Page 1 of The Fall
One
It’sa good place to disappear.
I park my truck at the far end of the beach and walk until the only footprints in the sand are mine, then collapse behind the dunes and sit with my knees drawn up and elbows braced against them, staring out at a black that has no beginning and no end. Minutes seep away, probably hours too.
It’s only me and the ocean; the horizon is lost. Ocean and sky have welded together into a single slab of darkness, and the world has lost its border. Waves crash and churn and tumble in the black, curl, collapse, and swell again, raining whisper-thin salt on me. The froth sneaks higher, flirting around my boots, hissing and slithering up the sand. It’s not unusual for me to end up alone on this black beach with its dark waters and only my thoughts for company.
But tonight feels different.
Tonight feels like an ending.
I used to think hockey was everything worth having; only the ice, your skates, and the chase mattered. Chase the puck, chase the win. Chase that Cup. Win or die. Turn the want up so loud the rest of your life burns out. I ran toward that for sixteen years and never slowed down.
The ocean roars. Another wave shatters across the sand.
Once, my future was written in big, bold letters: Torey Kendrick, generational talent, drafted second overall. But that was four years ago, and ever since, I’ve watched everyoneelsechase their dreams and spin them into pure and sparkling gold while mine have rotted and turned sour. I had bones full of want but now I have nowhere to put that wanting anymore.
Ihateit now, this game I’ve poured my life into. Ihateit. I hate what it took, and what it exposed. I gave hockey everything, but all it has done is broken me and laughed at what spilled out. I still dream in highlight reels, but now, all I see are the plays I fucked up. I relive them at night. I relive them when I blink.
This isn’t how things were supposed to go.
When you’re small and hungry, you don’t fear the future, and you never imagine that all your single-minded grit and grind can lead to you being brokenhearted and standing on a midnight beach with nothing left to lose.
So what do you do when you’ve grown up with a drive gouged on the inside of your bones—play for this one thing, thisonething, theonlything I craved and yearned and strove for—and it collapses? Or whenyoucollapse because the reality of you cannot bear the real world, burdened by your hopes and dreams?
What then?
It’s a question I’m asking all the time because the version of me that I believed in, the me I thought I would become, has never materialized. He has never existed, and the man I am today is only an echo of my broken dreams.
I don’t know how to be a man who won’t give up; I don’t know how to be a man who doesn’t give up on himself. And I’ve tried so hard to become someone else. I don’t remember what tomorrow is supposed to look like, and I don’t know what to do.
I close my eyes, let the roar of the waves fill up my head. What’s wrong with me?
Nothing,I want to say.Nothing’s wrong.
But somethingis, and it’s getting worse each day.
There’s something loose, something rattling. I tell myself it’s not a real break, but I feel it. I cannot find my missing pieces.
When I open my eyes, the ocean is a black mirror reflecting a cracked and starless sky. The waves seem to split me and spin me and spread me thinner, thinner, thinner. My thoughts are worn out to threads. Maybe if I close my eyes tight enough or hold my breath long enough or wish hard enough, then everything could change, orIcould change.
I wish I could be the Torey everyone thought I was. If I am who my team thought they were getting when they drafted me, then I should be able to turn this around. Everyone has slides; not everyone craters. Everyone who’s ever laced up skates knows what potential means and how it hangs around your neck.
But I’m pretty sure no one would miss me. The fans revile me. All they see is a washed-up has-been and a waste of salary. My coach can’t stand me. My teammates skirt me like a black hole, like all of my failure will get all over them and ruin their lives too.
And my dad?—
Every dad knows what you could be if you lived up to your potential. He texts after every game, three-paragraph dissections of my mistakes, wrapped in the language of “constructive criticism.” He used to say, “You get what you earn, kid.”
And I have.
I hate myself for being a failure. I hate not meeting my potential. I am the one who hasn’t done what I’m supposed to do; I am the one who has let my talent rot, fester, and die.
I should be better than this, but I don’t know how. How do you fix yourself when you don’t know what’s broken? How do you find your way when you’re so lost you don’t know which way is north?
Or worse—what if you’re not broken and this is just you, as good as you’ll ever get?
What if this is it?
