Page 41 of The Fall

“But because we went,” he says, sucking in a breath.

“Because they found it so early, they’re going to put her on that treatment, the one you were talking about?

That personalized immunotherapy. She’s starting next week.

” The fear in Hayes’s eyes is still there, but another feeling fights through: hope.

“And they say she’s gonna be okay. The prognosis is really, really good.

” His jaw wavers. A muscle in his cheek bulges.

“Kicks—” His voice cracks. “Torey. You saved her.”

The entire cafeteria, the entire universe, is nothing but the space between his eyes and mine. Hayes’s face blurs, and I blink hard and fast because I will not cry in front of him, in front of everyone. But the burning behind my eyes won’t stop.

“I didn’t—I just mentioned?—”

“No.” Hayes’s voice is fierce, low. “You did.” His hand reaches across the table, stops short of mine. “If we’d waited another month, two months... The doctors said the window would’ve been different.”

The ringing in my ears gets louder. “Hayes…” Everyone’s pretending not to watch us, but they are. “You don’t owe me?—”

“Yeah, I do. Look, you’re a weird one, and you’re awkward as hell, man, but you fucking saved my wife’s life. And you saved me, because I can’t live without her.” He leans forward, says softer, “Your heart? It’s in the right place, but mine hasn’t been. Not with you.”

His words hit me where I didn’t know still had room to ache.

“I didn’t do anything special?—”

“Stop.” My mouth clicks shut. “Stop,” he repeats, softer this time, pleading. He scrubs a hand over his face. For a second, he looks completely wrecked, a man holding up the sky by himself. “You need to hear this, and I need to say this.”

He composes himself, pulling his pieces back together right in front of me.

“I’m sorry,” Hayes chokes out. “For how I have been treating you. I’m really fucking sorry.

I’ve been a complete dick to you since day one, and you still—” His voice catches.

He looks like a man who ran a marathon and is about to collapse over the finish line.

“Can we start over?” He holds out a hand. “Hi. I’m Hayes Emerson.”

I reach across the table to take his. “Torey Kendrick.”

“Good to meet you, Torey Kendrick.” He stands, his eyes kinder than I’ve seen them since I showed up in Tampa. “Let’s do some one-on-ones together, yeah?”

“Yeah. I’d love to, sure. Yeah.” Don’t be a weirdo, Torey.

Hayes grins. “Later, Kicks.” He pushes his chair back, gives the table a quick tap with his knuckles, and heads off.

Conversations start up in uneven bursts, like someone turned the volume wheel up a notch at a time. A couple guys lift their chins at him as he passes; he nods once and keeps moving.

Quiet as ever, the feeling returns: eyes on me, burrowing into my skin and sinew from across the cafeteria. Blair. The awareness of him spreads through me like water finding every crack. I keep my head down.

I wonder how much he heard. The cafeteria’s not exactly private, and Hayes isn’t exactly quiet.

The pressure of Blair’s stare is too much. I can’t hide from it, and I lift my head and peek his way.

He isn’t pretending to watch the muted TV anymore.

He’s looking straight at me. The line of his jaw is rigid, the muscle there a tiny, repetitive flicker.

The look in his eyes holds a question I can’t decipher.

For the first time in a month, I’m not invisible to him, and I don’t know whether to feel relief or terror.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it’s over. His eyes cut away sharply. A moment later, his chair grates against the floor as he pushes back and stands. He moves without looking at me again, shouldering past the tables and out the door.

He’s gone. For all his size and steel, he can disappear when he wants to.

I sit still as stone and try to catch my breath without anyone noticing. The whiplash from Hayes’s confession to Blair’s searing, silent judgment leaves me dizzy. I replay that flicker of his eyes on mine a thousand times in half a heartbeat.

The room swims back into focus, a collection of cutlery clinks and quiet conversation. Glances still slide my way, but they’re different from the hostility of before. I am an anomaly. A problem solved and a new one created in the span of five minutes.

Part of me wants to sink into this chair until the world forgets I exist; part of me wants to stand up and chase after Blair. Instead, I gather myself piece by piece, pushing out a long breath through my nose.

This is all I have.

The farther I wander into the rink’s guts, the darker it gets. I take a corner, and the voices hit me, crawling over the cinderblock walls.

“…treating him like this?”

I stop. That’s Hayes’s voice.

There’s another voice, too, low and serrated. “He’s done. There’s no point pretending.”

And that’s Blair.

I didn’t even mean to be down in this swallow-me-alive maze beneath the rink. I had to burn off nervous energy, or that’s what I’d told myself after lunch, but now I’ve stumbled on two others who were using these hallways to hide, too. I edge forward and peer around the corner.

