He nodded and said ak , “Then we’ll figure out what dancing looks like.”
Before I could stop him, he wheeled me onto the dance floor. I was tense, embarrassed, sure everyone was watching. He didn’t care. He moved with me, not around me—spinning my chair, laughing, making it feel like something fun instead of something tragic.
“For the record,” I told him, “this is insane.”
“For the record,” he said, “you’re smiling.”
I was.
When I asked why he did it, he shrugged. “Because nobody else asked.”
After graduation, my family moved away for rehab, and I never saw him again.
The years that followed were hard. Surgeries, relearning how to move, learning how to live in a world that wasn’t built for people like me. I eventually became an architect, driven by frustration and determination. I built a career designing spaces that didn’t quietly exclude people.
By fifty, I had a successful firm and a life I never expected.
