Page 78 of The Fall
The fourth:Blair.
Always, always Blair.
I have melted down to nothing, and I put my fist through someone else’s reflection.
“Kendrick! What the fuck was that?”
The puck slips off my stick like water. I miss the pass. I miss the play. I miss the moment.
Blair is there, in the corner of my eye.I miss you.Blair’s voice, the timbre of it like honey and smoke. He said my name like it was a sunrise. I can still feel his lips on my skin. I can still feel him everywhere.
“Kendrick, if you can’t get your shit together...” Coach doesn’t bother to finish the threat.
We both know where this is heading.
I’m benched for the next game.
The game after, too.
Everything is slipping—my grip, my game, my fucking sanity.
I want to let go. I want to sink.
“It’s time, Kendrick.”
I’m mid-drill, another fucking disaster in a long line of them. Coach points at me, then to the glass-fronted office overlooking the practice rink. The GM’s office.
“You know this is it, right?” The Orcas’ general manager, a former player, a legend in the franchise, leans back, his large hands palms down on his desk. He doesn’t stretch it out. “You’re scratched for the rest of the season.”
I knew this was coming, but God, it’s here, it’s here, it’s here?—
“You need to start thinking about what’s next.”
“I’ve got, uh—” I swallow, pushing the words out like they might change anything. “One more year on my contract?—”
“There are ways,” he cuts in, “to end contracts early.”
I nod. I don’t remember the last time I could breathe.
“There’s no easy way to say this, Kendrick.” His voice is firm, but there’s something tucked behind his professional mask. Exasperation, maybe, or fatigue. “But we’ve reached our end.”
I deserve it. God, I fucking deserve it. Hockey—what I let define me, what I thought meant everything worth meaning in this world until I found the sun—is scraping me out and throwing what’s left back to the sea.
My general manager sighs. He looks tired, like a father who’s run out of any other way to reach a son who won’t listen. “You’re a mess out there. Everyone can see it.” There’s a bruise of red in the corners of his eyes. “You need help.” He pulls out a small slip of paper for the Player Assistance Program and slides it across the desk. “Call them. We can’t force you into this. You have to choose to get help. But Torey, if you don’t? You won’t be here much longer.”
I stare at him.
“I can’t help you,” he says, a little softer. “No one on this team can. But if you don’t get yourself straightened out, we aren’t only talking about the end of your time on this team or the end of your career.”
He’s telling me straight. I’m going, going, gone, and not just from hockey.
“Whatever’s chasing you? You need to face it before it eats you alive.”
Chasing me? No, it’s worse than that; it’s already caught me.
“I hope to God you call,” he says.
I don’t call.
