He extended a fist as he walked by. I tapped it with my fist, then translated to the elbow, using flight and mock-striking him with it, as he’d been drilling me.

He seemed to like it, a smile on his face.

“Perfect,” he said. “Be nice to her, Anne Lynn.”

“Only if she’s nice to me,” my physiotherapist said. She’d closed my notebook and was using it as a flat surface to write things down.

“I’m nice to you,” I told her. “You like my notes.”

“Extensive notes are a long, long way from actually attending. I just read pages of notes complaining about pain that I would have been helping you with if you, my patient, had been coming in regularly. But you don’t. Too busy saving the world and accumulating more injuries.”

I rubbed the notch at the back and side of my arm, my finger finding the groove.

“You’re better than the vast majority of my patients when it comes to doing the homework, but if you keep going down this road, you’re going to put off visits more and more until you’re not coming in at all. And then a few months after that you’re going to find that an exercise that was benefiting you months ago is hurting you.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve made notes. I’m going to assume you’re going to keep doing this, so I’ve modified and marked your homework to highlight things that are essential now and harmful later.”

“And after that?”

“Come see me,” she said. “But don’t continue past a certain point for this one, this one, or… hm, just those two.”

“Got it.”

“Thank you for showing me your fighting, and for showing me another side of Ethan.”

I nodded, looking through the window of warped glass for Ethan among the older patients in the expansive rehab area. I didn’t see him.

“He good?” I asked.

“Good? What are you asking, Victoria?” Anne Lynn asked me.

“He’s helpful? No drama? Friendly?”

“He’s great,” she said. “One of our best volunteers. He started out… very similar to you, I think. But he graduated, and he liked the atmosphere enough to keep attending.”

Teaching some martial arts, and—I could see him now, supporting an old woman who was walking with the assistance of rails.

“Snap him up,” she prodded me. “I have a boyfriend so I’m not going to, but I know a few others here would.”

“I’m way, way off from snapping,” I told her.

I heard a throat clear behind me. I saw a glimpse of Anne Lynn’s expression as I turned, then saw Dr. Darnall, occupying the same spot by the wall that the other physiotherapist had when shouting out to Anelace.

“Homework,” Anne Lynn told me. She handed me the paper with the neat handwriting. “Your notebook, and…”

She held out the tattered baggie with stress balls inside.