Page 182 of Saving Forever with the Hockey Captain

There is more behind the answer. I know it as surely as she always knows when I am holding something back.

A month ago, I might have pressed. Captains ask questions. They notice problems and keep asking until someone finally admits what is wrong.

Annette has taught me another way. Sometimes caring means leaving room for the truth to arrive on its own. I nod and tuck the folder beneath my arm. “Okay.”

Something in her face softens, almost as if she recognizes the grace she has offered me so many times. I start toward the hallway, then stop before reaching it. The words come without planning, probably because I have been thinking about the entire day—the easy laughter, the coffee, the bookstore window, and a future that suddenly contains peonies.

“I’m glad you were here.” Annette looks up. “Today?”

“No.” I meet her eyes. “For all of it.”

The clinic continues around us, but the noise seems to recede. She understands exactly what I mean.

The hospital. The first miserable mornings. The shirt I could not pull over my head. The coffee scoop on the kitchen floor. Every painful repetition, every small victory, and every moment she refused to let me reduce myself to an injury.

Her smile is gentle. “So am I.”

There is more I could say. I can feel the words waiting somewhere close, but this is neither the time nor the place to force them. I return her smile and leave before I convince myself otherwise.

***

My cabin still holds the warmth of the afternoon sun when I arrive home. I hang my jacket beside the door and set the therapy folder on the kitchen table. A white reminder card slips free and lands face down on the floor.

I bend to retrieve it, expecting another appointment time or a list of exercises. Instead, I find a typed update from the rehabilitation office.

Remaining Therapy Sessions: 9

I read the number again. Nine. A few months ago, I would have celebrated. Nine appointments meant the finish line was close. It meant strength work, medical clearance, and the first careful steps toward skating again.

Nine should feel like victory. Instead, it feels small.

I sit at the table with the card still in my hand. Nine more mornings of seeing Annette waiting in the therapy gym. Nine more coffees neither of us has to ask for. Nine more chances to make her laugh, hear about her family, or walk through town while she talks about flowers I still cannot identify.

After that, she will no longer be responsible for my recovery.

This thought should make me proud. She has given me exactly what she promised from the beginning—my independence, my strength, and pieces of my life I feared I might never reclaim.

But healing has carried me toward something I never considered when we started.

An ending.

I place the card on the table and look through the window toward the lake. Spring sunlight stretches across the water, turning the surface silver between the last drifting pieces of ice.

For months, I have counted how much longer recovery would take.

Today, for the first time, I am counting how many times I still get to see Annette.

Nine suddenly does not feel like near enough.

Chapter twenty-three

Annette

The Letter

I pass by one of the mirrors in the rehab gym and see a very happy me looking back.

It’s a wonderfully ordinary day. Three months ago, I would have been concentrating on keeping up.