Chapter 91: The Physical Therapy Plateau

POV: Georgia

My therapist uses the word "permanent," and I make her say it twice.

The session starts like all the others. The basement room smells like rubber mats and menthol, and the little window near the ceiling shows me the ankles of people walking past, cut off at the shin like the world above only exists from the knee down. I lie on the table and do my lifts. I ride the bike and stare at the wall, counting the water stains in the ceiling tile because it gives my brain somewhere to go besides the ache in my knee. I do everything I’m told, the same way I have for weeks. Twelve reps. Rest. Twelve more. My therapist calls out the numbers in a voice that never changes pitch, and I’ve learned to move with it like a metronome.

But something is off today, and I know it before anyone says a word.

My therapist keeps glancing at her clipboard, then at my knee, then at the clipboard again, her pen tapping against the metal clip in a rhythm that doesn’t match anything. She presses on the joint with both hands and bends it slowly, her fingers cold even through the brace padding, and she doesn’t ask me to rate the pain on a scale of one to ten like she usually does.

"Okay," she says, voice careful, and sits back on her stool, the wheels creaking against the tile. "Let’s talk for a minute."

Nobody says let’s talk when the news is good.

I sit up on the edge of the table. My bad leg hangs off the side, the muscle twitching once, involuntary, and my cane leans against the wall where I left it, just out of reach.

"I’ve been comparing your numbers over the last few weeks," she says, tone measured, the tone of someone choosing each word like it might explode. "Your range of motion, your strength, the swelling. For a while you were making steady progress. But lately it’s leveled off. You’ve stopped gaining."

"I’ve been doing everything you tell me," I say, defensive, my hands curling against the edge of the table.

"I know you have." Her voice is soft, and it makes my stomach clench, a slow cold twist like something sinking. "That’s not the issue. You’re one of the most disciplined patients I’ve had. Sometimes a knee with this kind of damage just doesn’t keep improving the way we’d like. Georgia, I want to be honest with you, because I think you’d want me to be. There’s a possibility that some of this damage is permanent."

The room goes quiet. The lights hum, a thin electric buzz I’ve never noticed before today. Above us, a pair of sneakers squeak past the window, and I watch them go, envying the ankles inside them.

"Permanent," I repeat, flat, testing the shape of the word in my mouth like it belongs to someone else.

"It’s possible. Not certain. But I don’t want to let you believe there’s no chance." Skating at the level you were at before, competing the way you were, may not be realistic."

I stare at her. The words are in English, and I hear every one of them, but they don’t line up into something I can understand. My brain keeps trying to translate it into something smaller, something survivable, and it won’t cooperate.

"Can you say that again?" I ask, quiet, almost polite.

"Georgia," she says, gentle, like my name is an apology.

"Please. Just say it again."

She looks at me for a long moment, and I can see she doesn’t want to. She sets the clipboard down on her knee, deliberate, like she’s laying down a weapon.

"Some of the damage may be permanent," she says slowly, careful, each word placed like a stone across water. "And returning to competitive skating at your previous level may not be realistic."

The second time is worse than the first, because now there’s no room to pretend I misheard.

I nod. I don’t know what else to do, so I nod again. "Okay," I say, hollow. "Okay."

"I’m so sorry," she says, sincere, and I can tell she means it, which somehow makes it worse.

"It’s fine," I say, automatic.

It isn’t fine, but my mouth says it anyway, on its own, the way it does when I’m on the ice and my body takes over before my mind catches up.

She keeps talking. I can see her lips moving, but I don’t hear any of it. Something inside me has gone quiet, the way your ears ring after a loud noise. I finish the last set of lifts perfectly, counting each one in my head, and I feel nothing at all.

I look at my own knee, at the swelling that never quite goes down, and I think, *That’s it. That’s the thing that ends it.*

I thought I had already grieved this. But some stubborn part of me kept believing that if I worked hard enough, I would get it back.

Nobody told me there could be a part of me that doesn’t listen to the rule.

She has me finish the session, because stopping early would mean admitting something, and neither of us wants to do that.

When she finally helps me off the table, her hand lingers on my arm, warm and steady in a way that feels like pity dressed up as kindness.

"You can take a minute," she says, soft.

"I’m okay," I say. It’s the third time I’ve lied in the past ten minutes. I pick up my cane, thank her, and walk out.

The hallway outside the therapy room is long and bright and empty. The floor is polished tile, and my cane clicks against it in a slow, even rhythm, the sound bouncing off the walls like it’s mocking me. I keep my eyes on the far door, the one that leads back outside, and I try to make my legs carry me to it without thinking.

I’m halfway down the hall when someone jogs past me.

I don’t look at first. It’s just a blur of motion at the edge of my vision, the quick steady slap of running shoes on tile. Somebody late for something. Somebody with two working legs.

But something about the pace makes me glance up.

He’s a tall boy in a Rosethorne hockey sweatshirt, moving easily, his stride loose and quick, not favoring either leg. He jogs past like it’s nothing, and as he goes by I catch his profile - sharp jaw, dark hair - a face I’ve seen before.

Nine days ago. Dining hall. Crutches. One foot held completely off the floor in a thick brace, swinging himself between tables. Someone at the next table said his ankle had been shattered. Not sprained. *Shattered.* I remember thinking he’d be out for the whole season.

Nine days.

The boy reaches the end of the hall and turns the corner without slowing down, his footsteps fading into the building’s hum, swallowed up like he was never there at all.

I stop dead in the middle of the hallway, my cane planted on the tile, my bad leg aching, and I just stare at the empty space where he was.