The line was easier than the wait

The scan is in Danny's hands and not in mine. He read it at the desk and didn't pass it across. I stood behind his chair and watched his face do the thing faces do when they're deciding what to say and I couldn't tell which way it went. He slid the paper into a folder. He didn't say a word.

Tom Voss's sponsor is already drafting the press release. That landed somewhere under my ribs and stayed there. People I have never met are writing the sentence that explains my career to strangers, and they are doing it before I even know what is actually wrong with me. That is the kind of thought I would never say to anyone. I am saying it here because this page doesn't talk back.

I signed the paper on the bonnet of the ute. Blue-grey sky over the bay. I said the line out loud — we fight on what the scan says, not what they want it to say — and I meant it. The line was easier than the wait. The wait is the whole week.

The shoulder votes on every jab. Tess saw it hitching on every test. I am trying not to test it now. I tested it three times while writing this. It still votes.

The AIS envelope is still on the bench. Still sealed. Whatever is in there, I think I would rather know about a shoulder than about a swimming thing tonight. That's a mean thing to think about a letter I haven't opened. I am leaving it where it is.