Page 82 of The Fall
I knew that already.
“We’re shipping you out. We’ve offloaded you.”
I blink. “What? Like a trade?”
He pauses. “It’s a cap dump. They’re taking you, your contract, everything.”
“Where—where am I going?”
“Tampa.”
It’s not possible. This can’t be possible. Fate’s notthistwisted. “Tampa?”
“Yes,” he says. “The Mutineers.”
The sketchbook slides off my thighs. Pages flutter, and there’s Blair’s face again and again and again. Different angles, different moments, but always him. I’ve been dismantling myself, piece by piece, learning how to be nothing, and now Blair’s going to see the truth. He’s going to see what I really am—what I am without him. The failure.
In every sketch, he’s perfect, and here I am, surrounded by the evidence of my obsession.
Tampa. God. Blair in the flesh, not these paper ghosts. Blair’s voice in the locker room. His eyes on me during practice. His disappointment when he sees who I really am.
There’s no way out, and no way to hide what these months have done to me. My game is gone, and now I have to walk back into that world wearing my shame like a second skin.
His jersey bunches under my palms, soft from too many washes, and I hate myself for still wearing it. For needing it.
“Torey…” My general manager’s voice softens. “I don’t know what happened, or why, but this is it: yourlastchance. Tampa must have heard we were going to terminate your contract, and I don’t know where they’re going with this trade. But…”
There’s a long, still silence.
“This is your last shot. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Tampa’s Hockey Ops will be in touch with the details.”
The phone clicks.
I’ve got my life stuffed into two duffel bags, and I’m on a plane, halfway across the country, halfway back to Blair. The armrest digs into my side, and the plane’s air stings the back of my throat. The window is a scuffed oval of light, the cloud layer smeared and thin.
Tampa keeps coming closer whether I want it or not. I’m heading back toward blue water and the man I love, who doesn’t know me. What do I say when I see him? What can I say?
Blair—
No. Too simple. He’ll look at me—God, he’ll look at me—and I?—
We’ve never been introduced. I know the heat at the base of my spine when his mouth finds it, know the sound he makes when morning is soft and he is softer, know the slant of his grin when he thinks we’re alone, but when I hold out a hand and sayHi, I’m Torey, we’re starting from zero.
Blair, I need to tell you something.
Tell him? Tell him what? The truth would sound like madness.I remember loving you. I remember your mouth against my spine on mornings that never happened. I remember dying with you.
Every rehearsed introduction sounds worse than the last.Hi, I’m your new teammate—too formal for someone whose heartbeat I’ve memorized.Hi, you don’t know me but—but what? But I know the feel of your breath against the back of my neck in the middle of the night?Hi, I’ve been dreaming about you for months.
That makes me sound exactly as unhinged as I am.
Nothing I practice changes the simple thing: he doesn’t know me, and with the mess I’ve made of everything, why would he want to? I burned through any skills I had and ran out of all my chances in a different city. I don’t have a single reason to offer him for why he should think I’m anything other than a trade and a headache.
But there’s no more running. One way or the other, Tampa is my end. I sold everything to get here. Burned every bridge behind me. There’s nothing left but forward.
