Page 8 of The Fall
The thread runs thick with inside jokes, casual I-love-yous, the mundane bliss of being known.
I look at the date and time on the phone one more time.
These texts. The photos. Those articles. This Mutineers blanket Blair has wrapped around me. The feel of his hands, gentle and warm across my shoulders. The way he’d looked at me when he walked into the bathroom. Worried. Checking up on me. Checking up on someone heloves.
A major concussion. Major, the article said. What are the symptoms of a major concussion? Nausea, vertigo, splitting headaches, sensitivity to light, and, in some cases, episodes of amnesia.
Amnesia.
I type: “Amnesia after major concussion.”
Articles surface:Episodes of memory loss, confusional states lasting hours to days after significant trauma… Transient amnesia has been reported following incidents of major concussions?—
The phone hits the tile floor again, and I bury my face in both of my palms.
Not time travel. Not an abduction. Not aliens, or delirium, or dreams. It’s one too many concussions, a broken brain, and one missing year of my life.
Whathappenedto me?
Who have I become?
I peek over the tips of my fingers. Blair is still asleep, boneless and propped up against the wall. One knee has tipped sideways, his neck rolled right. He’ll curse when he wakes up, but he’s folded himself down beside me without a peep, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be here with me until dawn while I clung to the toilet. Of course.
What the fuck happened to me during this past year?
I sink back against the wall, my knees drawn up to my chest. I stare at Blair, his breath steady and deep, the way his chest rises and falls. He’s so beautiful. Strong jawline, full lips.
I’ve had my suspicions, but I’ve excelled at pushing them down. They became one more thing I wasn’t thinking about, one more part of myself left unexplored. Hockey was all that mattered, and hockey never left room for the rest of me.
I wasn’t allowed to want guys. I’d carried that thought all the way from bus rides on the junior circuit, shoving it deeper every time curiosity perked its head. No time, no need, channel every want into hockey.
That’s what I told myself. I left whole regions of myself behind, thinking I’d fetch them if I ever felt brave.
Look where that got me. 2:37 a.m., a year into a future I can’t remember, huddled in front of a toilet, staring at a man wholoves me. And who, if my own texts are to be believed, I love back.
So I am, apparently, gay, or at least, that’s what it looks like. All the evidence points in that direction. Waking up in bed with a man is a pretty big clue.
I’m in a relationship with Blair, and apparently I’m happy in it. That smile on my face in those photos isn’t fake.
How did this happen? Until twenty minutes ago my time, I knew Blair’s name and that he was a son of a bitch to play against, but nothing else about him.
Apparently some version of me knows much more.
I try to force the memory of how we started, our first joke or the first long stare in the locker room. My brain gives me sand and spray, a handful of sun and a flickering laugh, but nothing more.
What does it mean that I’m with Blair? That we’vebeentogether?
What’s more shocking is hownotfreaked I am. Years of pushing away my thoughts should have led to an existential crisis. There was definitely some part of me that didn’t want to deal with my wonderings because I didn’t have the mental strength to handle another complete psychological meltdown on top of the unraveling of my core hockey identity. Realizing I’m not the player I thought I could becomeandacknowledging my sexuality? No thanks.
So I thought there would be some level of panic, or a grinding, churning anxiety eating me alive when I finally confronted this question. But… no, not really. There’s nothing inside me but a calm, quiet peace. I’ve been carrying around this question mark for so long that answering it feels like relief.
Or maybe I already had my freakout.
God, Blair’s beauty nearly scrapes the sanity off my bones. Each time I look at him, sleep-creased and imperfect in thehalf-light, snoring softly from exhaustion, legs spilling out in all directions, I’m hit with a wave that has no name. Happiness, maybe, cresting right at the lip of fear.
I’ve never kissed a man before. Or I have, but I don’t remember it. And while loving a man feels right, like a puzzle piece clicking into place, I still have those never-been-kissed butterflies.
What is it like?
