Absolutely not.
There was wanting, and then there was jerking off to your best friend’s sister, then having to look her in the eye over coffee and pretend you hadn’t. I’d already checked off the first two, and I was barely holding the line on the third.
By the time I pulled into the PT lot, my shoulders were so tight it felt like my traps were welded to my neck. I killed the engine, sat there with my hands still clamped on the wheel, and took one slow breath.
Inside, the clinic smelled like disinfectant and a weird mix of lemon cleaner and burned beans. Country radio murmured from a wall speaker. Jess looked up from her tablet when I came in, purple sneakers, dark hair in a messy knot, eyebrows lifting in a way that said she was cataloging every inch of my posture already.
“Well, look who it is,” she said. “You’re early. Feeling ambitious or just sick of your own house?”
“Little column A, little column B,” I muttered, signing myself in.
She gave me a look that hit more than muscle and bones. “Good. Let’s take advantage before you remember you hate me.”
The routine was familiar by now. Parallel bars. Warm-up laps. Stretch, then strength. I moved through it the way I always did—mechanical at first, then a little looser once my body remembered it knew how.
Only today something was ... different.
When Jess sent me toward the ramp—a gentle incline up to a platform, the kind of thing that had felt like Everest the first few weeks I’d been here—my stomach didn’t immediately seize.
“Same as last time,” she said, stepping back. “Up and down. Focus on the step-through. Don’t stare at your feet.”
I set my prosthetic on the ramp, weight shifting forward. That old spike of fear flashed, quick and automatic, like a faulty alarm.
Steep. Slippery. Lose your footing, and you eat shit in front of everyone.
Except it wasn’t steep. The rubber was tacky. My knee locked the way it was supposed to, the microprocessor in the joint doing its quiet, expensive job.
My body remembered the hill. The drop. The speed.
And the part where I hadn’t fallen.
I exhaled and took another step. Then another.
I pivoted carefully and came back down, focusing on the smooth roll of heel to toe, the way my weight transferred. There was a small wobble near the bottom, a tiny hitch where old panic tried to claw its way back in, but my core caught it, the rest of my muscles stepping up and doing what they were supposed to do.
Jess’s voice came from my left. “Your balance and confidence are up across the board today. Whatever you’ve been doing?” she said, sounding annoyingly satisfied. “Keep doing it.”
Clara’s laugh exploded in my head. Her hand on my chest when she shoved me. The world dropping away. The sled flying. Her straddling me in the snow ten seconds later.
Yeah. About that.
“Guess I’m just ... getting used to it.” My voice came out rough as I stepped off the ramp, flexing my foot to shake out the phantom fizz. “The leg’s having a good day.”
“Your leg,” she said, crossing her arms, “is doing exactly what you ask it to do when you trust it. That’s you, not the hardware.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some guy on the bike glance over like he wished we’d lower our voices before the breakthrough therapy hit him by association.
Jess ignored him. “You’ve seemed more engaged the last few sessions,” she added, tapping something into her tablet. “Less staring at the ceiling like you’re making a grocery list while I talk. Are you getting out more? Seeing people?”
I cleared my throat, fighting the heat crawling up the back of my neck. I didn’t want to lie to Jess. “Just ... winter chores,” I said. “Stuff around the house.”
Jess’s mouth twitched like she’d heard exactly how full of shit that was. “Well, whatever ‘stuff’ is, it’s working. Your gait’s smoother. Your reflexes on the balance board were better than last time. You even talked more than five words today.”
“Careful,” I said. “You’re going to ruin your hard-ass reputation if you start complimenting people.”
She snorted. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m about to kick your ass on the stairs. Then you’ll remember you hate me.”
She wasn’t wrong—the stairs sucked.
