Page 137 of Unbreakable
good luck today bro
don’t break a leg
for real
“Ready?”My physical therapist stood on the ice, holding out a hand for me to try skating.
Jeanine stood on the other side of the glass. She’d just finished her skating workout, looking extra hot in some cutesy purple outfit that I’d picked out. She initially told me she’d only wear what she picked, but I think she wanted to show her support today by wearing one of the Dylan picks. She gave me a thumbs up, and I made a sign of the cross over myself to show how nervous I was. I could read her lips:you got it, baby.
My knee was doing so much better, but this was a big step forward. Skating engaged every muscle and tendon that I’d injured. Even a simple push might snap it all over again, and drop me right back to square one. But it was either try now andhave some hope of returning next month, or lose all hope of returning this season.
With a deep breath, I stepped onto the ice on my non-injured leg.So far, so good. But now was the real test.
I put my weight on my left leg and pushed.
“Easy!” the PT warned. “Just glide. No hockey stops.”
I took another step, then another. But in my bad leg, I felt no pain. Stiffness, sure, but it wasn’t painful.
Jeannie stood in the corner of the first turn, hands covering her nose and mouth and her eyes watering. She raised her brows to ask how it was going. I grinned and she literally jumped for joy and cheered, blowing me a kiss.
It would still be a long road ahead—some time before I could practice with the team and even longer before I'd play in a real game. But in this moment, I realized that playing again was within reach. I could come back.
And I hadn’t done it alone. That beautiful woman in the purple skating outfit had gotten me here. She left me alone when I needed to be frustrated alone. She listened to my bitching. She made sure I took my meds on time. She kept everything else at home running so I could focus on recovering. She drove my ass to appointment after appointment.
She did this just as much as I did.
In some ways, I felt like I owed her everything. But in another, I was starting to see how our marriage ebbed and flowed. Sometimes, she needed the attention and care. Sometimes, it was me.
We’d started couples therapy, and the biggest gap we’d identified was that we both struggled to advocate for ourselves. Twin flames strike again, I guess. We didn’t like to be needy, and we wanted our needs to be anticipated rather than stated.
But that strategy landed us where we were. It might have worked for the brief period before we had kids, but once life gothectic, that wasn’t a sustainable method. So slowly, over time, we each gave too much of ourselves and had nothing left of our own.
It was time for a new version of us. We were Dyl and J 2.0. We asked for what we needed, and we understood that sometimes, we couldn’t expect our partner to fill those needs.
And that had to be enough.
We broke ourselves trying to be unbreakable, to pretend nothing was wrong because we didn’t want it to be.
But the cracks were what made us stronger. Our ability to break and still come back to each other, time and again, was maybe the most beautiful thing about our love.
Because no matter how broken we felt, we both wanted to glue us back together.
EPILOGUE
JEANINE | NOW | APRIL
My dewyeyes blurred the arena around me.
Ohio had just dominated in their last game of the season. Partially, it was because the visiting team put in their newest recruits, basically eighteen- and nineteen-year-old kids who were getting their first NHL play. For the visiting team, it was essentially a long scrimmage. For us, it was a chance to win at home.
And for the Sorrento household, it was Dylan’s first game back from his injury.
He’s usually all business on the ice, but I didn’t miss his grin as he took his first pass of warm-up shots. He was back home on the ice, for as long as he wanted to stretch his career.
The Rusties finished just shy of a wild card spot for the playoffs. And while that was disappointing, they’d put in a lot of work to shape up and improve their cohesion. Dylan kept working with Colton to boost his captain abilities, and it showed.
Dylan talked all the time about how improvement was on the horizon. They had some new players coming up who held promise for the next season, and there was a predicted management reshuffle over the summer.
