Page 3 of The Fall

Two

First: the dark. The world is hidden, layered in black on black.

Memories shimmer and fracture. The ice, a splintering crash, silence roaring too loud.

Gravity quit me, dropped me. Was I falling through the ice, or was the ice falling away from me?

Everything tips, bone on ice, my lungs locked, horizon gone lopsided.

I claw for breath as my chest caves in. My mouth is open, but nothing comes.

Not enough air, not enough. Blood staining pavement.

A man’s scream slashing across the night. I am struggling, I am drowning.

My next breath rips me raw. I sit bolt upright, grasping my chest. Oxygen floods in on one great heave, and I’m dizzy from it, from the rush of life.

I’m caught between slick sweat and a stiffness at the base of my skull that gathers there after a hard fall.

My breaths are coming too fast, too shallow.

I’m in bed?—

But not my bed. The sheets are heavy and lush. They stick and tangle at my thighs, trapping me. My arms and legs are lead, the deadweight that haunts you after bag skate drills. A hammer pounds inside my skull.

This room is dim, night-dark except for silvery moonlight seeping through a wall of sliding glass doors. I strain to focus, and my eyes sting.

I’m in a bedroom. I think. There’s a bed, at least, and I’m in it.

The walls are deep blue, the furniture bright white.

On the far side of the room, two duffels slump shoulder-to-shoulder, half-unzipped, gear tumbling from open mouths.

Hockey sticks crowd a corner, at least five, most battered, one taped blue around the handle.

And—

I’m not alone.

A man lies beside me. He’s broad-backed, sprawled on his stomach, one long arm slung over a pillow and the sheet dangerously close to sliding off his waist. His skin drinks in the moonlight that leaks through the glass, outlining the whole ease of his body.

A dark scruff grazes his cheek, jawline bristling with tomorrow’s beard.

His back is sculpted with muscle that looks as if it were carved from granite.

I count each vertebra in the valley between his lats, follow the curve down to the swell of his ass vanishing beneath the sheet.

He shifts, turning his face toward me. His hair is dark brown and sleep-tousled. His lashes fan out against his cheeks, his eyes closed. He has mile-wide shoulders and biceps I could only dream of. He’s not model-cut, but he’s solid. Break-you-in-half solid.

He’s beautiful.

“Torey?” His voice is rough, still gritted by sleep. “What’s wrong?”

The world buckles. I freeze.

What. The. Fuck.

Who the fuck— Where the fuck?—

I can’t catch my breath; my lungs seem to trip over each other, skipping inhales. Questions smash through my skull. Where the fuck am I? How did I get here?

And who the fuck is beside me and why is he in bed with me?

Whose bed am I in?

He nuzzles his face into the pillow, murmurs my name again. He reaches for me, his palm open and fingers extended.

Everything inside me flips for exits.

I throw back the covers and swing my legs over the side of the bed, away from this man.

At least I’m wearing shorts, an old pair of athletics from my junior days. Finally, something familiar.

The floor beneath my feet is tile, cool and smooth. Beyond the patio doors, the moon hangs full and heavy. Palm trees stagger across the horizon beyond the glass, and the pool reflects the sky in one still sheet.

This is nowhere close to Vancouver. This is not my apartment, not any version of my life I recognize.

Sheets—wrong.

Bed—wrong.

Man in the bed—profoundly, catastrophically wrong.

I have no idea where I am. Nothing feels familiar.

There’s a phone on the nightstand next to me, plugged in and charging. It’s not mine, but it will do. I grab it, struggle to my feet. Everything feels wrong, my body shaky, my muscles quivering. I’m out of place inside myself, everything fitting wrong.

Have I been drugged? Kidnapped? And what, put in my old shorts and tucked into a luxurious bed in a tropical paradise?

Three doors present themselves, and I lurch toward the closest one, stolen phone clutched in my fist.

Good choice. I find the bathroom. It’s huge, spacious serenity done out in marble, with a walk-in shower and a soaking tub. Double vanities opposite each other, with toothbrushes and razors and shaving cream at both sinks.

The lights are automated, and they dim softly toward candlelight-warm, a soft glow that lifts the corners and reveals no monsters. The light doesn’t clarify anything else for me, and I stumble to the nearest vanity, grasping the edge of the sink.

I have no fucking idea who stares back at me in the mirror.

The man in the mirror is me—same brown hair, same brown eyes—but he’s also not.

He’s stronger, healthier, tanner. He’s not the failure everyone is waiting to see fall for the last time.

