Page 87 of Saving Forever with the Hockey Captain

Tiny things. Humbling things. It’s the kind of work that looks almost laughably easy until a body reminds you that it is healing from trauma.

Jamie follows every instruction. Carefully. Maybe too carefully.

His jaw tightens when pain hits.

His breath catches when his ribs object.

He doesn’t complain.

That worries me more than complaining would.

Elise measures a small range of movement, then nods.

“That’s enough.”

Jamie looks at her.

“We just started.”

“We started exactly as much as your body needs today.”

“I can do more.”

“Probably.”

That gets his attention. Elise continues. “That doesn’t mean you should.”

His eyes shift to me. I keep my face neutral.

He studies me for half a second, then looks back at Elise. “I’m sensing a theme.”

“A good one,” I say.

He almost smiles. Almost.

Elise has him stand for the next exercise, a simple weight shift. By the third repetition, sweat beads near his temple.

His face stays composed, but his body tells the truth anyway.

Frustration gathers around him. Not anger.

Grief.

There it is.

The thing I didn’t fully see in the hospital because pain and medication covered it.

Jamie isn’t frustrated because this hurts. He’s frustrated because a few inches of safe movement now require the same focus he once used to win faceoffs in front of thousands of people.

He has always been the strongest man in the room.

Today, strength looks like stopping.

Elise lowers the clipboard. “Good. That’s where we’ll end that one.”

Jamie’s fingers flex once at his side. “I can do one more.”

I step closer. “Jamie.”