Page 222 of Saving Forever with the Hockey Captain

She squeezes my hand once. "Sometimes the right thing and the safe thing aren't the same thing."

I stare at the floor.

"What if I made everything harder for him?"

"What if you made everything harder for both of you?"

The room falls quiet. Outside, someone wheels another cart past the doorway. Another ordinary Thursday, except nothing feels ordinary anymore.

Mrs. Alvarez stands after a moment. Before leaving, she pauses beside the door.

"For what it's worth..."

I look up. "I've watched Jamie Walker walk into this clinic for months."

She smiles gently. "He never once looked around the room to find his therapist."

She lets that sentence settle. "He always looked around the room to find you."

Then she quietly leaves. I remain sitting there long after the door closes. Eventually my eyes drift to the consultation room calendar hanging beside the desk.

Today's appointments.

Tomorrow's.

Next week's.

At the bottom of Jamie's file, someone has clipped the updated rehabilitation schedule.

Remaining Therapy Sessions: 6

Six.

Yesterday it felt like too few.

Today...it feels impossible.

Chapter twenty-eight

Jamie

Everything I Never Told Her

I leave Coach's office carrying more than the coffee cup in my hand. His words follow me down the hallway, through the locker room, and all the way to the truck. You've spent your whole life proving it instead of saying it.

At first, I want to argue with him. I've never struggled to tell people they mattered. I've thanked teammates after difficult games, congratulated rookies after their first goals, and told Coach more than once that I wouldn't be the player—or the man—I am without him. Words have never frightened me. Or at least, that's what I've always believed.

I should be thinking about Coach, instead I keep hearing Annette. You won't need me. We should finish your session. Those words have followed me since I walked out of the clinic. I know she meant to protect me. Somehow that makes them hurt even more.

The drive back to Briar Cove passes in thoughtful silence. The radio stays off, and I barely notice the familiar roads winding along the lake because my mind keeps returning to the same question.

What, exactly, have I ever told Annette? Not what I'd implied. Not what I'd hoped she understood. What have I actually put into words? By the time I turn into my driveway, I still don't have a good answer, or the right answer.

The cabin feels exceptionally still when I walk inside. I set my keys in the bowl by the door, hang my jacket on its hook, and stand for a moment without turning on a single light. Late afternoon sunshine stretches across the hardwood floor, catching familiar objects that have quietly become part of my daily routine - the coffee grinder beside the stove, my hockey bag resting near the mudroom door, and Annette's handwritten exercise sheet clipped to the refrigerator beneath the little hockey-skate magnet that Liam insisted I needed for Christmas.

Almost without thinking, I walk over and read the page again.

Stretch before bed.