"Pain gave way to something scarier: hope."
Silver woke up still thinking about the jacket hanging on her chair.
She'd barely slept again, tossing between wanting to text Eli and wanting to throw her phone out the window. By the time her alarm went off for her physical therapy appointment, she was exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with her knee.
The therapy room was already humming when she arrived. Machines whirring, the faint slap of elastic bands, the steady rhythm of determination and exhaustion. The fluorescent lights reflected off the polished floor, harsh against the soft winter morning outside. Through the window, she could see students hurrying across the quad, bundled against the cold.
Silver adjusted the strap around her knee brace and exhaled through her nose. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and mint oil. She hated both.
