Page 251 of The Fall

The whistle sounds, and I crash over the boards with Blair behind me.

The cold of Buffalo’s arena is the same as my dream memories of this game. The puck dumps deep into Buffalo’s zone, and a gear clicks inside me, an alignment of past and present. Yes, it’s happening again.

When one of Buffalo’s forwards aims a shot from the blue line, I lunge, and the puck deflects from my shoulder. I am between the goal and the puck on my knees. Another player scoops it up and fires again, point-blank.

He doesn’t score. Instead, Blair levels him with a collision that vibrates through the ice and up into my teeth.

It is the sound of his loyalty, but it will not be enough to save him.

Last time during this same game, I wanted to kiss him for that hit. Now, wanting to kiss him is as good as mourning him. It is the same as before, again.

The grin he gives me is the cruelest part. It is unguarded, beautiful, and completely unaware. “Let’s go kick some ass.”

Another face-off. Our zone. Buffalo is a tide of aggression, but it doesn’t matter. We are winning this game; the outcome is already written.

The puck drops. I win it and pass it to Hayes. He clears it. Buffalo surges back. The clock is a tyrant, counting down the seconds of this life. My lungs are thin and stripped. Blair is beside me, blocking a pass.

Thirty seconds.

Blair has the puck. A perfect, sliding pass lands on my stick. A defender closes, so I pass back to Blair.

Fifteen seconds.

He draws two opponents. A no-look pass arcs back to me, the puck connecting with my tape in a soft clap.

Ten seconds.

The goalie challenges. I know his moves. Fake left, go right. He commits, and I drop a pass into the high slot.

Five seconds.

Blair is there; I do not need to see him. He is exactly where he is supposed to be.

Three. Two.

The red light flashes. The goal horn blares. The game is ours.

And a darker clock continues to tick.

Fifty-Two

Pittsburgh isa million scattered lights spread out below Blair’s hotel window, a river of blurred gold and crimson.

Blair is propped against the headboard and my head is in his lap. Bags of ice rest on us both, his on a bruised shoulder, mine on a sore thigh.

This team issoclose to making it, and I look at him, the way his shoulders carry the team as if tailored for him, the pride shining from him when he speaks of the guys. In a different life, I might wonder what drove him to choose leadership again. He carries the ghost of his brother on his shoulders and rebuilt his heart from ruin, but he’d grind his knuckles bare before ever asking for mercy from the universe. We’re here because he willed us to be here.

Every win is a nail hammering to this loop, and each victory brings us closer to the end.

How many times have we climbed this mountain together? Has he looked at me like this before, with those eyes full of hope?

The ice on my thigh has gone warm. Water droplets slide down my skin, pooling on the sheets beneath us. Does some part of him remember? When he touches me, is there an echo of allthe other times, all the other versions of us that have existed in this endless spiral?

No. The burden of memory is mine alone.

“Remember when this all felt impossible?” The vibration of his voice travels from his chest, down his arm, and into my scalp where his fingers work through my hair.

I catch his hand and drop a kiss to the callused skin of his knuckles. He kisses my fingers in return and goes back to drawing patterns on my scalp.