MARNIE
October23-25
October twenty-third arrives gray and drizzly, the start of Seattle’s rainy season.
I’ve been at the facility since five, running through Roman’s final assessment protocol three times to make sure I haven’t missed anything.
Because if I clear him and something goes wrong—if his shoulder subluxes during contact, if he takes a hit wrong and the joint gives out, if any of the nightmare scenarios I’ve been cataloging for all these weeks actually happen—Winters wins.
And I really, really don’t want Winters to win.
But that’s not the only reason my stomach is in knots.
“You need to relax,” Jake says from the doorway, holding two coffees. “He’ll be here in ten minutes.”
Ten minutes until I either clear him or don’t. Ten minutes until I tell Roman Varga he can go back to playing professional hockey or that he needs more time. Ten minutes until everything changes.
“I know.” I take the coffee, grateful for something to do with my hands. “Hisshoulder’s ready.”
“But?”
“But nothing. Medically, he’s cleared.” I pull up the imaging on my tablet, studying it for the fourth time this morning. “Strength’s at ninety-two percent, stability’s excellent, range of motion is full. He’s done everything right for the past few months.”
The imaging is perfect. The data supports clearance. There’s no medical reason to hold him back.
“So why do you look like you’re about to tell him he has three months to live?”
Because once I clear him, everything changes.
He goes back to being the captain. The untouchable franchise player. The guy who shows up for team events and media obligations and lives in a completely different stratosphere than the physical therapist who helped him rehab a shoulder injury.
I go back to being staff. Professional. Someone who treats players and documents sessions and maintains appropriate boundaries.
The careful distance we’ve maintained since Calgary—professional during sessions, not-so-professional in hotel rooms and hallways when no one’s watching—becomes impossible to justify once he’s cleared.
Right now I’m his PT. I have a reason to see him every day, to touch him, to be alone with him in treatment rooms. Once I sign his clearance, that ends. We’re just a staff member and a player who maybe shouldn’t have been doing what we’ve been doing.
And I don’t know which terrifies me more—clearing him and losing the excuse to see him, or holding him back for reasons that I don’t want to put words to.
“His numbers are good,” I say finally, setting down the tablet before I obsessively check the imaging a fifth time.
Jake studies me with a raised eyebrow. “You’re not holding him back because you’re scared of Winters.”
“No.”
“You’re holding back because you’re scared of what happens when you don’t have a medical reason to see him every day.”
I don’t answer. Don’t need to. Jake’s too perceptive for his own good.
“Clear him, Doc. The shoulder’s ready. The rest of it—” He shrugs. “That’s not a medical decision.”
He’s right. I know he’s right, but it doesn’t make it easier.
The door opens before I can respond.
Roman fills the doorway in athletic shorts and a compression shirt, hair still damp from his morning shower, and my stomach flips.
Almost two weeks of stolen moments and text messages at midnight and that one time in the equipment room after everyone left that still makes my face burn.
