On the thirty-seventh day, Adrian left the parallel bars for the first time.
He pushed forward on a pair of crutches with painful effort. My hand hovered behind his lower back the whole time without ever quite touching him.
"Don't grit your teeth through the pain," I reminded him as I saw the sweat bead on his forehead.
The dozen meters from the training room to the terrace took him nearly ten minutes. His gait was slow and ungainly, nothing like the man who had once been an MVP player. But the moment the tip of his crutch crossed the white line at the edge of the pool, a smile broke across his face, brighter than anything I had ever seen on the recordings.
"I did it!" He raised his crutch the way he used to lift a trophy after a goal.
"Adrian, put it down." I rushed forward, alarmed.
