Page 156 of The Fall

Time stretches endlessly during the remainder of the flight. My lungs burn from holding my breath. My sketchbook is heavy in my hands, filled with my longing, my obsession, my inability to separate what’s real from what I’ve created.

We land in Tampa at 1:17 a.m., wheels down with a two-touch bounce.

Blair is one of the first off the plane.

I’m the last.

I trail behind everyone as we board the bus. Blair sits near the front, Hayes beside him, and I slide into an empty row near the back.

Forty minutes of silent agony pass as we are shuttled from the airport to the arena. I count each second, watching the back of Blair’s head.

The parking garage is nearly empty when we arrive. Everyone scatters to their cars, but I linger, waiting for Blair. Is this later? Or is later never?

I spot him moving to his truck, his head down, shoulders bunched. “Blair.” My voice barely carries through the quiet.

He turns. Our eyes meet across thirty feet of asphalt. His face is a mask I can’t read.

He holds my gaze for three heartbeats, then drops his eyes, unlocks his truck, and climbs inside.

His taillights disappear up the exit ramp of the team’s garage.

The garage ventilation system hums, marking time I waste standing here. A car horn blares, the sound bouncing off concrete walls. I breathe in exhaust fumes and rubber. I should move. I should call an Uber and get out of here. But home means being alone with these drawings, alone with the truth.

And whatever fragile thing we’d built, I’ve destroyed with my inability to separate delusion from reality.

Pain explodes behind my eyes, white-hot and blinding. I stagger, and the edges of my vision go dark.

Get away get away get away?—

I stumble out of the garage, heading back into the arena and into the maze of hallways beneath the rink. I walk blindly in the near-dark, turning corners, bouncing from wall to wall, moving deeper, moving away. Away from eyes, away from light. Away. Blair’s face swims before me?—

I double over. My skull is about to crack open; my brain is trying to squeeze out of its base, pop through my eyes, bleed out of my ears.

My knees buckle and I slam into the concrete wall. Red starbursts bloom across my vision. The sketchbook drops from my grip, pages fluttering open on the floor. In the dim emergency lighting, Blair’s face stares up at me from every sheet. My drawings, my obsession, my madness.

I dig my fingers into my temples, but the pressure behind my eyes builds and builds. The pain is nuclear, radiating outward from my brain stem. My stomach heaves. Sweat drips down my neck. My throat burns with bile. The concrete floor warps beneath me, rippling up toward my face.

The hallway tilts and spins as darkness creeps in. I try to push myself up, but my arms won’t support me. My ragged breathing echoes back at me. The pain spikes higher, impossibly higher, until I’m sure my skull will split apart at the seams.

I hear footsteps, and then a voice, a woman’s voice. “Torey? Torey!”

I scream until my voice breaks, until my lungs are empty, until my vision fails, until I’m sliding, falling, collapsing?—

I wake on the floor, my tongue dry and my head salted with static. Dr. Lin’s face swims above me. My eyes are open, but the ceiling won’t stay still.

“Torey?” Her voice is distorted, as if moving through water. “Can you hear me?” She says my name again, firmer this time. One of her hands is on the side of my neck, checking my pulse.

I try to nod, but my head barely moves. “Yes,” I manage to croak. My body feels disconnected, like I’m operating it through a faulty remote control.

Dr. Lin moves her hand from my neck to my shoulder. “Don’t try to sit up yet. Breathe.” She studies me. “What happened?”

The truth is too damning to share. “Headache,” I mumble. “Bad one.”

Dr. Lin’s eyes narrow. She doesn’t believe me, or at least doesn’t think that’s the whole story. She’s right. “You were screaming, Torey.”

I close my eyes and immediately regret it as vertigo swirls within me, then open them again. The fluorescent lights above me burn into my retinas, but they’re better than the whirling darkness. “I don’t…” My tongue is cotton. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?” Her voice sharpens. “Do you know where you are?”