Page 263 of The Fall
Victory is my damnation. I fought for a year to rebuild this life, and I have only succeeded in reconstructing the path to the grave.
Hayes crushes me in a hug that lifts my skates from the ice. Other bodies slam into us; Hawks yells, and Hollow’s glove thumps my helmet. We are a tangle of limbs and sticks and ecstatic shouts. Blair is there an instant later, his arms wrapping around me and burying his face in my neck.
“Told you.” His face is hidden in my neck. “You and me, Kicks. Always.”
His breath is hot against my skin, his words muffled but unshakable. Arms locked around him, I squeeze tighter, refusing to let the moment dissolve. The ice is chaos and celebration, sweat and adrenaline fusing us into one mass of victory and relief.
But this is how it begins: with joy, with us.
If I hold on tight enough, maybe I can graft him to me, make us one inseparable being so the future can’t tear him away.
I follow the guys off the ice and down the tunnel, and the cheers follow us, bouncing off concrete walls.
Blair walks with me at the end of the line. We hang back while the guys spill through the door to the locker room ahead of us. He takes my hand in his and kisses my knuckles when we’re alone, so quick, so fast. I squeeze down and hold on, never wanting to let him go. I’ll need these memories. I’ll need all of them.
Blair tugs me with him, and for a second I resist, wanting to freeze this moment before we step inside, before the clock starts ticking down.
But I can’t stop time.
The room detonates when we return, every man is a fuse.
Some of the guys fling their equipment over their heads. Victory music throws itself from the locker room speakers as streams of Gatorade arc through the air, splashing against bare, sweaty shoulders. Hollow whips his jersey over his head and lets out a victor’s howl. Hayes finds the bin of melted ice from the trainer’s table and upends it over Axel’s head.
Coach appears and holds up his hand until a sliver of quiet emerges. “Outstanding effort tonight,” he barks. “Every single one of you. Enjoy this!”
The room explodes again.
My hands are unsteady as I pull off my jersey. There’s a cold place beneath my sternum where the hum of this triumph should be. I drop the sweat-soaked jersey into my stall and stare at the Mutineers’ flag. The fabric bunches, hiding part of the logo from view.
The guys’ voices blur around me into white noise. The sound, the light, the air; it all scrapes against the raw places inside of me.
A warmth envelops me from behind as arms slide around my waist, and Blair’s chin hooks over my shoulder. “We fucking did it.” I lean back, my hands landing on top of his. He kisses my jaw, and I turn my face into his, nuzzling him.
Everyone sees. Hayes raises a bottle of Gatorade. Hollow catches my eye and shoots us a thumbs-up. Hawks mouths something that looks likefinally. No one is surprised.
Blair’s arms tighten. “Was that okay?”
“More than okay.” I turn in his arms, my heart beating so hard he must feel it. Around us, the celebrations continue, but we exist in our own pocket of quiet. Blair’s forehead touches mine. His hands rest at my waist, and the smile that unfolds across his face and lights up his eyes is a blade of beautiful light.
It cuts through me, that smile. God, I love him.
I lean in closer, wanting to kiss him. His breath mingles with mine, warm and real and here. I can almost believe we’re invincible.
But the room tilts on its axis, sliding into a slow, sickening spin. My stomach drops; the floor seems to ripple beneath my feet, and sounds warp and distort. Blair’s face blurs in front of me, his features swimming as I try to focus. The air is too thick to breathe. It feels like being submerged, the world’s sounds and colors turned up until they bleed into one another.
I grip his shoulders harder, trying to steady myself against this sudden vertigo, and my eyes land on my broken stick mounted on the wall. The shaft is split at a violent angle, graphite peeled back like a scream.
“Torey?” Blair’s voice sounds underwater.
The locker room walls seem to pulse, contract, expand. That stick is a warning, a message from myself I didn’t understand.
“Hey.” Blair’s hands slide up my arms and squeeze my shoulders. “You okay?”
A nod is all I can manage. The edges of my vision swim, black-then-light, black-then-light.
Remember.
“Listen up, degenerates!” Hayes vaults onto a bench, a towel slung low on his hips and his phone held aloft like a trophy. “Ijust got off the phone with my magnificent wife and she’s got our celebration spot locked down. It’s time to trade in this Gatorade for margaritas, boys! The Seawall is waiting for us, and the rooftop deck is all ours!”
