Page 2 of The Fall

Denial is easy; it sounds like me saying I’m fine. Bargaining is busy; it looks like me working until my legs shake. Acceptance is watching the waves crash around you and knowing there is nothing you can do to stop them.

I pull my laces tighter, feel the bite through my palms, and tell myself tight is control.

The surf in my chest keeps pounding, the undertow tugging at my ankles, whispering.

Inhale, exhale. Does anyone remember that I am living inside this disappointed life?

Head down. Eyes down. The rest of the room stays separate and apart from me as I begin my routine. The air reeks of rubber and sweat and old hope. My mantra cycles through my brain: I’ve got to start producing. I’ve got to score goals. I’ve got to make assists. The problem is, I don’t want to.

I don’t want to give a single fuck. Right now, I’d rather be back on my knees in the dark waves than sitting in this locker room preparing for another night of failure. I don’t want to care.

But I do. This is my life, the only one I have. All I have are these days and hours and minutes tick-tick-ticking away. I wish I could go back in time and cut this path off before it began, before scouts noticed me, before the draft, before expectations crushed me.

Across the room, Criss-Cross cracks a joke. Chandy and Becky are locked in a conversation that involves a lot of head bobbing and shoulder punches. Even Wilhelm, normally an island of focus before games, cracks a smile while talking strategy with Pugh at the whiteboard.

I used to love the electricity of the locker room, the pregame buzz feeding off each other’s energy. Once I believed I could do anything, be anyone, as long as I had this brotherhood fueling me. But now they don’t want me around, and, honestly? I don’t want to be around me either.

I close my eyes, trying to shut out the room. I don’t want to be here. The thought pounds in time with each of my heartbeats. I don’t want to be here.

Tonight, the Tampa Bay Mutineers are going to tear us apart.

They’re a team of relentless pressure, with a power forward captain who will hammer home a merciless forecheck.

They’re not in the mix, and they’ve had a rocky season—again—but that doesn’t mean they won’t roll right over us and right over me.

I haven’t scored in what is it now, fifteen games? I can’t even keep the puck on my stick for more than three seconds. Coach pulled me aside yesterday and laid it out plain: “You are paid to be an asset, not a liability.”

All of our losses trace back to me in some way: a missed assignment, a turnover, a failed clearing attempt. And when you’re the overpaid-underperforming disappointment who keeps your team losing night after night, people stop seeing you as human. You’re a problem to solve.

I slide my helmet on and pick up my stick, then follow the team toward the ice.

On the way, we pass through a long, mirrored tunnel, some designer’s idea of a hype zone.

Some of the guys check themselves out, while others refuse to look.

The youngest ones goof off, a peacocking instinct hardwired into DNA.

Tonight, I sneak a glance at my reflection. Is there anything left in me? Any spark, any ember that might be worth saving?

There I am: all my failure, my rancid, curdled dreams, my wasted potential. Burned out at twenty-three. A has-been. A never-was.

There’s nothing worth saving.

The puck drops and the game begins.

It skids across the surface, and blue jerseys swarm, sticks and bodies tangling. I push myself toward the action.

A Tampa player snatches the puck away before I get near. I stumble, off-balance, and spin, trying to get back into position, but I’m always a step behind, always reaching beyond my grasp.

Tampa’s captain, Blair Callahan, effortlessly takes control of the puck.

He is everything I am not: confident, collected, in control.

He’s Tampa’s play driver and game maker, imposing even without skates, never mind in them.

I give chase, but my legs are wooden, my reactions dull. For one heartbeat, I think I have him?—

But Callahan slides past me as if I’m standing still.

“Get your head in the game, Kicks!” Wilhelm shouts from the bench.

Skate, dammit. Move your feet.

The puck squirts over to me, an unintended redirect from no one, and I scramble for my chance. One good play. I need one good play?—

I don’t know what slams into me at first: a blue blur or a sonic boom.

My feet leave the ice as my body spins through the air.

The bright whites of the arena lights flash overhead, a split-second warning that I’ve lost all control, that I am utterly at the mercy of gravity and physics.

Then the ice comes up fast, and I slam onto it, hard.

Pain explodes, ripping the oxygen out of my cells.

Shit.

Shit shit shit. I try to gasp, to pull in air, but my lungs refuse to work. It’s like being smothered from the inside, my chest locked in a vise. Get up, get up.

Get up.

But I can’t move. The cold seeps into my cheek from the ice. The blade-scraped surface fills my vision, thousands of tiny cuts etched across the white expanse.

Something is wrong, very wrong. My head, my lungs, the throb of my heart, all of it is wrong. I can’t push myself up, can’t even get to my knees. Blood drips from my face, crimson blooming against the white. The arena has gone silent.

I still can’t breathe. Terror grips me, real, primal fear that starts in my gut and spreads outward. There’s a tremor inside me, a quaking that’s started at the bottom of my soul and is shivering its way out.

I wanted to be worth something. I wanted to be more than a regret. And I want to be alive; I’m not ready to die. I realize that now, of course.

Bodies swarm. The trainers, the medical staff, even the team doctor are on the ice. Shit, this is serious. Someone’s hand is on my head, keeping me still. “Stay with us, Torey!”

The world tumbles sideways. Stars explode behind my eyes, and everything tunnels to a pinpoint. My brain, my brain is on fire, burning from the inside. I scream, but the sound is lost. The world is collapsing; I’m collapsing. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t?—

The last thing I see is Blair Callahan skating the blue line, watching me across the ice.

Then there’s nothing, nothing at all.