Page 27 of The Fall
A stranger looks back at me from inside the mirror, a man with my eyes. He’s healthier. Stronger. His jaw is more defined, his shoulders broader. There’s a strength there I don’t recognize, a confidence that doesn’t belong to me. This is not the Torey Kendrick who walked off that Vancouver beach into the cold shadows of his failures yesterday.
The light casts a chiaroscuro of shadows across my face, a too-perfect metaphor. I lean closer. My eyes are wide, pupils dilated. I can see my pulse jumping.
I trace my finger along the contours of my reflection. Maybe I can pull the person I used to be out of this glass. I want the man who belongs here, not the failure. I try to picture myself as a man who had it all figured out, a man who didn’t second-guess his every move. If I squint, maybe the pieces of the life Blair and I share will come into focus.
Nerves steal back into me. My breath trembles, fogs the mirror. Can I do this?
Sharing a bed with Blair, being intimate with him—it’s uncharted territory. Territory that, logically, I’ve navigated before but to me, is still terrifyingly unknown.
I grip the edge of the sink, lean in.
“Remember,” I whisper, “this is Blair. Your Blair.”
I breathe, in and out, letting the air fill my lungs.
“You can do this. You’ve done this before,” I whisper again. “You’ve faced down tougher shit.”
Have I, though? It feels like a lie. The toughest shit I’ve ever faced is out there, waiting for me. Blair’s trust and his love, his body, all of it is so intimate, so unfathomable.
It takes all my courage to turn the knob and step back into the bedroom.
Blair’s waiting. He’s already in bed, shirtless. “Hey,” he says. “I have something for you.”
“Oh yeah?” The voice that comes out is barely mine. I’m imagining him lifting that blanket, revealing?—
Blair pats the empty space on the bed beside him and shifts onto his knees. He’s wearing pajama pants. “A massage. Lie down. Get comfortable.”
Holy shit.
I do as he says, stretching out on my stomach, my face turned to the side on his pillow. I’m shaking so hard I think I’ll fall apart.
The bed dips as Blair straddles my thighs. There’s the softsnickof a bottle cap, then a warm ribbon of oil runs down my back.
Blair sets his warm and slick hands against my shoulders. A small sound escapes me, half sigh, half moan. His hands are strong, but his touch is gentle, and when he works his thumbs into the tight muscles of my back, I let out a long, slow exhale.
“You’re so tense,” he whispers. “Let go. I’ve got you.”
I’m so tired of holding myself up. I dissolve into the rhythm of his fingers. Skin-to-skin, his palms on my back. His slow, careful touch unknots me, and I bury my face in his pillow to let myself enjoy him touching me. I’m adrift. Our breathing syncs, in and out.
The lava lamp glows, the plastic hockey players dancing in slow motion. The bubbles of light drift and shift, the shadows on the walls swaying like we’re under the ocean in another world.
Eyes heavy, breaths slow and steady. In this half-light, half-sleep, the scaffolding of my consciousness softens and blurs. Fragments of memory flutter at the margins of my mind. The two of us, tangled together beneath these same sheets. Laughing. Kissing. Moving together in the dark.
My breath catches. He makes slow circles with his thumbs, working into my muscles. The tightness begins to ease, knot by knot releasing. His hands dance between firm and gentle, and I float somewhere between past and present. He digs into a tight spot at my hips. I groan.
“Right there?”
“Yeah. Right there.”
He works me back to myself, one slow stroke at a time. I shudder out a breath, and my body follows, softening into themattress. It’s overwhelming to have his hands on me this way, to know my body remembers him even when my mind can’t connect all the dots.
The bed—our bed—slowly stops being unfamiliar territory. I’m his, all his. Every inch of me is branded with the heat of him. I want to bottle this feeling, this intense, aching sense of belonging.
If I could sketch this moment, I would. I’d capture the way the lamplight paints his hands in gold, the curve of his shoulders cast against the light. His capable hands, the steady calm he always brings. I’d capture our bed, these soft sheets and the warm cocoon. I’d scribble in his scent, the whisper of my contented heartbeat.
Remember this, I tell myself. Remember.
Let the whole world fall away. Let my memories spiral into the dark. Everything I’m missing is right here, with him. There’s nothing else I need.
