The four weeks of Cole's recovery unfolded slower than either of them expected, ankle rehab requiring the same careful, methodical patience Cole had once brought to his sophomore-year recovery, except this time, Reese noticed, without the old anxious edge that had defined his relationship to injury three years earlier.
"You're handling this so differently than you would have back in college," she observed one evening, both of them going through his prescribed rehab exercises in their living room, resistance bands and careful, measured movements replacing the frantic, controlling energy she imagined had characterized his first recovery.
"I'm a different person than I was in college," Cole said, working through a set of ankle rotations with visible discomfort but none of the old desperate
