Page 100 of The Fall
It’s the anniversary. Jesus Christ, it’s the anniversary. Today. I didn’t—fuck.
Cody died a year ago today. Today, because it’s October—October, overdose—and today is the day…
Where was I a year ago? Feeling sorry for myself in Vancouver? Moping about how no one my team liked me or how the fans wrote mean things about me?
Blair was identifying his brother’s body.
The room keeps moving around us, but he sits in his bubble of silence, staring at his hands like they belong to someone else. His fingers curl, uncurl.
I should look away, give Blair the privacy of his grief. But I can’t stop watching the careful way he breathes, the rigid line of his shoulders under his jersey. He’s holding himself so still.
One year. Three hundred and sixty-five days of waking up without his brother. Of lacing up skates that Cody will never wear again. Of scoring goals that Cody will never see.
I know what it feels like to lose the center of your world.
If the universe were different, if I had the power to twist time and fate, I’d give Blair a clean slate and a world without wounds.
Blair’s thumb makes small, slow circles on his wrist tape. The motion is hypnotic, like his body needs something to do while his mind is somewhere else entirely.
My unbreakable Blair is shorn into fragments.
Blair’s eyes lift for a second, not to me but through me, through the wall, through everything, then they drop back to his hands. His thumb stops its circling and then starts again. The clock on the wall ticks toward game-time. Fifteen minutes until we need to be in the tunnel.
Iwon’tfail you today.
My vow burns away every last trace of my own anxieties—the thirty-day clock, the short leash, the pressure to prove I belong. None of it matters.
A minute tremor runs through Blair’s jaw. A muscle clenches, unclenches. It’s the only sign of the war being waged inside him, the superhuman effort to not be swallowed whole. He’s fighting. Even sitting perfectly still, he is fighting harder than anyone else in this room.
The room shifts into motion. Guys stand, stretch, knock gloves together. Blair finally reaches for his skates.
I’d rip this whole arena bolt from bolt if one single screw presented to him could ease his suffering. But the rage inside me is useless, a roaring fire with nowhere to burn. There is nothing I can offer him.
He draws a skate onto his lap and threads the lace through the first eyelet. He is putting himself together, buckling the armor on over the wound. One knot. Then the next. He is building the captain back from the ground up. His shoulders, which were bowed moments ago, straighten by millimeters.
He is coming back. For us. For the game.
It is the quietest, bravest thing I have ever seen.
I will be his shield. I will be his legs. I will anticipate every pass, block every shot, and clear his path so all he has to do is skate. I will pour every ounce of my energy into the space around him.
Tonight, I play for him.
Third period, tie game. My legs pump harder than they have all season. Every pass I make is crisper, every positioning choice sharper. I’m not thinking about myself, about my stats or my ice time. I’m thinking about Blair.
Sweat sears down the back of my neck. Forecheck, backcheck, pressure, always pressure.
The puck’s in the corner and I’m three strides deep in the chase, reading the angles. Their forward pinches, but I’m there first, and I see a lane open up between their tired D-men.
I cradle the puck in my blade, flick it to Hawks, and move hard to the point. His return pass comes in hot, and the impact rides up the shaft of my stick. We have five seconds tops until the D traps us. Four. I push.
Go now, go.
The timing is perfect. The puck is weightless. The ice is humming. My weight shifts to my back foot. My stick flexes, and I let it rip; it’s as simple as breathing.
I breathe, and shoot?—
And the puck soars into the back of the fucking net. The red light blazes as the horn blares. It’s my first goal as a Mutineer.
