Jake thought about it honestly, the way she had taught him to think about things.
"I thought I would feel like I lost everything," he said. "But I keep waiting for it, and it doesn't come. I feel like I finally won something. I just don't know what to call it."
Emma smiled.
"I do," she said. "But I think you already know too."
The recovery was long.
There were weeks on crutches. Physical therapy three times a week with a cheerful, merciless therapist named Brenda. Mornings when the pain was bad and she sat on the edge of the bed and breathed, the way she always had. The substitute ran her classes, but Emma came in anyway on most days, sitting on a folding chair by the bleachers with her leg up, calling out encouragement.
Jake ran the school training group while she healed.
He had stopped going to Iron Crown, of course. But after the video, other calls had come. A coach from a small, honest gym across town, a retired fighter named Walt Harmon, who said he'd been watching kids fight for forty years and had never seen anything like what happened on that bridge. He offered to train Jake properly, slowly, with no promises and no cameras. Jake said yes.
But he never missed a Tuesday at Westbrook.
He taught the beginners to fall. He taught them to breathe. He taught them that the first rule on the mat was to protect your partner, and that a training partner who got hurt was a failure for both of you. Every session, before they started, he made the whole group say it out loud.
"We train to protect. Not to hurt."
The freshmen rolled their eyes the first few times. By April, they were saying it louder than he was.
Rick Mason started coming to the Tuesday sessions. At first he just sat in the bleachers with his arms crossed. Then one afternoon he got up and helped a nervous sophomore tape her wrists. After that, he came every week. He told the old story about never going pro a lot less often. He told the story about the swings a lot more.
In May, a letter came to the school, addressed to her in careful, blocky handwriting.
It was from Mateo Reyes. He was eleven now.
"Dear Emma," it said. "My tía showed me the video of the boy on the bridge. She said you are his teacher. She said you taught him what my dad taught you. I wanted to tell you that I am glad. I think my dad would think it was cool. I am trying out for soccer this year. I am not very good but I am going to try anyway even if I am scared. Love, Mateo."
Emma kept that letter in the top drawer of her desk for the rest of her life.
On the last day of the school year, there was a ceremony in the gym.
It was supposed to be small. Awards for the athletic teams. A few speeches. Principal Harris at the microphone, sweating slightly under the lights. But word got around, the way word does in a school, and by the time it started, the bleachers were full.
Emma sat in a folding chair near the front. No crutches anymore. Just a slight stiffness when she stood, a careful way of shifting her weight. Dr. Alvarez had said it might always be there. Emma had decided that was all right.