Chapter 11 #2
“Jason.” Her tone doesn’t rise. It doesn’t need to. “You threw the resistance band across the turf and told Alex to shove it.”
I glare at the floor. “That band was defective.”
“Your compliance is defective,” she snaps, facing me. “You’ve been cleared physically for weeks, but you’re still limping like it gets you out of chores.”
I bark a laugh. “Wow. Empathy really is your love language.”
Her arms cross. “You don’t want empathy. You want permission to quit.”
“No,” I say, sharp now. “I want someone to admit this whole comeback fantasy might be a fucking lie.”
Silence.
She watches me for a beat, and when she speaks again, her voice is different. Quieter. Not softer—just . . . lower. Like she’s peeling back a layer she doesn’t show most people.
“You’re not afraid it’s a lie,” she says. “You’re afraid it isn’t.”
I look up.
That lands. Hard.
“You’re scared of getting back on the ice and realizing you’ve done everything right—and it still doesn’t work. You’re scared the dream isn’t broken. You are.”
Something inside me flinches.
Not visibly. Not audibly. But I feel it.
Right under the ribs, where things are hardest to admit.
“Shut up,” I mutter.
She doesn’t.
“You built your whole identity on being the guy who never quits. The one who pushes harder lasts longer and out-trains everyone. But now? You’re stuck. And instead of admitting it terrifies you, you’d rather detonate your entire recovery—and career—just to stay in control.”
I shoot to my feet before I even realize I’ve moved.
The file drops to the mat with a dull thud.
“I am in control,” I growl. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’m not hiding.”
She steps forward, closing the distance between us. Her voice stays low, but there’s fire under every word.
“No. You’re not hiding. You’re posturing. There’s a difference.”
“You don’t get it,” I bite out. “You’ve never had to wonder if your body will betray you. If the one thing that made you worth a damn is already gone.”
Her expression freezes. Just for a second. Then: “You think I don’t know what that feels like?”
I stop pacing.
Her eyes flash. “Did you forget about my soccer career? I tore my ACL in the last ten minutes of a championship game. It was a career-ending injury. I woke up every day for a year wondering if I was still someone. So, yeah, Jason. I know exactly what that feels like.”
Of course, she does, and now I feel like an asshole because I was there. Not there with her because she didn’t want anyone around her, but . . . I was watching from the sidelines.
She kneels in front of me, grabbing my brace. Without a word, she peels it off and sets it beside my foot like it’s not the only thing keeping me together.
“I’m going to retrain your stride,” she says, all calm and command. The edge in her voice is gone, replaced by something surgical. She’s clipped into business mode like she’s about to cut me open and rearrange my soul.
“We’ll start tomorrow—full neuromuscular re-patterning. No crutch. No brace.”
My stomach drops. “I’m not ready.”
“You’re ready enough.”
I meet her gaze. There’s no smirk, no challenge. Just truth. And for once, I don’t want to run. She’s not dangling hope like a carrot—I think she wants to make me try. Wants to see if I’ll take the jump, even if I land on my face.
Then—like she crawled into my head and made a bed there—she adds, “Starting tomorrow, no skipping drills. No half-assed excuses. No self-diagnosing. And if you even think about blowing off your post-activation cooldown, I’ll duct-tape you to the treatment table.”
I drag a hand down my face. “You always threaten your clients with light bondage scenarios?”
She doesn’t look away. “Only the ones I don’t want to lose.”
There it is.
Something kicks in my chest. Not love. Not longing. Just . . . something I forgot I could still feel.
She must catch the shift—or maybe she doesn’t. Perhaps I’m just so goddamn tuned into her that I’m inventing tension where there’s only clinical precision.
I try to reset. Straighten up. Reboot my brain like it didn’t just short-circuit at the idea of her not wanting to lose me.
“I don’t want a cheerleader,” I manage. “Don’t sugarcoat my numbers. Don’t pat me on the head when I hit bare minimum. Don’t bullshit me.”
Her brow lifts. “Jason. Have you met me?”
“Don’t feed me hope if there’s none left,” I say. “But give me timelines. I need to know what I’m working toward. I need . . . structure.”
She pauses. Something shifts in her face—not sympathy, not softness. Just awareness. Like she sees all of it. The way I keep talking to fill the space. The way I can’t meet my reflection these days.
She takes a step closer.
Too close.
Her voice drops low—not soft, just close enough that I can feel it. “Hope’s not the problem, Jason. It’s what happens when you stop believing you deserve it.”
I look at her then.
Really look.
She smells of clean skin and citrus. Her mouth is set, but there’s tension at the corners. Her eyes don’t flinch. They just hold me there, unblinking, like she’s the only one left who might still believe in me.
And for half a second, I want to tell her everything.
That I’m fucking tired.
I haven’t looked in a mirror without flinching since the surgery.
I don’t know who I am without the adrenaline, ice, and rhythm of people chanting my name like I mattered.
I miss it—not the game, but the glide. The freedom. The clean bite of speed when nothing else existed but motion.
But also, I want to kiss her, kiss her hard, and this time, hope that I could keep her.
I don’t say any of it.
Because if I start, I won’t stop.
And we both know this isn’t about confessions or kisses. It’s about survival. So, I take a breath and say the only thing I can manage with her this close.
“Do I get a safe word?”
Her mouth twitches. She’s trying not to smile. Failing, beautifully.
“Yeah,” she says, stepping back just enough to let me breathe. “Your safe word is: ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’”
“That’s a phrase, not a word,” I argue.
She shakes her head. “If you can say it all, it means you don’t need it. See you tomorrow, Tate.”
Somehow, the promise of seeing her tomorrow feels just a little like hope.