Chapter One – The Switch (Pt. 1)

Michelle

On Mondays, the clinic smells like eucalyptus and warm towels. It’s the kind of clean that feels intentional, like the room is resetting itself for whoever’s brave enough to start over.

Six months ago, I walked in on one of those Mondays, still blinking from a life I’d put on pause for too long. New city, new building with floor-to-ceiling windows, new job I wasn’t sure my heart would cooperate with. My plan was simple: clock in, do excellent work, go home. No detours.

Carlton arrived two days later.

He’s the kind of patient who sits in the lobby like he belongs there — not cocky, just settled. And he’s consistent. Every Wednesday at 4:30, every Saturday at 10. If he’s early, he reads. If he’s on time, he smiles. If he’s late, I’ve never seen it.

“Hey, Michelle,” he says now, voice low enough to make the word feel like it belongs to me.

“Hey, Carlton.” I roll the stool to the table. “How’s the shoulder since Saturday?”

“Better. I actually did the band work you gave me.”

“Look at you following directions,” I tease, and he laughs, real and easy.

There’s a simple joy in people who do what helps them. Somewhere after my last breakup, I forgot what that felt like — being believed, being… tended to. It’s ridiculous that I feel some version of that with a man I only see across a therapy table while cupping his scapula and telling him to breathe. But there it is.

I guide his arm through external rotation, elbow tucked. “Any pain?”

“Not pain. More… awareness.”

I nod. “Awareness is good. Pain is your body yelling. Awareness is your body clearing its throat.”

He grins. “You say things like that and I actually remember to do my homework.”

I shouldn’t notice the way he watches me when I talk. I shouldn’t notice that his laugh lingers in the room after I step out to heat a towel. I shouldn’t notice any of it. But some weeks, the noticing is the only proof that I am not walking through my own life asleep.

We work through soft tissue, scapular stability, the small triumph of a clean abduction arc at ninety degrees. I talk just enough to keep him from bracing. He talks just enough to make the hour feel like it moves on purpose.

“How’s the new schedule treating you?” he asks when I’m flossing the posterior cuff.

“Busy. Reese’s promo brought in a lot of new folks.” Reese Coleman, owner and lead PT, is all brains and big-hearted business. He launched a special rate to help me build a caseload quick. It worked — my calendar looks like a game of Tetris played by someone with excellent reflexes and poor boundaries.

“Good busy?” he prods.

I meet his eyes for a second too long. “It will be.”

He nods like he hears the space I didn’t fill with words.

When the hour’s up, I hand him his updated plan. He lingers by the door, reading it like it’s more than a paper with bullet points.

“Hey,” he says softly, as if trying the word on for a different meaning. “Thank you.”

It’s nothing. And yet, not nothing.

“You’re welcome, Carlton. Same time next week?”

His mouth opens, then closes. “We’ll see.”

The tiniest hitch. The faintest shift. Something in my chest notes it before my brain does. I ignore it. I’m good at that.

I wipe the table, reset the room, and pretend I’m not listening for the echo of his footsteps as he leaves.