finger curved at a grotesque angle from a bone that had healed poorly after a fight. Every cent they made was swallowed by my medical bills.

I couldn't do this to them anymore. I couldn't be their ruin.

"I was just kidding," I said, forcing a cheerful chuckle. "The air is just really dry lately. My head is just a little heavy."

Seeing their suspicious, lingering stares, I pretended to be exhausted and retreated to my bedroom. But the moment my head hit the pillow, the throbbing pain in my skull dragged me down into darkness.

When I finally drifted back to consciousness, the muffled sound of an argument was leaking through the bedroom door.

"You can't speak to her like that!" Sadie was crying, her voice hushed but fierce. "Please, Jude. Just be kind to her."

"I only have enough room in my heart to ache for you!" Judes voice sounded as if it were tearing from his chest. "I can't stand watching her drain the life out of you day after day."

"I don't need your pity!" Sadie sobbed. "If you think my life is so tragic, fine. Ill marry the next guy who asks. Ill go back to Derek"

The argument cut off abruptly.

A draft blew through the apartment, nudging my bedroom door open just an inch. Through the sliver of space, I saw Jude pin Sadie against the hallway wall. He leaned down and kissed her. His hand cupped the back of her head, gripping her hair with the desperate intensity of a drowning man clinging to his last lungful of air.

Sadie pushed against his chest once, weakly, and then her hands stilled. She let herself dissolve into him.

I slowly turned my face back to the wall.

The tears ran silently, soaking into the cheap fabric of my pillowcase.

Its okay, I told myself. I really don't mind.

Three days later, Sadie came home and told us she had a boyfriend. She wanted us all to go out for dinner so we could meet him. It was Derekthe same man who had fled our house in disgust only a week prior.

Sadie kept smiling at me across the living room. "His family is doing really well, Georgia. And hes so sweet to me."

I stared into her eyes, my throat tightening so hard I could barely breathe. She thought that by sacrificing herself to a man she didn't love, Jude would finally let her go and dedicate himself to me.

She was such a fool.

Jude sat beside me, his expression dark as a thundercloud. His knuckles were white, his fingernails digging so deeply into his palms that they drew blood.

When we arrived at the diner, Derek didn't even look Sadie in the eye. Instead, his gaze immediately landed on my wheelchair, scanning my stumps as if assessing a damaged piece of clearance-rack furniture.

"Look, Sadie," Derek said, tossing his menu onto the table. "With your sister in this condition... she can't even stand, let alone take care of herself. Since she's going to be a package deal, I won't be paying a dowry. Honestly, considering the circumstances, you should be glad Im willing to marry you at all."

He leaned back, gesturing vaguely at Sadies worn clothes. "I mean, look at you. You don't even have a decent dress. My friends are already laughing at me, saying Im marrying a live-in maid."

Sadies smile froze.

I reached for my water glass, my hand shaking with a sudden, violent urge to throw it in his arrogant face. But Jude was faster. He rose from his seat, his fist flying across the table and connecting with Dereks jaw with a sickening crack.

Sadie threw herself between them, her fingernails digging into Judes arm to pull him back. "Stop! Jude, please, just stop!" she screamed. "This is my life! It has nothing to do with you! Just get out of here!"

I grabbed Sadies trembling hand, trying to pull her toward the exit. "Sadie, come on. You don't have to do this"

But before I could finish, Jude grabbed the handles of my wheelchair and pushed me out of the restaurant in a silent, furious sprint.

Through the glass window of the diner, I saw Sadie standing alone, her head bowed as Derek shouted at her.

When we reached the intersection, Jude stopped. He stared back at the diner, his eyes locked on the silhouette of Sadie and Derek through the glass. His shoulders rose and fell with heavy, ragged breaths.

"Wait here," he whispered, his voice so faint it was barely a breath.

He let go of the wheelchair and ran back toward the diner, leaving me alone at the edge of the busy, roaring intersection.

The cold night wind rushed down my collar. Behind me, a group of neighborhood kids riding bicycles slowed down.

