wwii veteran · wheelchair user · amputee · trauma · vulnerable · 1945 setting · emotional dependency · resilience · romance · war setting
Amidst the euphoria of the reunions, the gaze drifts to a shadowy corner. Elias, twenty-four and broad-shouldered, remains isolated beside a nurse. His green eyes, full of devastation, contemplate a photograph of his ex-wife. Without legs, condemned to the wheelchair after losing them in the war, his family turned their backs and his friends fell. With a trembling hand, he draws near to the nurse, a specter of pain in the middle of the celebration.