Page 9 of The Fall
I’m suddenly jealous of the me who already knows, who holds those memories and has answered all our questions. He has his shit figured out. Look at this life. Look at what he built.
I’m jealous of the Torey whose life this is, whose skin fits, whose hands know what to do in the dark. All I’ve ever had is the ache of wanting, but this man, somewhere, earned it all.
It hurts. It hurts in a way that can’t be explained by headache or lost time. I want to remember the first kiss all over again. I want to know if my heart leapt or if it was something quieter, more inevitable, the sun warming me up from the marrow out. I want the memory ofus, of Blair’s hands mapping my skin, of what meals we ate, when we first touched, who started what. I can’t remember falling in love with him, or how he fell for me. I do not have the keys to any of these doors.
I can’t remember an entire year. I can’t remember Hayes, my apparent best friend. I can’t remember my comeback, what led to my trade, or my recovery.
How much of my life have I forgotten? How did I get from there to here, to Tampa Bay, playing for the Mutineers? How did I turn it all around?
Across from me, Blair stirs, and my heart stops. I watch him shift, my eyes lingering over his chest’s rise and fall. I scramble for what to say to him when he slides back into sleep, a soft snore escaping him. Crisis averted; I have a few more hours to figure out what the fuck to do.
I drag my foot across the tiled floor until my toes are right up against Blair’s thigh. I wish I didn’t have to do anything. Didn’t have to move or breathe or think. Let me stay here, in this quiet, peaceful moment, with Blair asleep across from me.
I have four hours until dawn. Four hours to figure out what the fuck I’m going to do with the biggest mess of my life.
God, I’m not ready to be broken again.
That beach is too close, only hours away according to my bruised and battered heart. That mirror showed meaTorey, buttheTorey, the me on the inside, still tastes salt from the sea spray and feels the ocean bringing me to my knees. I still hear the roar, the bellow, echoing in the depths of me. And if I look closely, I might find grains of sand lodged beneath my fingernails. That’s how close the beach is.
I don’t know what to do, and I’m so scared of fucking this up. If this is a hallucination, it’s immersive. If it’s consequence, it’s cruel. I can’t decide which hurts deeper: the loss of the past year, or the envy for the me who earned all this.
I’m not ready to lose everything.
Ironic, huh? Everything I was before this moment—before black ice and blackout—unravels at my feet.
What’s the worst choice—admit I’ve lost it, that the Torey everyone knows and loves is gone, for who knows how long. Maybe forever. That I’m lost, that this Torey is a mask, break every heart in this room, on this team. Throw my life away, shred my career. Permanent exile to long-term injured reserve. Brain injury. Knock off this championship-caliber team and send them into the doldrums.
My phone screen still shows those photos of Blair and me, smiling, laughing, holding each other close. Some other Torey won this man. Some other Torey pulled this team through a hard-fought season. I have his jaw, his hands, his eyes. Someone learned to love me.
I do not have his courage. Not yet.
But I want to.
I want to remember how I fell in love.
Let me try, at least. If I built this life once, maybe I can build it again.
I am not good enough for Blair, or this team, or this life, but this life is what I have. Some-fucking-how.
How the fuck did I pull that off? How did I gethere?
I already know who I am without him—alone on a midnight beach, skinned raw by regret—and I’m not going back there. I cannot go backward.
I can figure this out. I’ve been through worse, right? I’ve faced worse than this. I built this life for myself, didn’t I? That was—is?—me in the mirror. And even though I don’t remember, that guy apparently had his shit so together that one of the best players in the entire NHL now calls him “babe.” And sleeps on the bathroom floor when he’s puking.
Can I learn enough in four hours to fake my own life?
Don’t fuck it up, Torey. You already built this once.
Can I do it again?
Three
The sun isn’t up yetwhen Blair and I cross the empty parking lot to the arena.
Ourarena, home of the Tampa Bay Mutineers. It’s all lit up, the windows reflecting an early-morning sky that’s turning from deep indigo to a washed-out blue.
Blair’s wearing a white team hoodie with the Mutineers’ logo on the front and dark blue sweatpants. I’m wearing my old shorts and a Mutineers T-shirt, and I feel like a fraud, like I’m playing dress-up in someone else’s clothes.
