“I’ll be fine.”
He laughed. “I don’t doubt that, but if you’ll have me, I’d love to accompany you.”
“Doing an ortho rotation?” She leaned against the rail in the elevator, watching the numbers go up. There would be no getting rid of him, but a good ribbing never hurt anyone.
“If it makes you feel better about it, then absolutely.”
Part of her wanted to do this on her own. That was why she’d shooed away both Will and Kate’s offers to go with her. Maybe she wanted the opportunity to take it in by herself—to be able to have whatever her reaction was going to be without an audience. Maybe she wanted the chance to lie about whatever the doctor said. Probably both.
But after an hour of scans, Hannah was glad Daniel had agreed to stay with her while she waited for the doctor. She would be mighty bored otherwise and probably panicking.
“Tell me what you saw on the scan.” Hannah lay back on the exam table, the paper crinkling under her weight.
Daniel sighed from his perch on the stiff plastic guest chair in the corner. “I’m no expert, but your meniscus is still torn.”
“Fuck.” Not that she hadn’t been expecting to hear that.
“It didn’t look that bad to me, but let’s see what Dr. Annabelle has to say.”
“Thank you for staying with me.” She meant it wholeheartedly. Daniel had less time off than the rest of the Thornes, and he was spending it with his brother’s wife in the hospital where he already spent the majority of his days.
“That’s what you do for family...”
Hannah couldn’t see his face from where he was sitting, but the end of the sentence had started to trail off, and the silence that followed was heavy with racing thoughts.
She sighed. “Just say it.”
“What?” he asked with a short, nervous laugh.
“I can hear you thinking all the way over here,” she said, closing her eyes for the briefest of moments.
“Right,” he said, clearing his throat. “I just wanted to thank you, really.”
She sat up too quickly, and all the blood fled from her head. She kept her eyes closed until her equilibrium returned. When she opened them, Daniel stared back at her, an amused expression on his face.
“Thank me?” she said after another moment.
“Listen, I don’t know why you and Will got married. Maybe it was because you needed this appointment.” He held up his hand as she started to protest. “I was there after everything happened. There is no way he met you and fell in love the way you two said. When you supposedly ran into each other, Will was so drunk every day he could hardly function.”
There was no proper response to that, so she remained silent, lacing and unlacing her fingers. She knew things had been bad, but hearing it outright from someone besides Will made her heart ache for him.
“I don’t need to know why,” Daniel said, looking up at her. “That’s between you and Will. But whatever your reasons, you make him happy. And in a real way. You’ve brought him back to us.”
“He makes me happy too,” she said, her cheeks heating up to what had to be a flaming red.
“I can see that,” he said warmly.
The door to the exam room opened, and Dr. Annabelle swept into the office. And he was younger than she expected for someone who Daniel called his mentor. He was most likely in his midforties, dark skinned, with close-cropped hair and a verifiable goatee. A gold wedding band gleamed on his left ring finger every time he flipped a page in her chart.
“I was able to get ahold of your old scans,” he said, finally looking up at her. His smile was friendly and comforting. She took that as a good sign. Her old doctors had been all serious faces and grimaces.
He held up the scan she had memorized after the accident. “What do you see, Dr. Thorne?”
“Grade two, maybe three.” Daniel stood and pointed at a spot on the scan. “I would’ve recommended a closer look with the possibility of surgery.”
She looked between the two of them, waiting for the bad news to drop. Surgery would get her back on her feet in the long-term. It would also prohibit her from attending concerts for the foreseeable future. She had avoided acknowledging that for too long.
“This is your scan from today,” he said, holding it up.
Her breath caught in her chest. Even to her untrained eye, it looked better—not healed, but the tear wasn’t as defined. She’d felt the difference in her time with Madison but assumed it was simply because she was working it out consistently rather than breaking out her TheraBand when it rained.
“Wow.”
“Wow, indeed, Ms. Abbott,” Dr. Annabelle said with another smile. “Dr. Thorne tells me you’ve been working with a physical therapist?”
Hannah nodded. “For over two months now.”
“Let’s continue that,” he said, typing something into the tablet hidden under her chart. “But pending any further injury, I think your knee will heal itself with proper rehabilitation.”
“So I don’t need surgery?”
“Tentatively, no. I’m comfortable, if you are, with you continuing to work with your PT, and we can revisit this in three months.”
Hannah’s heart raced. She didn’t need surgery. At least not yet. “Can I run?”
He paused for a moment then nodded. “I wouldn’t run a marathon or even a 10K, but yes, if you take it easy, I think you can work a run or two into your weekly routine. Dr. Thorne can go into further details with you.”
Daniel put a hand on her shoulder once Dr. Annabelle left the room. “We’ll have you out on our Saturday-morning run in no time.”