Hayes is dressed down in his pre-practice gear, in shorts, a cut-off T-shirt, and a backwards ball cap.

Blair is a near mirror image minus the ball cap and plus his base-layer leggings beneath his shorts.

Hayes is taller and Blair is broader, but Blair is looking at Hayes like he could put Medusa out of the stone-making business.

“That’s ridiculous,” Hayes scoffs. “Way too much was asked of him too soon and you know it. You know he’s got potential.”

My name is all tangled up in what they’re not saying. God, how can it still surprise me how little everyone thinks of me? I am the one who proved everyone’s dreams for me wrong.

“I’m not wrong.”

“He’s got skills, Calle, you can’t deny that?—”

“It doesn’t matter.” The growl punches out of Blair. “What good is potential if you don’t fucking use it?”

Cold prickles at the back of my neck.

“You were the one— you , Calle—who said you don’t give up on a kid that quickly. Remember? Why are you the one who’s given up now?”

Blair spits his answer like venom: “He’s already given up on himself.”

He’s so fucking right it burns. I lean harder into the wall, the cinderblock rough against my shoulder blades, and I want to disappear into it, want to become part of the foundation so I never have to face what Blair revealed.

“You’re being unfair,” Hayes tries again.

“Am I?” There’s movement—footsteps, the scrape of a shoe against concrete. “When was the last time he fought for a puck in the corner? When was the last time he took a hit to make a play? Hell, when was the last time he even looked like he wanted to be here?”

I close my eyes, try to remember, try to find one moment, one single fucking moment where I proved Blair wrong.

“He’s scared,” Hayes says quietly. “Maybe he needs someone to believe in him.”

Fear has been my shadow for so long I’ve forgotten what it’s like to move without it.

“Belief isn’t enough.” Blair’s voice drops. “You can’t save someone who won’t grab the rope you throw them. Kendrick...” He sighs. “He’s already decided he’s lost.”

“Do you really dislike him that much?”

Don’t answer that, please, please, don’t answer that ? —

I will myself to become invisible, to dissolve into nothing before Blair’s answer cuts through me.

“Out there, I see...” Blair stops, starts again. “Someone who should be great.”

The corridor feels too small, the walls closing in.

“Maybe if you?—”

“What? Held his hand?” Blair’s laugh is bitter.

“He needs time,” Hayes insists.

“Time for what? To wash out completely? To prove everyone who said he was a bust right?” There’s a thud—Blair’s fist against the wall, maybe.

“He’s awkward as hell, Calle, but maybe that’s because he’s been fucking sinking for three years without a lifeline.

I called a few guys around the league. And you know what?

” Hayes inhales. “He’s got no one. No friends.

No family. His dad fucked off after juniors, moved overseas somewhere, and Kicks has been alone since. ”

That strikes an ugly root no one talks about. Hayes isn’t wrong, but hearing it said like that...

“A lot of people are alone, Hayes. They figure it out.”

“Have you?”

“He—” Blair’s voice catches. “He’s throwing everything away. Everything . If Cody had half—no, even a quarter of his talent?—”

Then there’s silence. Like the whole room dies.

I know that name. How? How do I know that name?

“So that’s what this is about.”

Blair snaps. “Don’t.”

“Blair—”

“Stop.” Blair’s voice is vibrating dangerously close to shattering. “Don’t go there.”

“Calle... Torey Kendrick isn’t Cody.”

The silence that follows is worse than any scream could be. There’s movement—footsteps pacing, the scratch of fabric against cinderblock.

“Cody would have killed for half of what Kendrick throws away. Half the ice time. Half the chances?—”

“That’s not fair to either of them,” Hayes says.

“Nothing about life is fair.” Blair’s voice is hollowed-out and scraped clean. “Kendrick is marking time until he’s sent-down and shipped-out. He knows it. We all know it. Don’t waste your breath, or your time.”

Sent down. Shipped out. Hockey was always something borrowed, wasn’t it?

Hayes doesn’t let it go. “What are you going to do to change that, Captain?”

Don’t breathe , Torey , don’t breathe ?—

“I learned my lesson about trying to save people from themselves.”

I’m halfway down the hall and running before I know it. My sneakers squeak, the sound bouncing off cinderblock walls that feel like they’re closing in. I take a turn, then another, putting distance between me and those voices until I can’t hear anything but my own ragged breathing.

Cody. I know that name. I’ve heard it. I know it. The edges of something massive are lighting up in my brain. I’ve heard Blair say that name before. But when? Where? Not in this life.