I turned, skating backward now, a movement that required different muscles, different balance. My right foot wobbled slightly on the first push, uncertain of the angle. But the second was better. Third better still.
God, this felt good. Like reclaiming parts of myself that had been locked away.
“Transitions!” Chuck called. “Forward to backward, backward to forward. Nice and controlled.”
I pivoted, forward to backward. The twist engaged my core, tested my balance. My foot held. Backward to forward. Clean transition, weight distributed properly.
Again. Again. Again.
Each movement built confidence. Each successful stride reminded my body what it knew.
“Hard stops!” Chuck shouted. “This is the real test. I want to see how that foot handles the pressure of stopping.”
My heart rate kicked up. This was where it could fail. The sudden deceleration, all that force concentrated on the blade edges, the foot absorbing the impact.
I picked up speed and dug in with my left foot first—the good one. Perfect hockey stop, snow spraying from the blade.
“Other foot!” Chuck called. “Let’s see it.”
This was it. Stopping on my right skate meant all my weight, all the torque, all the pressure going through the bones that had been broken.
What if I hesitated? What if my body remembered the injury and refused to commit fully? A half-committed stop would throw me off balance, could cause me to fall, could?—
Could reinjure the foot.
But I couldn’t play scared.
I accelerated again, faster this time, building momentum. At the blue line, I dug in with the right foot.
The blade caught. The foot absorbed the impact. The stop wasn’t as crisp as with my left foot—I could feel the hesitation, the muscles working harder than they should—but it got the job done.
No pain. Just effort.
“Again!” Chuck shouted. “Harder!”
I skated faster, really pushing now, and slammed into a stop with the right foot. This time, it was cleaner. The foot remembered.
“Both feet! Full hockey stop!”
I built up speed and executed a proper two-footed stop, parallel blades carving into the ice, body low and balanced. The spray of ice crystals, the sudden stillness after motion—perfect.
I looked up to find Chuck grinning.
“Not bad for your first skate in eight weeks.”
“Feels incredible.”
“Don’t get cocky. We’ve got a long way to go.” But his tone was approving. “Give me backward crossovers. Then some figure eights. I want to see that foot handle pattern work.”
I fell into the rhythm of it, the meditation of skating. Each drill built on the last. Backward crossovers—the left foot lifting and crossing, the right foot pushing underneath. Figure eights, carving smooth curves into the fresh ice, the blades leaving tracks that showed the precision of my edges.
My mind drifted as I skated, processing the past week while Étienne had been gone.
Nine long days of being alone in the house—our house now, not just mine—missing him desperately.
The team had left last Monday morning. I’d kissed Étienne goodbye in the doorway, watched him pull out ofthe garage, and then stood in the empty house wondering how I’d survive ten days without him.
We’d texted constantly. Good morning messages before I’d even gotten out of bed, updates throughout the day, goodnight texts that sometimes turned into longer conversations when neither of us could sleep.
