He studied me for a long moment.
“That second part,” he said carefully, “changes things.”
“I know,” I replied. “That’s why I’m here.”
As I left his office, my phone buzzed. A text from my brother. How’s the leg?
I typed back: Getting there. Thanks again.
He replied with a thumbs-up emoji and a joke about borrowing my crutches if his knee went out. He had no idea what I was about to do. And I wasn’t ready to tell him.
The paperwork took longer than the pain. That surprised me. I’d expected the physical recovery to be the hard part, the slow, grinding work of learning to trust my leg again. Instead, it was the waiting rooms, the signatures, the calls that never got returned. The world of forms and fine print was colder than any operating table.
The loan payments began exactly when they said they would. No grace period, no understanding. Just automated withdrawals that didn’t care whether I was still on crutches or sleeping on my couch because the bed was too far from the bathroom. Every month, half my income disappeared before I could touch it.
I tightened everything. No streaming services. No eating out. I counted grocery items like they were ammunition. Rice, beans, eggs. I learned which pain days I could skip the medication and which ones I couldn’t. And I healed slowly, methodically, the way the military teaches you to do everything: one controlled movement at a time.
