Page 87 of The Fall
A fresh bruise blooms on my hip, a deep purple mixing with the faded yellow of an older one. I trace its edge, the skin tender and angry. I iced my knee earlier, but I need to do it again. I’ve probably hit the limit on painkillers, too, or passed it. I could take them all and still feel the ache in my wrists that tells me my body’s past its best-before date. My whole body feels like a collection of aches and impacts, a roadmap of every mistake I’ve made on the ice since I got to Tampa. Each failure is a new color on my skin. It’s a language I know: hit, hurt, heal.
But how do you heal from a wound that doesn’t have a scar?
I think of the vodka in my mini-fridge. It’s right there. Painkillers and vodka, shake, stir, and light a match. It’d be easy.
My phone buzzes, face-down on my bed. I know who it is, and when I flip it over, I’m right. It’s Dad.
I should answer. Swallow the inevitable conversation, choke down the disappointment. But he’ll ask about the trade, about Tampa. He’ll ask questions I don’t want to answer.
I let it go to voicemail.
Two protein shakes and no vodka later, I have ice packs wrapped around my knee and both wrists. The ice should numb me, but my brain keeps spinning through every missed pass, every fucked-up drill, every moment where I was supposed to grip this life harder and I didn’t.
I collapse to the mattress and pull Blair’s jersey to my face. I close my eyes, willing sleep to swallow me, but it won’t come.
That vodka’s still cold. Even through the door, it calls to me.
One drink wouldn’t be the end of the world. One drink to take the edge off, to blur the lines between pain and exhaustion. Clear liquid, clear thoughts. One drink to help me sleep, to quiet the voice in my head.
The choice shouldn’t be this hard, but it is. Everything is these days.
I push myself upright, the ice packs sliding off my wrists and hitting the floor with wet thuds. My knee screams when I stand, but I limp to the mini-fridge anyway. The handle is cold under my palm. Inside, the bottles catch the dim light—three neat rows of temporary amnesia. My fingers close around one of the little bottles of vodka.
One twist of the cap. One tilt of the bottle. One swallow.
The cap twists off too easily.
I think about Blair on the ice today, all that controlled fury. Would he recognize me like this?
Would he care?
The rim of the bottle touches my bottom lip. I’m one tip away from making everything disappear for a while. My knee throbs. My wrists ache. My chest is a hole with raw and raggedy edges.
I rest the bottle against my forehead instead and close my eyes, then set it on the nightstand.
I grab Blair’s jersey from where it’s pooled on the sheets and pull it over my head. My knee hammers with each heartbeat. Tomorrow I’ll wake up and do this all over again—the ice, the drills, the way Blair looks through me.
Outside, the city hums with life I’m not part of. Inside, it’s me, the dark, and the ghost of what Blair and I used to be.
I trace Blair’s name on his jersey and let the night hold me, waiting for tomorrow to decide if I’m still worth saving.
“You’re on the verge of washing out, Kendrick.”
Coach has his arms crossed and his feet planted in front of my stall. It’s not meant to be hostile. Mountains aren’t hostile; they’re simply there.
The rest of the team is gone and the smell of today’s sweat hangs in the locker room air.
“You’re on the fourth line through preseason. Barely.”
Fourth line, and I’m still scraping the bottom. The smell of the rink seeps up through the floor, through my gear, through the fucking walls. I bite down on the inside of my cheek. “I can do more.”
“You haven’t shown more.” A muscle ticks in Coach’s cheek. “I’m giving you these games. You need to give me something steady.” He hesitates. “You’re running out of time. You get that, right?”
“I do.”
“Then show us we’re wrong about you.”
Twenty-One