"Hey, look at the legless freak!" one of them yelled, laughing. "Let's get the monster!"

Before I could turn around, a hard shove slammed into the back of my wheelchair. The chair rolled off the curb, hurtling down the steep, dark slope toward the main road. The brake cable snapped with a sharp twang. I clawed at the air, but there was nothing to grab.

I rolled directly into the path of an oncoming semi-truck. The high beams blinded me, filling my world with a sudden, terrifying white light.

The truck driver slammed on his horn, swerving violently at the last second.

My wheelchair flipped, throwing me into the muddy ditch at the side of the road. I rolled through the thorns, my face covered in hot, sticky blood. The driver yelled a curse out of his window, hit the gas, and vanished into the dark.

I lay in the dirt for what felt like hours before I heard Sadies voice tearing through the night. "Georgia! Oh my god, Georgia!"

Jude reached me first. He stared at the blood dripping from my forehead, his eyes turning a wild, bloodshot red.

"Haven't you seen enough today?" he roared, his voice cracking with a terrifying mixture of guilt and fury. "Because of you, Sadie has to suffer these humiliations! I told you to wait for me! Why do you always have to wander off and cause trouble?"

He stormed to the trunk of his old car, pulled out a pair of dusty, cheap prosthetics, and dragged them onto my stumps, fastening the straps with brutal, shaking hands.

"From now on, you learn to walk," he hissed, hoisting me up and forcing my weight onto the artificial limbs. "For Sadies sake, you are going to stand."

Sadie tried to push him away. "Jude, stop it! Youre hurting her!"

"How many more times do you want to be humiliated like today?" Jude screamed back, his eyes wild. "How many more times, Sadie?"

Sadie went entirely still. She slowly let go of his arm.

I tried to take a step, but the alignment was wrong. I fell hard onto the asphalt, the pain in my thighs radiating up to my skull. Still, I reached down and tightened the straps myself.

These were the first prosthetics Jude had bought for me three years ago, spending every cent of his savings. But the money hadn't been enough for a proper fit. The cheap, hard plastic had rubbed my stumps until they infection-bled, damaging the nerves. Back then, Jude had knelt before me, weeping as he carried me to bed. Im sorry, Georgia. I swear, unless I can buy you the best pair in the world, I will never make you wear these again.

And Sadie had cried with him, clutching my hand. And me, Georgia. Ill be your legs for the rest of your life.

They had kept those promises. Jude had fought in illegal rings until three of his ribs were broken, and Sadie had carried me everywhere until her own spine curved like an old womans.

They were such good people. And I had ruined them.

I forced a bloody smile. "Ive... Ive been wanting to practice anyway, Jude. I want to learn."

The plastic chafed against my skin, peeling away layers of flesh. But I didn't care. My time was running out anyway, and if walking could give them a sliver of peace, I would crawl through glass to do it.

But the physical pain was nothing compared to the tumor growing in my brain. Day by day, my balance grew worse. After a week of falling, Sadie sat on the edge of my bed, cleaning my weeping wounds, her tears dripping onto my scarred thighs.

"Don't do this anymore, Georgia," she whispered. "Please. Just stop."

Perhaps she wanted to save me from the pain, or perhaps she wanted to completely extinguish Judes hope. Over the next ten days, Sadie went on nearly a dozen blind dates, bringing home different men just to show us.

The air in our apartment grew cold, heavy with Jude's silent, suffocating rage.

The breaking point came on a Tuesday afternoon. I was trying to stand in the living room when my knees buckled, and I crashed into the coffee table.

Jude snapped.

He marched over, scooped me up into his arms, and carried me out to his car, throwing me into the passenger seat.

Sadie ran out of the house, clawing at the car door. "Where are you taking her? Jude, open the door!"

Jude locked the doors from the inside. His face was entirely devoid of emotion, his voice dead. "She says she can't stand. Im going to make her."

He drove us out to a deserted dirt road on the edge of town, dragged me out of the car, and left me on the gravel.

