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"I've been playing on it all year, Dana. I've been fine."

"You haven't been fine. You've been lucky."

"Then I'll keep being lucky."

She stares at me. Then she turns around and walks out, and I hear her footsteps going down the hall, fast and hard.

Anand watches her go. He turns back to me.

"I have to tell Moretti you're playing through an injury," he says. "That's not optional. That's my job."

"Can you tell him it's maintenance?"

"It's not maintenance."

"Can you tell him it's managed? That I'm day-to-day? That there's wear, and we're handling it?" I lean forward. "He doesn't need the MRI. He doesn't need the word replacement. If he sees the word replacement, he sits me. You know he does. I'm not sitting out my last playoffs because of a picture."

"It's not a picture. It's your knee."

"Please."

Anand looks at me. He's a kind man. He has three daughters and a boat he never has time to use, and he taped my ankle once at two in the morning in Edmonton when the trainers had all gone to bed.

"I'll tell him it's managed," he says. "I'll tell him you understand the risks and you've chosen to play. I'll have you sign a form that says so. If he asks for the images, I'll show him. I'm not going to lie to your coach."

"He won't ask."

"He might."

"He won't," I say, "because I'll tell him I'm fine. He'll believe me. Everybody always believes me."

Anand doesn't say anything to that. He just gets up and goes to get the form.

Moretti catches me in the hallway outside the video room that afternoon. He's got a coffee in one hand and a printout in the other. I know what the printout is before he holds it up.

"Anand says you're managing something," he says.

"The knee."

"I know it's the knee. It's always been the knee." He looks at the paper. "Patient has been advised of the risks of continued play and has elected to continue. That's a lot of words for wear and tear."

"It's a form. Doctors like forms."

"How bad?"

I look at him. I think about the gray picture. The line through the cushion. The places where there's nothing left.

"It's fine, Coach," I say. "It locks up sometimes. They'll drain it before games. I've been playing on it since October."

"I know you have. I've been watching you favor it since October." He folds the printout in half. "You'd tell me. If it was worse than that."

"I'd tell you."

He looks at me. The same look he gave me in his office, with the sandwich, when he said Danny's name. I hold it. I don't look away. I've had a lot of practice.

"Okay," he says finally. "I need you in the playoffs, Owen. I'm not going to pretend I don't. But I don't need you so bad I'll let you wreck yourself for it. You hear me?"

"I hear you."