Page 84 of Playing for the Hat Trick
Still.
My knee is fine.
No snapping. No shift. No fire shooting up my thigh or down into the bone like a warning flare.
I flex again, slower this time, testing the truth.
It holds.
Holy shit. It actually holds.
It’s like my body—this beat-up, rehab-scarred, surgically reassembled machine I stopped trusting months ago—just raised a middle finger at every fear I’ve been dragging around like a second skin.
I should be celebrating. Shouting. Launching into a Rocky-style victory montage.
Instead, I freeze. The realization hits me harder than the injury ever did.
Fuck.
It was never just the pain.
It’s never been about the fucking knee.
It’s the fucking fear.
The cold, creeping kind that wakes you up at three in the morning whispering,What if you’re not him anymore?
The guy who won the Cup. Who fought for every goal, every shift. The guy whose teammates leaned on him counted on him to hold the line. That guy didn’t flinch. Didn’t hesitate.
That guy wasn’t afraid.
But I was.
I am fucking afraid that if I try and fail, I lose everything.
Afraid that if I try and succeed, I still might not feel whole again.
Afraid that maybe this whole fucking time, I’ve been so focused on proving I’m still that player I forgot how to be a person.
Scottie was right. So was Dr. Parker.
I wasn’t recovering—I was hiding. Hiding behind pain. Hiding behind excuses. Hiding behind the idea that maybe if I didn’t try, I couldn’t fall.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I shift again, just to feel the muscle respond. It’s sore, yeah. I’ve pushed it. But it’s there. It’s alive.
I can come back.
The guy I was? He’s not dead. Just . . . buried. Under fear. Under guilt. Under layers of ego and stubbornness.
And this—this moment where I realize the only thing holding me back was me—feels so fucking raw, I don’t know what to do with it.
So, I turn.
Scottie’s still tucked against me, her breathing slow and warm against my chest. She smells like my shampoo, sex, and sleep. Her fingers are curled into the fabric of my shirt as if she doesn’t want to let go.
I press a kiss into her hair.
