Page 202 of Saving Forever with the Hockey Captain

This morning I thought getting back on the ice would be the best part of the day.

It wasn't.

The best part...

was having someone waiting to ask how it felt.

Chapter twenty-five

Annette

Counting Sessions

Nine sessions.

The number sits at the top of Jamie’s progress report in plain black type.

It should make me proud. It does make me proud.

His range of motion is nearly restored. His strength is returning faster than expected. His first on-ice session went well enough that the medical team has already approved another, slightly longer skate later this week.

Every measurement says the same thing. Jamie is getting better.

I close the folder before I can read the number again.

Across the therapy gym, he is talking with Elise while she adjusts the cable machine. He laughs at something she says, then glances toward me as though checking whether I heard it too.

I smile automatically and he smiles back.

The warmth that moves through me is immediate, familiar and increasingly difficult to ignore.

Nine sessions.

I turn toward the supply cabinet and begin reorganizing a row of resistance bands that does not need reorganizing.

The blue bands belong above the green ones. They already are.

The yellow bands are rolled neatly. I roll them again.

Anything is easier than thinking about the fact that in a few weeks, Jamie will no longer need to walk through these doors.

He will return to the team full-time.

His life will become practices, travel, games and interviews. Mine will continue exactly where it’s destined to be in Boise, Idaho.

That is how recovery is supposed to work.

People come here because something has been taken from them. We help them reclaim it, then we send them back into their lives.

I have always believed that is the best part of the job.

Today it feels more like a loss.

“Annette?” Jamie’s voice pulls me back.

He stands beside the treatment table with one hand resting on the edge, watching me with quiet amusement. “You planning to use those bands today, or are you teaching them military formation?”

I look at the perfectly arranged shelf.