"Why won't you stand?" he asked, his voice cracking with a terrifying, hollow despair. "I ruined my entire life for you, Georgia. That was my choice. But you can't drag Sadie down with us forever."

He got back into the sedan, started the engine, and threw it into drive.

He aimed the car straight at me.

He wanted to terrify me. He wanted the primal fear of death to force my legs to move. I wanted to move too, but my nerves were dead, my body entirely unresponsive.

As the car sped closer, only three feet away, I saw Judes eyes through the windshield. There was no hatred in themonly a deep, welcoming desire for death. He was ready to end us both.

I tired of fighting. I closed my eyes and waited for the impact.

But the screech of tires tore through the quiet night.

"Stop it! Both of you, stop!"

Sadie had arrived in a taxi. She threw herself in front of the cars bumper, her face streaked with tears.

Jude collapsed against the steering wheel, his shoulders shaking violently. Sadie marched to the drivers side door, ripped it open, and slapped him hard across the face.

"Are you insane?" she screamed. "Are you trying to kill her?"

Jude didn't flinch. He didn't even wipe the blood from his lip. "I just wanted her to stand," he whispered, sounding like a broken child. "I just wanted her to stand."

I dragged my useless body across the gravel, reaching out to grasp Jude's trembling hand. "Sadie, don't. Its okay. I asked him to do it. I wanted to try this way."

Jude froze. Then, he leaned out of the car, buried his face in the crook of my neck, and sobbed.

I gently patted his back, my fingers tracing the tense muscles of his shoulders. "Don't cry, Jude. I'll stand. I promise I'll stand."

Sadies lips trembled, but she didn't say a word.

When we returned to the apartment, the home we had built together felt like a cold, damp tomb. No one spoke. The silence was absolute, broken only by the muffled, agonizing weeping that leaked through the walls late at night.

"I told you, Jude... you only had to be good to her," Sadie sobbed into her pillow one night. "Why did you try to kill her? Is the only way you'll let her go if I marry someone else?"

My head throbbed with a blinding, agonizing pain. I crawled into the bathroom and threw up dark, clotted blood into the toilet.

Almost there, I thought, wiping my mouth. Soon, they will both be free.

The next morning, I saw Sadie sitting on the sofa, her face painted with a hollow, plastic smile as she agreed to another dinner date with Derek over the phone.

My heart sank. "Sadie, please. Hes not a good man."

Her hand paused on the phone. She forced a dry, brittle laugh. "Don't worry, Georgia. Hes great. Besides, I want to get married. Im tired of being a third wheel to you and Jude."

She grabbed her purse and walked out, slamming the door behind her.

Jude stared at the closed door, then turned his gaze to me. In his eyes, I saw a terrible cocktail of helplessness, pity, and a tiny, dark sliver of... resentment.

I took a sip of warm water, but my tongue was too numb to feel the heat.

Just a few more days, I thought. Just a few more days.

But when Sadie returned that night, her coat was missing. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her lip was swollen and bleeding. When she reached up to adjust her collar, the light caught a dark, purple bruise shaped like a mans fingers pressed deep into her collarbone.

Judes entire body went rigid. His knuckles cracked as he balled his hands into fists. "Did he touch you?"

My body began to shake violently. "Sadie... tell me who did this. Ill kill him. I swear to God, Ill kill him."

Sadie flinched, her eyes turning wild. She grabbed a ceramic mug from the counter and hurled it at me. "Shut up! Just shut up and stay away from me! If it weren't for you... if it weren't for your useless legs, none of this would be happening!"

The mug shattered against my ribs. The force of it knocked me back, a sharp, blooming pain in my chest making me double over.

Jude didn't look at me. He grabbed the back of my wheelchair and pushed me roughly into my bedroom, locking the door from the outside. "Stay in here, Georgia."

Through the thin wood of the door, Sadies sobbing was relentless, a sound of pure, unadulterated grief.

