Page 135 of The Fall
His cheeks are streaked with tears, and his eyes red and swollen. He stares at the frozen image on the screen—his brother, young and alive and perfect, caught in a moment of joy that will never come again.
Blair rises slowly. Each inch upward costs him. I wait for his anger. I deserve it, and I brace for when his grief turns; he has every right. He grabs me by my shoulders, and?—
There is nothing careful about how he pulls me in. My lungs empty as he crushes me to him. His need burns through cotton and skin, grief crashing into mine, waves meeting in the middle. I wrap my arms around him in return and hold on; I hold on.
No space exists between us.
The TV screen still paused on Cody, eternally sixteen, stick raised in celebration. I close my eyes, press my face into his shoulder, and let him break apart in my arms.
“Torey,” he whispers. “Fuck?—”
His fingers curl tighter into my shirt, bunching the fabric between my shoulder blades. Every unsteady breath he takes shudders through me.
He does not let me go for a long time.
That’s as far as the night can stretch and hold.
Blair finally steps out of my arms and folds back inside himself. He wipes his face against his forearm, clears his throat, rubs away the tears. He packs the DVD into its case like it’s a holy relic.
He speaks only once, after everything: “I’m good.”
He’s not.
But he fishes his keys out of his pocket, and, eyes down, heads for the door. On the way, he fist bumps Hayes, but he won’t look at me. I don’t blame him; I opened up an artery of memory.
The sound of the door latching is too loud in my ears. What I’ve done clings to every inch of me. Hayes finally exhales after the door shuts behind Blair. “Torey…” he breathes. “What the fuck?”
Sour adrenaline burns in my gut. “I didn’t mean—” My voice cracks. My hands won’t stop trembling.
We clean up together in silence. I collect the Gatorade bottles from the back patio and trash paper plates smudged with birthday cake. Hayes finishes the dishwashing that Erin and Lily started, then abandoned when the night turned. He clinks the dishes louder than necessary and lets the water run as he braces against the sink.
“Dude…” He says, ignoring the overflowing mixing bowl tipping sudsy water into the drain. “You gave him his fucking brother. There’s nothing more important to Blair than family, and you…” He trails off. “He could’ve turned pro that year he stayed down, but he didn’t, and it cost him his first-round position, but he stayed.”
The hollow space in me grows wider.
“You—” Hayes finally shuts off the tap. “I’ve known him for years, but he hasnevertalked to me about Cody.”
I ache for Blair with every cell inside me. My feet want to carry me out the door, down the street, to wherever he’s gone. But I don’t; I can’t. I sink onto a barstool, head in my hands.
Hayes’s voice softens. “You gave him something no one else could. You let him remember Cody alive, not just… gone.”
I lift my head and meet Hayes’s eyes.
“Go home,” Hayes says. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow’s practice.”
But sleep doesn’t come. I lie in bed staring at the ceiling fan’s lazy rotation, replaying every second. Blair’s face when he saw the disc. The way his fingers traced its surface. How young Blair looked in that footage, how young Cody looked, how neither of them knew what was coming.
Nothing quiets the memory of Blair’s grief or the knowledge that I caused it.
Judging by the sweat soaking Blair’s face and jersey, he’s beaten everyone to morning skate by many hours. The ice looks like a war zone, scuffed up end-to-end, and hammering pucks from the red line into the far boards. Grab puck, position, wind up, fire. Grab puck, position, wind up, fire. The scrape of his skates, the hammer of his stick, the cannon boom of his shot; he’s a hurricane unleashed.
I throw my gear on faster than I ever have before. My hands are shaking. My tape job is shit. Tie my laces, grab my gloves; I’m out and down the tunnel in record time.
I step onto the bench, making enough noise that he’ll know I’m here. His rhythm breaks for a second—a hesitation in his next shot—but he doesn’t turn.
“How long have you been here?” I call out, my voice bouncing off the empty seats.
He fires another puck before answering. “Couple hours.”
