Page 279 of The Fall
The horrible indecision from earlier drains out of the room, leaving a terrifying path for us to walk together.
“I’ll call Dr. Khatri,” my father says. Action. A plan. This is how my father shows his love, by doing, by organizing manageable steps.
Blair nods. His fear is still in the blue depths of his eyes, but it has changed shape, no longer wild and panicked. He will use his fear as a shield for me. “I’ll handle everything,” he says. “You don’t worry about anything outside this room. That’s my job now. Your only job is to get through this.”
All I have to do is win the battle inside my own head.
Fifty-Eight
The morningof my surgery arrives bleached of color.
I am awake hours before any thin light begins to dilute the darkness. Blair sleeps beside me. His breath puffs warm against my shoulder. He has insisted on staying around the clock, folding his long frame into a question mark around mine day and night. Across the room, Dad is a shadow in the visitor’s chair, his head tipped back against the wall.
Today they cut me open.
Blair shifts. His nose brushes my collarbone, and coconut floods my senses, mixed with that trace of Key lime that always clings to his skin. The scent pulls me under, back to beaches we haven’t walked yet, summer days ahead of us that exist as promises. All our tomorrows are stacked up like cards, waiting for me to claim them.
The clock on the wall ticks forward. Four-seventeen. In three hours, they’ll wheel me away. In three hours, Blair will have to let go.
His fingers twitch against my side. For these last quiet moments, we breathe together.
The darkness beyond the window holds steady, patient as the night always is before surrender. Blair’s breathing catches,then evens out again as his arm tightens around me. He knows I’m awake, has probably known since my breathing changed ten minutes ago. We’re both pretending, holding this fragile quiet between us.
Four-nineteen now.
The surgical team shows up too soon. They’re professionally cheerful, checking charts and adjusting my IV while explaining procedures I can’t focus on. Blair won’t let go of my hand. Dad sits on my other side, steady as granite while Blair fractures in slow motion.
The nurse adjusts a bag on my IV pole. Metal clinks against metal. Dad’s breathing stays even beside me, each exhale an act of faith. He’s holding himself together through sheer will, the same way he held our family together after Mom left. The same way he’ll hold Blair together if?—
Blair’s grip tightens. His whole body leans toward mine, pulled by invisible threads that have bound us since that first day on the ice. The fluorescent lights cast shadows beneath his eyes, turn his skin pale as winter mornings.
“You’re going to—” Blair’s voice splinters. He is losing his battle against his own terror. “You’re going to be back here soon.”
The surgical team continues their preparations around us.
His breathing hitches—in, out too quickly, in again. Fresh tears gather at the corners of his eyes, and his hand weaves tighter through mine, as though he could keep me here through touch alone.
Dad’s hand settles on top of Blair’s, around mine. “We’ll be right here when you wake up.”
Our hands are stacked together. Dad’s are warm and steady, the same ones that taught me to tie my skates, that caught me when I fell learning to walk. Blair’s—who has loved me with his hands, who has held me and carried me and worshipped me—are shaking.
Blair’s tears spill over. They track down his cheeks, catch in the stubble he hasn’t shaved in days. He doesn’t wipe them away. All his energy focuses on me.
“Torey.” My name breaks apart in his mouth.
The nurse touches my shoulder. Time has run out. We’ve used up all our minutes, all our borrowed seconds.
Dad squeezes once more, then releases. His eyes hold mine, and all the words we need pass between us in that look. Blair clings harder, his body curving over our joined hands.
This is what I will hold onto, this image of them and the fierce love that fuels it.
“It’s time to go,” the nurse says gently.
They unlock the bed’s brakes and wheel me out of my room. Blair walks with me, refusing to let go of my hand. My dad stays at Blair’s side.
The wheels whisper against linoleum, each rotation carrying me closer to that inevitable threshold. Blair’s palm burns hot against mine, fever-bright.
The surgical wing waits, its doors marked with warnings about restricted access. Blair leans closer, his forehead brushing mine. “I love you,” he whispers, fierce and broken.
