Page 46 of The Fall
“You guess.” His smirk is knowing. “Did you leave him with any energy for the game, or did you?—”
He cuts himself off with a yelp, twisting and squirming in his chair, spilling coffee as he reaches behind himself, trying to fish something out of his shirt. He pulls scrambled eggs from the small of his back, and the table erupts in laughter.
Axel holds out his fist for Blair to bump as Blair strolls casually away from Hayes and toward the buffet. “Nice, Cap,” Reid says.
When Blair returns, he sits across from me, and the room dissolves. The steadily rising volume of our teammates, fueled by caffeine and carbs, my father’s unexplained absence, Hayes’s theatrical indignation. All of it disappears beneath Blair’s smile.
Empty plates and half-finished mugs of coffee litter the table. The conversation has shifted from debating the best flavor of Velveeta to arguing whether the guys would rather fight one horse-sized duck or ten duck-sized horses.
“Okay, okay! I got one. What would you rather do?” Hayes breaks into the chatter like a cannonball in a kiddie pool. “Fight one grizzly-bear-sized hamster or fifty hamster-sized grizzly bears?”
They launch into a heated debate about reach advantages and bite force as a cold wave washes over me.
I know this moment—thisexactmoment—like I’ve lived it before: Hayes’s laughter bounces across the table, Blair smiles easily, Hollow gestures with his arms flung wide, Mikko shakes his head, Hawks rolls his eyes, Reid snorts into his coffee, Viktor pretends he’s forgotten English. I know what comes next as surely as a center knows the right draw. This is déjà vu. But how? How do I remember something that hasn’t happened yet?
Blair’s foot touches mine beneath the table.
Remember.
My breath catches. A cold fist closes around my heart.
“Kicks!” Hayes snaps in front of my face. I blink back to reality. “You with us, bud?”
“Yeah.” I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”
“Would you rather have fingers for toes or toes for fingers?”
The question is so absurd I laugh in his face. “What? That’s ridiculous.”
“Come on, you gotta choose,” Hollow chimes in.
“I guess... fingers for toes? At least I could still play hockey that way.”
This sets off another round of debate about the practicality of fitting finger-toes into skates and if the game would evolve into a kicking sport with skates the size of flippers.
“No way,” Hawks argues. “You need to curl, like this?—”
Blair shakes his head and we share a long-suffering smile.
Breakfast winds down, and the guys push back from the table. Dishes clatter as they stack them. Water glasses empty in long gulps. I remain, staring at my plate where my fork stands upright in a half-eaten pancake. I’m not sure how long it’s been there.
The déjà vu won’t leave me. I’m standing at the edge of a cliff with no bottom in sight.
Hayes grips my shoulder with both hands. “You good?”
I toss my napkin over my shoulder, aiming vaguely for his face. He bats it away, then ruffles my hair with his knuckles.
Blair waits by the door, bag slung over one shoulder. The bus idles outside the hotel, ready to take us to the arena.
I reach for my memories but come up empty. It can’t all be gone forever, can it? Where do memories go when they vanish?
Outside, the morning air carries the scent of diesel fumes, coffee, and old hockey gear. Sunlight turns everything glaringly bright.
What if I’m losing my mind? What if my days are numbered, and instead of the playoffs, I’m heading straight for a padded room with no shoelaces?
Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. This is post-concussion transient amnesia. It’s scary, but it’s temporary. It’s fine. I’m fine.
I have to be fine.