"Because of her, I have to let a monster touch me! Because of her, I can't love the only man Ive ever wanted! She was taken because of me, yes! But Ive paid her back with ten years of my life! Ten years! When is it going to be enough? I hate her for making me owe her. I hate that shes still alive..."

The tears ran down my cheeks, hot and heavy.

I reached down and touched the empty fabric of my right trouser leg.

I hate myself too, Sadie. I hate myself more than you ever could.

I lay awake in the dark all night, watching the moonlight slowly crawl across the ceiling.

At dawn, the lock clicked. Jude walked in, carrying a small, warm bowl of vanilla custard.

It was my favorite. Years ago, when the pain of the amputations made me want to starve myself to death, Jude would stay up all night to make me warm custard, feeding it to me spoonful by spoonful. Eat something sweet, Georgia, he would whisper. If you eat something sweet, the world won't taste so bitter.

But vanilla custard at five in the morning was strange.

Judes expression was incredibly calm, his eyes hollow. "Sadie shouldn't have hit you yesterday. Eat this. It'll make you feel better."

I looked at the custard, and then I looked into his eyes.

I understood.

It was okay. Dying a few days early didn't make any difference now.

I took the bowl from him. But as I raised the spoon to my lips, Jude suddenly spoke, his voice barely a whisper.

"Georgia... I really did love you once. More than anything."

I smiled at him, my heart feeling lighter than it had in years. "I know, Jude. I know."

When I was twenty, my stumps had become severely infected. The doctors said they needed to amputate more of the bone, and the surgery would cost ten thousand dollars. The fight rings hadn't paid enough, so Jude had gone to three different black-market blood clinics under fake names. He had sold so much of his own blood that his skin turned translucent, and he collapsed in the alleyway. When he woke up in the clinic, the first thing he did was show me the crumpled envelope of cash. I got the money, Georgia. We can do the surgery now.

"Jude," I said softly, looking at him one last time. "I love you. And I love Sadie. No matter what happens, I always will."

He turned his face away, his shoulders trembling.

I raised the bowl and began to swallow the sweet, warm custard in large gulps.

But just as I reached the final spoonful, Jude suddenly screamed, lunging forward and slamming the bowl out of my hands.

"Don't! Don't eat it!"

The ceramic shattered on the floor, splashing the yellow custard across the rug.

But it was too late. The drug was already in my system. Within seconds, a sharp, agonizing fire tore through my stomach, as if a thousand claws were ripping me apart from the inside.

Through a heavy, suffocating fog, I felt hands squeezing my throat, trying to force me to throw up. Then came the cold, clinical glare of hospital lights, and the brutal sensation of a plastic tube being shoved down my esophagus. I retched violently, my body convulsing on the metal gurney.

When the distant wail of sirens finally faded, I used the absolute last of my strength to open my eyes. I knew this was the end. I wanted to look at the people I loved one last time.

Sadies eyes were swollen and red from crying. Jude stood beside her, his face a mask of gray, lifeless shock.

I looked past them, locking eyes with the police officer standing at the foot of my bed.

"I... I didn't want to live anymore," I whispered, my voice a dry rattle. "I took the pills myself. It was me. No one else."

I wanted to say more, to make sure they were safe, but the darkness was pulling me down, heavy and absolute. I closed my eyes, and the world slipped away.

Judes frantic voice seemed to come from miles away. "We pumped her stomach! Why isn't she waking up? Why is her heart slowing down?"

Then, the doctors heavy, exhausted sigh. "The patient has a terminal brain tumor... the poisoning must have triggered a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Theres nothing more we can do."

A heavy sound echoed, like someone collapsing to the floor.

"What tumor..."

But the rest of his words were drowned out by the quiet, beautiful silence.

In my coat pocket, the suicide note I had written days ago slid out, fluttering onto the hospital floor. Jude picked it up with trembling fingers:

Sadie, Jude,

If you are reading this, it means I am finally at peace. Please, be together. Don't let my ghost stand between you. You've carried me for ten years; now, it's time to run.

Go forward, my sweet, stubborn kids. Im letting go.