“Are you okay? Was it too much?” She gingerly touched my arm, being shy of the wound, and felt out the muscle. “Let me know if this hurts.”

I nodded, because I couldn’t really talk. The massage helped. It did hurt, when the fingers pulled against skin closer to the bullet wound, but the massage soothed the cramp enough that the pain was worth enduring.

“I wasn’t sure if you were using super strength or if it was you,” she said.

Then ask, I thought, the pain sharpening thoughts that might not have been so sharp five minutes ago or five minutes from now.

“Well, it seems like you have good strength in your hands.”

“It doesn’t feel strong,” I said.

“Okay. Not to worry! That’s something we can work on.”

Anne Lynn was my physical therapist with a first and middle name that she’d insisted were to be used together because she was not an ‘Anne’ and she definitely wasn’t a ‘Lynn’. Okay, fine. Going by first impressions, she seemed to be a lovely, warm, caring person who was painfully new to what she was doing. She went to her mentor, who was in our mostly empty activity area, for things I didn’t imagine really needed clarification or reassurance. She did much the same for me, double-checking what I said in a way that made me think she wasn’t taking me at my word.

It seemed she also didn’t ask for clarification at times she needed it.

She was a hard person to really dislike or resent, though. She was shorter than average, cute and bubbly, and her smile seemed persistent and genuine. That was a hard thing to find, given recent events.

“No super strength, for the record,” I said. “I turned it off. It kind of defeats the point, doesn’t it?”

“We should make sure that works as you heal,” she said.

“It’s not a concern,” I said. “I could be the strongest or weakest person in the world and it won’t affect how my super strength works.”

“Oh? Okay, got it. If you’re sure.”

There it was. The vague impression she doubted me. Was I being unfair?

“If you keep me talking about this I’m going to go full powers geek on you,” I said.

She snorted. “That’s convincing. Oh no, please don’t tell me about your power or show me anything neat!”

“Ahhh,” I said. So she’d hoped to see something. I thought about how much she didn’t want to see my uncontrolled forcefield in action, and I smiled anyway. “Maybe sometime.”

“Sometime, if you’re comfortable doing it. But not today, our session is just about over. How’s your arm feeling?”

I tried moving it. The cramp had mostly subsided. “Better.”