Page 45 of The Fall

Twenty-Four

I sit on the edge of my hotel bed, staring at the sliver of Tampa Bay visible between the curtains. I’ve opened them enough to let the light crawl in, but not enough to show the bridge, and the water catches the afternoon light like broken glass.

I should have found an apartment weeks ago. The team’s given me clearance, but instead I’ve stayed suspended in this hotel room. Hayes keeps dropping hints about neighborhoods, about beaches with fewer tourists, about downtown lofts.

What it would be like to sign a lease and plant myself here? Should I pick a place near Blair or far?

It would help if I could remember where he lived, but, of course, made-up memories don’t come with real-life details. His house—our house—flickers in and out of my awareness. A canal. A lanai. Sun-soaked joy.

So instead, I’m stuck in this limbo with my half-unpacked bags in a half-lived life. I breathe in. Out. In again.

I’m stalling.

I turn my phone over in my hands and stare at the screen. My thumb hovers over the call button, hesitating, because once I hit it, there’s no going back.

Maybe the call will fail, the connection dropping somewhere between cell towers, and I’ll have the excuse I need to?—

No. No more games, no more hiding. I promised myself.

I hit “Call,” and the line rings once, twice.

I nearly hang up.

“Hey, Torey!”

My stomach roils. “Hey, Dad.”

“That goal—pure magic, son. The replay’s been all over the hockey channels. You catch what Jennings said about your stick-handling? Tampa’s using you right, giving you real opportunities. Nothing like Vancouver?—”

He always starts with hockey, always unrolls the tape of me skating as his way of saying hello. That’s my fault; I pushed this off for too many years.

I need to interrupt before he builds too much momentum. “Thanks. It was a good game.”

“Good? It was brilliant. The way you found that seam through traffic?—”

“Dad.” I interrupt him again. “I need to talk to you.”

“Sure, son. What’s on your mind?”

“I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately.” My words start slowly. “I’ve screwed up, Dad.”

“What do you mean? Are the coaches?—”

“This isn’t about my coaches or the team,” I say. “It’s me . I’m not fine. I haven’t been fine in a long time. I screwed things up in Vancouver, and… Look, my life isn’t going great. I have fucked so many things up.”

“You had bad breaks. The Orcas didn’t use you right?—”

“No, Dad, listen to me: it’s my fault. I fucked up. It’s on me.” My breath hitches. “Every time you thought I was doing great, Dad, I wasn’t.”

“Torey…”

“You got so wound up over how bad my game was, and you were angry for me because you thought it was everyone else’s fault, but it wasn’t.

It was me . Every bad play, every pass I fucked up, that’s my fault.

The problem was never the Orcas or my coaches.

The problem is me . It’s always been me.

I almost threw my career away, and I’m really fucking lucky to have this chance in Tampa. ”

“I want to help you. I can get a ticket tonight?—”

He doesn’t know how to step back. He’s never had to. To him, I’ve always been fixable with enough dad-wisdom and time.

“No. No, Dad. No. I know you want to help,” I say, and it’s the truth. “I know you do, but I have to do this on my own.”

I can picture him with his phone pressed to his ear, trying to process what I’m saying. Trying to understand why his son is pushing him away when all he’s ever done is push me forward.

“I don’t understand.” His voice drops, loses its usual confidence. “What did I do wrong?”

He didn’t do anything wrong, not really. He loved me the only way he knew how, through hockey, through my successes, through being my biggest fan even when I didn’t deserve it.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. You were a good dad. You are a good dad. But I’ve been… I need—” I don’t know how to explain it.

I hear him shift, probably pacing the way he does when he’s working through a problem. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I need time.” My free hand grips the edge of the bed. “I need to work on myself. I need… I need to not be constantly worrying about disappointing you?—”

“Torey—”

“Dad.” I exhale. “I need to figure out who I am and what I want, and I can’t do that if I’m afraid I’m not going to measure up to the player or the son you want me to be. I need to figure my shit out. I need to stop performing and start… actually living.”

“I don’t— I don’t know what to say. You’re my son. I should have—” God, I can hear him wanting to scoop it all up and put me together again.

“It’s not your fault. You did everything you could,” I whisper.

His breathing fills the line. “I’ll do anything you need. I only want what’s best for you.”

“I know you do, but right now, what’s best is for me to learn how to stand on my own. I need to… to grow up. Right now, I need space, Dad. I need you to give me space to figure myself out.”

“For how long?”

The question is so simple, and so desperate. How long until his son comes back? How long until things go back to normal?

“I don’t know.”

My father’s breathing fills the silence between us. “Torey, I—I didn’t know you were struggling. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew you’d try to fix it. You’ve always tried to fix everything, but you can’t this time.”

My father has defined himself as my fiercest advocate for so long that I’m not sure he knows how to be anything else.

For what feels like forever, he’s been the only positive voice in my life.

And even when my game was rotting, it still meant everything to hear him say that I was amazing, that I was great, that I was his fantastic son.

“Okay.” He breathes out slowly. “What do you need me to do?”

“Be my dad,” I tell him. “And give me some space.”

Silence pulls between us, filled with twenty-three years of habits neither of us knows how to break. “Can I still text you?”

“Yes.” My fingertip traces the hotel bedspread’s pattern. “But not about hockey. Not about my stats or my minutes or what some analyst said. Tell me about your day,” I say. “Tell me about anything except hockey.”

“I can do that.” He pauses. “Torey? Are you going to be okay?”

I don’t have an answer that won’t worry him more. “I’m working on it.”

“That’s not—” He stops himself, and a swallow on the line cuts off whatever fix-it response was coming. “Okay. Okay, son. I miss you,” he says.

“I miss you, too.” And I do, so much. We were so close when I was little. He was my hero, and I was his, but we lost each other over the years. “But I need to do this. Please try to understand.”

“I’m trying.” His voice cracks on the second word, and I close my eyes against the sound of my father breaking. “I love you, Torey. No matter what.”

“I love you, too, Dad.”

Another pause stretches between us, filled with everything we don’t know how to say. The strain in his silence is him trying to hold onto this connection even as I’m asking him to let go. “Take care of yourself,” he finally says. “And when you’re ready—whenever that is—I’ll be here.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Goodbye, son.”

“Bye.”

The line goes dead, but I keep the phone pressed to my ear for another heartbeat, two, three.

The room is too quiet now, too still, as if all the air was sucked out with that goodbye.

Dad’s been my constant since before I could walk, before I could hold a stick.

Every game, every practice, every triumph and failure filtered through his eyes first before I could even process it myself.

I set my phone aside and lean forward, elbows on my knees, head in my hands.

I spent a year I can’t remember becoming a man I barely recognized. Now it’s time to choose who I want to be.