Confidence and purpose ooze from every golden, honed, and hewn muscle.

The person in the mirror looks capable of things I never managed.

I’ve traded the kid I was for a man’s steadiness.

I lift a hand to my cheek and watch as he mimics me, slow and careful, and trace my own collarbone.

I don’t know how I became whoever this is. The man in the glass has no doubts. I have nothing but. His eyes, rimmed dark, regard me with an animal suspicion.

The pain in my head is near-blinding, enough to bring me to my knees. I double over and cling to the vanity, forehead pressed against the cold stone while my body breathes in a steady rhythm.

Somewhere, at some time, I’ve done this before, learned to pull myself back together. Where did I learn this?

“Torey?”

The man from the bed calls my name. I hear the sound of footsteps?—

Then he’s there. The doorway frames his silhouette, backlit in bedroom shadow, hair tousled, eyes not yet open fully, branded with sleep.

He’s not a stranger. I don’t understand any of this, but I know him. He’s Blair Callahan. Everything I know about him is war on ice: power forward, drive you through the glass, bury you in the corners. Captain of the Mutineers. He’s played me to a pulp more times than I can count.

The concern on his face, though? The tenderness in his eyes? The gentle way he’s looking at me? I don’t understand any of that.

He takes a step toward me. His face opens, soft, all trouble for me. “You okay, babe?”

“Blair…” A black wave crests through my skull, and I lurch for the toilet. Gatorade, a handful of pills, and remnants of chicken dinner—everything comes out in a rush. It’s horrible, and it goes on and on and on.

Blair’s hands are on me, rubbing up and down my back. He says something soothing that I can’t quite catch, his breath a gentle shush. I feel the warmth of his hands, the firm solidity of his body.

“Blair,” I croak.

“It’s okay,” he says. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

I shake my head, and the world spins again.

When the acid stops scraping my throat, when I can think in blocks longer than two seconds, I straighten against the bowl, forearm braced on cold ceramic.

Blair pulls me back against his broad, furred chest. His arms wrap casually around my waist, hands stroking my forearms. “Easy, babe. Easy.”

I’m shivering, and I can’t make my mind work. My head is a disaster, and my stomach roils.

“You went through it,” he says. “That hit was rougher than we thought, yeah?”

The hit in Vancouver? All I can picture is a skate blade slashing across ice, the world stuttering as I crashed to the boards. Yesterday, I remember the black beach, then my tailspin during the game, the hit, everything going white then black?—

Yesterday was a long time ago for me.

Is this still today? Last I checked it was Vancouver, but now it’s this place, and he’s here.

Everything has moved out from under me. My bones are soaked through, the rest of me a limp mess shaking from fever or fear.

I don’t say anything. I can’t. I’m not sure my throat works, or if I even have a tongue.

My brain is too busy trying to figure out what the hell is going on to be able to focus on anything else.

“We’ll go see Dr. Lin first thing in the morning.”

He says this as if I should know exactly who Dr. Lin is, where we are, and where we’ll see this doctor. But I don’t. I don’t know any of it. I understand nothing.

Blair turns me a little, his thumb brushing the nape of my neck. “Head still spinning?” he asks, half-hushed. I nod.

Blair settles me gently between the toilet and wall, propping me up like a rag doll.

He pads away, and part of me wants to beg him not to leave me.

My eyes close, and then he’s back, folding himself down on the floor beside me with a blanket and a bottle of water.

He hands me the water and drapes the blanket over my shoulders, and I bury my face in the curve of the toilet seat.

Then it’s quiet. Blair sits back against the wall, looking like he’s there to stay. His big, broad hand strokes my shoulders, runs up and down my back, slowly, then slower, slower, until his head lolls to the side and he’s out, fast asleep on the bathroom floor beside me.

It’s too surreal to comprehend.

My stomach is grinding itself to dust and my head is screaming, but I gingerly push back from my huddle over the bowl and sit opposite Blair, facing him, slumped in the folds of the blanket he brought me. A Tampa Bay Mutineers blanket.

This must be a dream. Some concussion-induced delirium, my synapses firing wild while I’m blacked out on the ice. It must be.

Except it feels so real.

I’ve had my share of heavy hits and a handful of concussions through the years.

I’ve ridden the waves of Toradol and OxyContin, laid back and watched epic narratives unfold on the stages of water stains on my ceiling.

They’ve always been nonsense, elephant empires in space, coaches with insect heads, teammates with wings, hockey games played between butterflies. Nothing like this.