Page 38 of Top Shelf
He nodded, his gaze on my face, though I wasn’t meeting his. I was staring at his injured leg, which stuck out straight instead of bent. He touched his knee absently. “It’s not as bad as this.”
“Oh.” He thought I was comparing the two of us, and I felt awful because I knew how terrible losing the NHL had been for him. “Maybe I should go to another therapist. I don’t want to make you feel bad.”
He frowned, gaze snapping back up to mine. “Ferris, no. I’m okay. But I promise we’re going to get you back on the ice. You don’t have to give up yet.”
“I wasn’t giving up,” I told him. “That’s why I’m here.”
He smiled. I could tell he still wasn’t smiling much. His face was like the people who used so much Botox they didn’t have laugh lines. “Good. Now, it looks like it’s a tendon in your ankle that’ll give you the most trouble. You’re young and healthy, so the pins in your leg will only get complicated when you fly or if you ever need an MRI.”
I grimaced. “No, thank you.”
He laughed. “Fair enough, but you are playing professional hockey now, so that might come up.” He set the tablet aside, then cracked his knuckles. “Is it okay if I take your orthotic off?”
I waved at him to go ahead, so he carefully undid the straps before standing up and pulling out a leg rest from the table. He set my heel on the edge, then turned my leg from left to right. The pain wasn’t as bad as it had been, but my toes were still burning.
“Have you been doing your exercises? They gave you a sheet at the hospital, right?”
I wrinkled my nose and tapped my fingers on my thigh. “Yes. I don’t like them, but my mom is staying with me right now, so she’s making sure I’m sticking to the schedule.”
His eyes widened. “Your mom is at a frat house?”
At that, I laughed. “No. Though the guys would probably love that. She rented an apartment for me.”
“She sounds like a good mom.”
“She is a good mom.” She was also a nosy, overbearing, exhausting mom. But there were worse ones to have. “Can we not talk about her?”
He held up his hands in surrender, then rolled his chair back with his calf and stood at the edge of the table. “This is going to hurt, but I’m going to test the current strength in your leg, okay? Tell me if you want to stop, but I want you to push through as much as you can.”
“I don’t like pain,” I whispered softly.
His hand curled around my ankle and squeezed softly. Something in me told me he didn’t do this with other patients. He wanted us to be normal. Professional.
I wasn’t sure if that was possible.
“I’m going to get you better, Ferris,” he said, his voice a soft rumble.
I took a breath, then nodded. “Okay. I trust you.”
There was a long, profound, pointed silence, and then he squeezed once and let go. “Good. Now…” He set his palm against the bottom of my foot. “Flex.”
It was hell on earth.I’d gotten hurt before, but not like this. Goalies had to deal with taking pucks to every part of the body. Even with the thick pads, I was always bruised in some way or another, but I didn’t have to deal with fights. Or checking. Just the occasional getting slammed into by overly enthusiastic players who didn’t have time to stop.
I still had all of my own teeth. Nothing had ever been broken before this.
I’d never been high sticked or slashed by a skate blade.
I really didn’t like pain, and I avoided it as much as I could, so physical therapy was torture. Even with Quinn being kind and careful with me, when it was over, there were tears in my eyes, and I was doing everything I could not to break down.
I could feel everything in my gut churning. I wanted my bed, in my room, in the frat house. I wanted my safe space with the pillows that muffled my screams. I wanted all my yarn and my blankets and my friends just a few feet away, who’d come sit with me when the worst of it was over and talk to me about themundane, pointless shit going on in their lives to distract me and calm me down.
I had none of that.
I loved my mom more than anything, but she never did understand what it was like for me. She didn’t understand entirely that my meltdowns weren’t tantrums. And that I couldn’t just…stop having them. That letting myself melt down was as important as stimming, or blinking, or breathing.
And she wasn’t going to leave me alone at home so I could let it all go.
“Ferris?”
