Page 73 of The Fall
That was our home.The words reverberate through me.
My heart stutters. The memory isreal, as real as the hum of this plane, the cold seeping in from the window against my forehead. It’s so clear and unmistakable, and I?—
I’m grasping for more. I scour for anything I can hold onto: the way he pointed, the exact inflection in his voice, our elbows brushing between our seats. I’m trying to part fog with my hands to find fading fireflies.
This is proof—Iknowit.
God, I’m shaking so fucking badly. Blair. Blair Blair Blair?—
Maybe I can find him and tell him what I remember, how I remember. Maybe then?—
Maybe it will make everythingright.
I cling to the memory, trace its outline, desperate to hold on.
I hear Blair again, again.
The plane touches down.
My heart cracks.
My hotel room is a sterile, beige box. The Orcas moved from the plane to the team bus to the hotel as quick as molasses. I toe-tapped and finger-bounced and lip-gnawed my way through it all, replaying Blair’s voice on loop so I wouldn’t lose those two sentences. “That’s where we lived.”
Blair. That was his voice speaking to me. Not through YouTube or postgame clips, buthim.
Key cards, elevators. There’s a whole bunch of unwritten shit in the subculture of a hockey team. Vets and old guys ride the elevators first. Rookies, new guys, and losers go last. Fuck that; I ditch everyone and take the stairs, striding them two, three ata time, up to my floor. I drop my bag, dig out my tablet. I could have searched on my phone, but… I need to do this alone.
I need Blair.
All I’ve been able to do is cling to the scraps that remain: our shared breaths, his skin against mine, his lips on mine, on my jaw, my neck, my collarbone, my chest, my belly,oh?—
And the way he looked at me.
I can have it all back if I canprove?—
Please, please…
The Wi-Fi connects, and then I’m typing, furiously searching.Blair Callahan, childhood home, Calgary... Calgary childhood, NHL player Blair Callahan...
But—No.
Blair Callahan was born and raised in Chalk River, Ontario.
I stare at the screen until the words blur. Chalk River, Ontario. It repeats, a skipping record, each revolution carving a groove in my skull. Not Calgary. Not even fucking close.
No. God, no. No, no, no.
There has to be a mistake. I search again, but it’s the same on every stat sheet: He’s from Ontario, not Calgary.
My heartbeat ricochets. I’m losing the rhythm, the pitch. I try to reconcile what I’m reading with what Iknow, what I can feel in my veins, in the folds and crevices of my brain. How can I remember something that never happened? His voice, for God’s sake—That’s where we lived. That was our home.I hear him still; I feel him still, as real as anything I’ve ever known, more real than this page, this fucking lie.
You know why.You’re losing it.
My breath feels torn from lungs lined with barbed wire. My skin is too tight, like it’s trying to crawl off my bones.
Those whispers from him? They’re not coming from my memories; they’re coming from the cracks in my mind. Thatshade of blue from a pair of eyes I can’t forget? That’s the color of the frequency you hear when youlose it.
I’m an echo of a man, haunted and haunting himself.Who am I today? The ghost or the crazed?
