Daniel refused to accept it.
Recovery, they told him, would take time, and they were right, though not in the ways they thought. Learning to live in a body that no longer obeyed him was one kind of battle, one that required patience and grit and a willingness to redefine strength in terms he had never needed before. But losing Titan—that was something else entirely. It wasn’t just grief. It was absence, the kind that echoed in every quiet moment, in every instinct that reached for something that wasn’t there anymore.
He searched anyway.
From his wheelchair, from hospital beds, from the small apartment he eventually moved into once he was discharged, Daniel searched. He called shelters, contacted rescue organizations, scanned endless lists of found dogs, studied photographs until his eyes blurred and the lines between hope and denial became difficult to distinguish.
People told him to let go.
