The parking lot is half-empty, the holidays already packed away, CSU football banners still hanging from the athletic center across the street but feeling irrelevant now that the season is over. No noise. No adrenaline. Just winter and reality, and the slow understanding that nothing is waiting for me to start again.
Four weeks post-op.
Four weeks since they reconstructed the three tears piece by piece and sent me home with instructions, ice packs, and a future that suddenly came with more questions than answers.
I adjust my grip on the crutches, flex my fingers, then relax them again. There’s a low ache humming through my leg already, not sharp or stabby, just constant. Like my body is reminding me it hasn’t forgotten what happened.
I check in at the desk, scrawl my name with my left hand because my right still shakes when I’m tired, and take a seat along the wall with the rest of the injured.
Nobody talks. Then again, what is there to say?
“Logan Brooks?”
I push myself up, brace clicking as I straighten. The sound is loud in the quiet room, metallic and final, and I hate it more than I probably should. My crutches hit the floor in a rhythm I still haven’t figured out how to make natural.
The therapist waiting for me looks calm in the way people do when they’ve seen enough injuries to stop reacting to them.
“Jason,” he says, shaking my hand. His grip is firm, confident. “You’re the senior PCU wide receiver, right?”
The words land heavier than I expect.
Last season.
Last routes.
Last chance to make this year mean everything it was supposed to. To make a clear name for myself before the draft in April.
“I was,” I say automatically.
Jason lifts his eyes to mine, studies me for a second longer than necessary, then shakes his head. “Still are.”
No argument. No sympathy. Just a statement.
“Come on,” he says. “Today’s when things change.”
That gets my attention.
The room he leads me into is smaller than I expected. No flashy machines. No high-tech miracle equipment. Just mats, balance boards, resistance bands, cones stacked neatly in the corner, and a rack of weights that looks insulting after years in a college weight room.
“You’ve already done the early stuff,” Jason says as I sit. “Some gentle range of motion, keeping the swelling under control, and letting the inflammation come down. Learning how to bend without panicking or overdoing it.”
I nod. Four weeks of basics. Four weeks of convincing my leg to move again without my brain immediately assuming catastrophe.
“This is where we start loading it,” he continues. “Partial weight becomes full. Support becomes responsibility.”
My jaw tightens.
“Pain today?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He smiles faintly. “Scale of one to ten.”
“Six,” I answer. “But I can push through.”
Jason crouches in front of me so we’re eye level. “We’re not pushing through pain. We’re listening to it.”
That should piss me off. Instead, it makes my chest feel tight.
