Page 18 of The Fall
So, I’m home, in a home that doesn’t feel like it.
Remember.
Or at least get better at faking it.
I need to learn my own life, inside and out.
I tiptoe around, my footsteps echoing in the space. Blair’s style is minimalist but lived-in. We ditch our ball caps and our gear bags in the corner of the kitchen, drop the mail on the counter. Coffee mugs wait to be washed in the sink. Empty bottles of Vitaminwater and Gatorade huddle together.
There are photos on the fridge, stuck beside the team’s monthly practice and travel schedule and the trash pickup calendar. They’re mostly him and me: a selfie from the pool, the two of us on the ice during game warm-ups. A few others full of faces I don’t recognize.
He cooks, at least a little. The knowledge appears from nowhere, something I know out of the blue. He cooks. I sitthere, on the stool opposite the range, and sometimes he’ll give me something to do—chop this, peel that—but mostly he cooks and we talk. We share a bottle of Gatorade. One time, I tried to pour it into his mouth because his hands were covered in batter—batter from what?—but I missed, and I spilled it down his chin and chest. He squawked; I laughed, and then I spilled more. He cooked the rest of dinner shirtless, and I said?—
What did I say? Damn it, what did I say? Was that a memory? It has to be, has to be. Where does it lead, though? What happened next?
There’s a bowl of fruit on the counter, the same bowl I snagged my banana out of. Oranges, mangoes, apples. We eat mangoes together. The sweet, sticky juice of mangoes on our fingers, his arm around my waist, pulling me close, our bare chests brushing?—
These memories are like faded home movies, the colors washed out, the details dropping into static. Half-formed, unfinished. Never out of post-production.
A soft ping from my phone breaks the silence. A text from Blair.
This meeting won’t end. How’s the head?
I smile. It’s automatic, a reflex, and so is the tender excitement curling through me.
Not bad. I’m doing better.
Fingers crossed, that becomes true.
Stretching helped.
And it had. Whatever that was, some combination of stretching or centering or balance work, those twenty minutesin the dark felt like twelve hours of sleep and a dose of good painkillers.
Good.
Hayes had said Blair was worried about me, enough to be noticeable. I barely know Blair, but it’s clear he’s not an effusive open book like Hayes. If you can read his emotions, they must be overpowering him, and if Blair is this worried today, now, after a bad night and a hit…
I stare at the screen, my thumb hovering over the keyboard.
How are you?
As replies go, it’s pretty weak, but I need to start reciprocating here.
Grinding through.
He sends a melting smile.
Be home soon.
And then a heart emoji appears.
Everything inside me stops. I close my eyes, drop my phone on the counter, and sink my face into my hands. How do I respond to that? What do I say to the man who loves me when I can’t remember holding his hand?
The sound of Blair’s laugh floats through my mind, clear as day, washing through me.
How is this my life? How did I get this?
Breathe in, breathe out.
