Page 290 of The Fall

Epilogue

My hands aresteady as I wrap the blade of my stick with fresh tape.

The air in our locker room is a mix of stale sweat, ozone from the equipment driers, and the crisp, clean promise of new ice. It’s a scent that has defined more than half my life, but tonight, it’s new again.

Blair finishes tying on his skates and walks over. His hand settles on my shoulders, and I lean sideways into him, my eyes closing. “You ready?”

“Born ready.” I smile. He dips his head, his lips brushing mine in a kiss full of everything we have overcome.

It’s been eight months since the surgery. Six months of grueling rehab. Four months since we got cleared for light contact. Two months since the league approved our return.

The dark blue fabric of Blair’s home jersey has always looked amazing on him, with the captain’sCmade to ride over his heart. But when he twists, stretching out his obliques, my heart surgesinto double overtime. This is the first time I’ve seen our new jerseys on him.

Our nameplates have been updated:Callahan-Kendrick.

We wait at the gate, side by side, and Blair’s gloved hand lands on mine. The lights are a brilliant, blinding white. The crowd is roaring. Our teammates are behind us, cheering before we take our first lap in our first game back on home ice.

The roar of the arena washes over us as we step onto the ice together.

My gaze sweeps the stands and stops. My father is right where he said he would be.

Three months ago, he moved from Singapore to Tampa. He told his company they could either let him work from his new home, closer to his family, or he was gone. It was their choice whether they wanted him or not; he was moving to be close to us and that was that. There was a day of dithering, he said, but they kept him. He lives on the water twenty minutes from Blair and me, and we migrate between our two houses for dinners and barbecues and lazy afternoons by the pool. We have never been closer.

I stand beside Blair during the anthem and think about the man I used to be in Vancouver, lost and drowning in a life that felt like a cage. I remember the wild disorientation of waking up in a future I hadn’t earned next to a man I didn’t know but loved, and the horror of losing that brilliant, beautiful perfection.

My epilepsy diagnosis gave a medical name to the storm in my mind; the lesion on my temporal lobe was a fact, a piece of damaged tissue that my doctors could see and remove.

But they couldn’t explain to me how I knew that Blair Callahan was the man who would save my life, not only by pulling me out of those dark waters and the sinking Escalade, but by pulling me out of every crashing wave and all the thousand drownings I was succumbing to. Blair saved me in a thousand quiet ways.

I no longer need, or want, an explanation. What happened is the map that led us here, to each other and to the rest of our lives. Some might call it fate. Others might say coincidence.

I call it ours.

The puck drops.

The game is a blur, but inside the chaos, we hold a perfect conversation. I know where Blair will be; I send a pass to an empty patch of ice and he materializes to meet it, his stick already angled for a one-timer. Later, he shields for me, creating a lane for my shot. We move as one, two halves of a whole.

Late in the third, we score. It’s his goal, a rocket from the top of the circle, but it comes off my pass. The horn blares, and the first person he finds is me. We collide in a tangle of gear and sweat and joy, and we share a messy, off-angle kiss as the crowd cheers and cheers.

When the final buzzer sounds, we have won.

Our team floods the ice. Hayes slams into the gaggle of everyone, wrapping his arms around anyone he can reach. “Now that’s Mutineers hockey!”

We’re back, a family again on the ice. It’s the middle of the season, and Hayes has led the team with everything he has. New father, alternate captain, and loving husband—he’s a dynamic man and the best friend a guy could ever hope for. Thanks to him, we have a fighting chance for another playoff spot this year.

We skate off the ice as a team, and our matching nameplates are the last thing the arena sees.

We stripped away the impossible, endured the unthinkable, and built our own reality.

And it is so much better than any dream.

Later, the world is quiet as he and I walk along the shoreline beneath the light of the moon. The sand is soft beneath our bare feet while the Gulf purrs in a whisper. The waves recede, then return, washing over our feet as if the ocean is reminding us that some things are constant. Some things are certain. Some things are ours.

Blair’s thumb brushes across my cheekbone. “I would have found you,” he says, “even if it took a thousand lifetimes, I would have found you, Torey.”

And he did. He found me when I was lost in Vancouver, a ghost haunting my own life. He saw me; he wanted to pull me out of there. He found me here in Tampa, and he found me again in the water, pulling me from the wreckage.

We found and find each other time and again.

He leans in. His kiss holds the quiet peace and infinite patience of the ocean.

He is the beginning and end of every timeline.

The End