Page 83 of The Fall
I thumb the frayed strap of my backpack until the loose threads bite. Inside are three sketchbooks, the ones packed with my favorite, fractured dreams.
The plane tips, nose angling down. The engines shift pitch and tug us earthward. Landing gear thunks into place, and the vibration runs up through the seat, buzzing my teeth. My stomach knots and holds. Outside, Tampa’s skyline rises, glassand water throwing sunlight back at the sky. I recognize none of it and all of it at once.
Impact jolts through me, the tires kissing the runway softly at first, then heavier as the brakes grab. Through the window, Tampa’s heat shimmers off the runway. Home, I think, then hate myself for thinking it.
The plane taxis toward the gate, and the window fills with service trucks and tarmac stripes and the choreography of arrivals. I’m here. After everything—the accident that wasn’t, the love that didn’t happen, my months of drowning in Vancouver—I’m here.
The seatbelt sign goes dark. Everyone stands. Overhead bins snap open around me, but I can’t move. Somewhere in this city, Blair is completely unaware that I’m about to walk into his life carrying a dream that died before it began.
I shove my shades onto my face and move through the crowded terminal. Is he here? Of course not. Why the fuck would he be here?
“Mr. Kendrick?”
I blink and barely catch the embroidered Mutineers logo on the polo of the man in front of me. I nod.
The guy—Sam—helps me collect my bags and my hockey sticks from baggage claim. He’s efficient, and when I’m loaded up, he says, “Follow me.” I do, out of the airport and into the sunlight.
The car ride to the team hotel is quiet. I’m staying downtown next to the arena, which means I’ll have a short commute to the end of my career.
I check in without saying much. The keycard to my room is cold plastic between my fingers. You’d think there might be some grand moment waiting at the end of an odyssey like this, some sign that marks your return. Instead, all I hear is the faintbeepof the electronic lock, and then the door creaks open.
The hotel room is a placeholder for someone else’s life. I’m here, but I could be anywhere.
This is where rookies, call-ups, tryouts, and trades stay until they get the go/no-go on a real place, and the hotel is used to housing hockey players. They’ve given me a room with a view, and I drift to the window overlooking the bay. I’ve always been drawn to places I can drown.
I see?—
The bridge, a dark ribbon cutting the water. It bisects everything—sky from sea, safe from gone. The shadows it throws feel wrong, digging into places in me that are still tender, still trying to scab over. My breath catches. Do I know this bridge?
My hands are clumsy with the curtains. I yank hard, rings rasping on the track, and daylight snuffs out. The room drops to blank. I brace my shoulder to the wall, calves tight, arms buzzing, jaw clenched so hard my molars ache. I wait for a hit, the rush of water over my head, an ending I can feel but can’t see—but… nothing happens.
Instead, I stand in the dark and breathe. In and out, slowly enough not to wake whatever hunts me, and quietly enough that it passes the door and keeps going.
Twenty
You’d thinkeverything here would echo with memories—good ones and bad ones—but all I feel is cold.
The air is thicker than I remember in the Mutineers’ locker room. Well, I neverrememberedit at all.
The layout is close to my sketches, but not exact. The benches are off, and the stalls aren’t in the right order. There’s no broken hockey stick nailed to the wall. In my memories, I used to replay the sound Axel made when he’d laugh himself hoarse, or imagine the ridiculous questions Hayes would throw into the room.Would you rather be an ant or an elephant?
It’s different.
I knew it would be. I knew that, I did.
Blair’s not here. His clothes are dumped in his stall, and his gear is missing, which means he’s already been here and left.
Hawks and Hollow are laughing as they do up their skates. Mikko’s checking his stick blade, his back to me. Hayes, off to the side, is taping up his socks, head bent and deep in it, not giving a fuck about the new guy who waltzed into the room.
None of this belongs to me.
Hayes looks up, finally. His eyes slide over me like skimming water. “Hey.”
“Hi.” I dump my bag in the empty stall beside him. My number, 17, and my name are written on tape, easily removable, easily scraped away. I clear my throat. “How’s Erin?”
Hayes stills. He lifts his head, his roll of tape halfway up his calf. “What?”
“Your wife? How’s she doing?”
