Page 105 of The Fall
I curl into my hoodie and pretend I’m zoning out on my phone, but the truth is I’m watching Blair. He’s slumped in his own row, his head against the window, his earbuds in. His profile is sharp against the darkened glass, angles and shadows in the dim cabin. He’s not sleeping, either.
Looking at him is an escape. I can’t stare at him any other time than here, when no one can catch me, without advertising how much of a complete weirdo I am. I want to watch him all the time. I should look away; I know I should.
Twenty-six days sober, and Blair still leaves me feeling drunk.
Hollow’s coming down the aisle, back from a trip to the restroom. He punches me in the shoulder. “You’re gonna stay awake all night, Kicks? Man, shut your fucking eyes and let the sandman hit you.”
I nod, but I don’t shut my eyes. Not yet. Blair shifts in his seat, his brow furrowing. Maybe he feels my gaze. I look away, rub my eyes. Hollow’s right; I should sleep. We have a game tomorrow, and I need to be sharp. But sleep means dreaming, and my dreams are always filled with ocean-blue eyes and hands that know exactly where to touch.
Will this ever fade?
Do I want it to?
Another hotel room, another night before an away game. The walls are beige, the carpet is beige, the curtains are beige with a hint of gold that’s supposed to make this place luxurious. It doesn’t. I’m sprawled across a king-sized bed that’s too soft. The TV drones, highlights from today’s games flickering light across the ceiling. My gear bag sits unpacked in the corner, waiting for morning.
Twenty-eight days. The number repeats in my head like a mantra. Twenty-eight days of feeling everything—the aches, the losses, the craving—with nothing to dull me.
The walls in these places are always too thin. A shower runs in a nearby room, a conversation is muffled in the hallway, the ice machine grinds down the corridor. Blair is somewhere near, going through his own pre-game ritual and completely unaware of how much space he takes up in my thoughts.
I dig out my tablet, tapping through apps until I find what I’m looking for: game highlights. I tell myself it’s for study, for improvement, but that’s only half-true. The video loads, and there he is. Blair. I prop the tablet against a pillow and pull my sketchbook from my bag. It’s ragged and worn and filled with half-finished drawings I never show anyone. My pencil hovers over the blank page, the screen showing Blair’s breakaway goal against Toronto.
He has a breathless edge on the ice, and his skates have the power to start or stop something beautiful. I rewind the clip, obsessed with the details. The shift of his hips. The block he makes for Hawks seems accidental, that’s how fast he reads the ice. My pencil scratches as I trace the contours of his face. I addshading to his cheekbones, try to capture the intensity in his eyes. He’s bigger than any sketch I could ever put on paper.
I pause the video on a frame where he’s mid-celebration, arms raised high. It’s a moment of emotion I never see off the ice, and I want to capture it, to hold onto it. If I fill another page with him tonight, maybe sleep will come easier.
Twenty-eight days sober, and I’m intoxicated by a freeze-frame.
I tuck my knees up and draw until my hand cramps, until Blair’s face stares back at me from a hundred angles. I can’t get it quite right. There’s always something missing, some spark of life my sketches can’t capture. My pencil can mimic his jaw or the curve of his brow, but it can’t recreate the sheer force of his will. I smudge the shadow under his eye with the pad of my thumb, trying to deepen it, to give it the history I know is there, but it just looks like a smudge. I’m trying to find him on this page, but I can’t.
The tablet screen dims, going to sleep before I do. I set the sketchbook aside and flex my hand, working out the ache.
Twenty-eight days sober, and Blair Callahan is still the only drug I can’t quit.
Hayes taps the ketchup bottle on the rim of his plate. “I think they put glue in these things. Who’s guarding the ketchup like it’s gold?”
“We could turn ketchup pouring into a team-building challenge. Who can drag the longest strip of ketchup down the ice?”
He snorts. “You need help.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I gotta show you this.” Hayes holds up his phone. “Lily nailed her balance beam routine yesterday. She did a one-handed cartwheel. My kid’s got guts.”
I haven’t met Lily; she exists for me only in Hayes’s stories and the photos and videos he douses everyone with. He pulls up a video, but I only halfway watch. A knot forms in the pit of me, and it’s there whenever he talks about his daughter. He’s the definition of a proud father, though, and from his stories, she’s a great kid.
Erin’s name lights up his screen in the middle of the video. He cuts the playback right before Lily’s epic cartwheel and answers immediately. “Babe? What’s up?” Then, “Shewhat?” His voice shifts into worried father mode. “What happened?”
Erin’s voice comes through the phone, faint but frantic. Hayes’s eyes flick up, catching mine. “Is she okay?” His voice cracks, a sound I’ve never heard from him.
He stands. “Okay, I’m on my way right now. Hang in there, okay?” He hangs up and pockets his phone, and he’s already halfway across the cafeteria by the time I catch up to him.
“Ems?”
“It’s Lily. She broke her arm. I told her a million fucking times, don’t climb the fucking palm tree, and what does she do?” He groans through gritted teeth. “Erin’s at the ER with her.”
“I’m coming with you.”
Hayes is quiet; it’s the first time he’s run out of words. We weave through streets and run lights, and finally he starts blowing off steam as he kneads the wheel. “Erin doesn’t need this, man. She’s— fuck…” He thumps his palm against the wheel. “Erin’sso fucking spent, Kicks. The cancer shit— She’s trying to bounce back but it’s been?—”
