My leg starts yelling at me before noon.
It’s not a sharp pain. It’s the heavy, throbbing ache that settles deep in the joint, like a reminder that it’s still healing even when I’m trying to ignore it. Four weeks post-op means the swelling has mostly gone down, the bruising has faded, the stitches are gone. It means everyone around you starts acting like you’re supposed to bebetter.
But “better” isn’t a straight line.
“Better” is waking up with stiffness so thick it feels like my knee is wrapped in concrete.
It’s doing ankle pumps in bed before I even stand because if I don’t, the first step is a mistake.
It’s the brace clicking every time I move, loud enough to make me feel like a broken toy.
I make my way to the living room and set myself up with an ice pack, leg stretched out, pillows stacked under my ankle just like Jason told me. The exercises are printed and taped to the fridge. I’ve already memorized them. I do them anyway.
Quad sets. Heel slides. Straight-leg raises that make my thigh shake like it’s forgotten how to do its job.
Some days it feels like progress.
Today feels like punishment.
I grit my teeth through the reps, breathing slowly, focusing on the tiny wins: the fact that I can lift my leg at all, the fact that I can bend it a little farther without that spike of panic.
And still, every time my quad trembles, my brain tries to take me somewhere I don’t want to go.
Back to that moment on the field.
One sharp route.
A hard plant off my right foot to break inside.
The pop came before the pain—loud enough that I knew, instantly, I wasn’t jogging back to the huddle. My whole world narrowed down to one ruined second and the way the sky looked too bright above me while everyone ran toward me like I’d fallen off a cliff.
Senior season.
Senior year.
Last shot.
The timing of it still feels like a joke someone played on me.
I finish the last rep and let my head fall back against the couch.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Don’t spiral.
I hear Pops moving around in the kitchen, cabinet doors opening and closing. A spoon clinks against a mug. The normal sounds of a normal morning.
But they don’t feel normal.
Not with the way he went quiet at the table earlier.
Not with the headache he rubbed at like he didn’t want to name it.
I stare at the ceiling and tell myself I’m imagining patterns.
That’s what anxiety does.
It makes you connect dots that aren’t connected.
Except…sometimes the dotsareconnected.
