Page 62 of The Fall

“One time,” Hayes protests, stepping past Blair. “And she was a newborn.”

“Kicks.” He smiles at me. “Glad you’re here.”

My world tilts dangerously. I inhale, trying to pull oxygen into lungs that refuse to expand.

“Come on in,” he says.

Each step feels like walking through a dream. The hallway opens exactly where I know it will. The light casts shadows where I expect them to fall. Our teammates are gathered around the kitchen island, and past the kitchen, a wall of sliding glass doors open onto a sweeping lanai.

“Kicks!” Divot waves me over. “Tell this idiot that Washington doesn’t stand a chance against Dallas today.”

Hawks is with him, and he holds out a bottle when I near. “Beer? There’s a whole fridge of some fancy craft shit Blair got for everyone.”

“I’m good,” I say.

Blair materializes next to me, holding a bottle of Gatorade for me. Our fingers brush; the bottle is cold but his skin is warm.

“Thanks.”

He claps me on the shoulder and goes back to the kitchen.

The music is on and the banter is rolling.

The energy is soft chaos. Everyone is scattered.

Hollow is stretched out on the couch, showing Lily how to draw dinosaurs on a tablet.

Simmer and Axel are arguing about football stats in the kitchen.

Nolan’s girlfriend is chatting with Coach’s wife.

Hayes sets the dining table with Lily’s help, and she adds a dinosaur at each place setting next to the bread plate.

I orbit Blair. Watching him move through his kitchen is the only thing that makes sense, even with everything else off-kilter.

He knocks back a bottle of water and tosses it into the trash, then grabs a bottle of Gatorade, the same as me, and I realize…

I’ve never seen Blair drink, not since preseason. Not since Columbus.

I scratch at the label on my Gatorade bottle.

I try not to seem weird, but I’ve gone quiet.

I stay in the kitchen so I won’t be tempted to pace the house or find his bedroom and undo everything fragile that’s holding me up.

I don’t know what I’d find if I looked, and I’m scared, either way.

What does it mean if I’m right? What does it mean if I’m wrong?

Master bath with dual sinks, a closet where my clothes hung, a lava lamp glowing in the corner ? —

Nothing here, the familiarity or the differences, would rewrite what happened or what didn’t. I’m still crazy.

When we gather to eat, dinner unfolds like a movie. Twenty-seven of us gather around, passing dishes, telling stories, and laughing too loud. Lily insists on sitting next to me. Blair is on my other side.

The heat from his thigh against mine under the table burns through my jeans. Every shift, every accidental brush of his arm when he reaches for something sends my heart racing. I focus on cutting my turkey into smaller and smaller pieces, anything to keep my hands busy.

Conversations overlap—Axel is telling a story about his first Thanksgiving in the States, Divot is arguing with Simmer about cranberry sauce texture, someone’s complaining about their fantasy lineup. This is what I wanted, isn’t it? To belong somewhere, to have people who matter?

But belonging means sitting next to Blair and pretending I’m not aware of every breath he takes.

“Pass the gravy?” Blair asks, and when I hand it over, our fingers touch. This time he doesn’t pull away immediately, and for a second, maybe two, his thumb rests against my knuckle.

I forget how to breathe.

Lily tugs at my sleeve to show me how she’s arranging her food into dinosaur shapes on her plate.

“This one’s a T-Rex,” she whispers, pointing to a mound of mashed potatoes with two short green bean arms.

“Great attention to detail.”

The chatter ebbs and flows—draft picks, upcoming games, someone’s new truck. I’m half-listening, half-trapped in my own head.

Blair shifts beside me, reaching for the salt, and his knee touches mine. “You want more stuffing?”

I glance at my plate. I’ve barely touched anything while everyone else demolishes seconds. “I’m good.”

His eyes linger on my face for a beat too long before he turns back to his own plate.

Lily abandons her dinosaur village to crawl into her dad’s lap across the table. Hayes catches her easily, continuing his conversation with Coach about defensive strategies while she nestles against his chest.

Normal. This is what normal looks like.

But under the table, where no one can see, my leg trembles where Blair touched me.

The game’s on in the living room after dinner, and half the team drapes across Blair’s sectional. A few are side-betting while the wives and girlfriends cluster in the kitchen, deep in conversation about upcoming holiday plans and charity events.

I hover, not sure where I belong. Nowhere, I think.

I slip out to the patio.

Florida in November tries to pretend it’s a brisk fall.

The air is still thick with humidity, but a faint wind skims off the canal.

This is better. Quieter. A place to breathe without feeling Blair next to me.

I needed this escape to keep me from doing something stupid, like turning to him and asking if he remembers a life we never lived together.

But the lights, those same captured stars I remember from my dream, crisscross above me. I close my eyes and breathe. My skin remembers warmth from a memory that isn’t real. I know exactly where I stood when he traced my ring finger and?—

The memories shatter.

I drop into the nearest chaise and dig the heel of my palm against my ribs. It couldn’t have happened, but it feels so real.

A breeze stirs the palms, and the water whispers against the dock.

Inside, Lily’s high-pitched giggle cuts through the deeper rumble of the men watching TV.

Blair is at the kitchen island, a dish towel slung over his shoulder.

Hawks says something that makes Blair laugh, his head thrown back, the line of his throat exposed.

It may never have happened, but the heartbreak I feel is real, and so is this craving.

I finally force myself to look away, facing the dark expanse of the canal. A barely contained static buzzes through me. Behind me, the sliding door whispers open.

I don’t turn around. His footsteps, the way my body responds before my mind—it’s him.

“Found you,” Blair says. “I thought you’d left.”

“No,” I say. “I needed some air.”

“Mind if I join you?”

I should say yes. I should tell him I need space, that everything in my head is a mess. Instead, I shift over on the chaise and make room. He sits and passes me another Gatorade.

So thoughtful. “Thanks,” I say.

“No problem.” His hands rest on his thighs, fingers spread wide.

I remember those hands in my dream.

We listen to the water lap and the football game and our teammates back inside. Clouds drift across the moon, casting shadows across the pool.

“Are you sober?” I ask suddenly.

“Not technically.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t struggle with alcohol, but I stopped drinking at the start of the season.” He lifts his eyes to mine. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”

I stare at him, trying to process what he’s said. “You... what?”

“It wasn’t a big deal.”

I drop my gaze to the Gatorade bottle in my hands, turning it slowly between my fingers. The plastic crinkles under my grip. “It is,” I whisper. “I’m sorry?—”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

But I do need to apologize for something. For this confusion, for not knowing what’s real, for wanting things I’m not sure I should want.

He exhales. “I’m the one who needs to apologize.”

“For what?” What could he possibly have to apologize for?

He doesn’t answer right away. He looks out at the canal, his jaw working for a moment. The muscles there are tight, defined in the dim light spilling from the house. A heavy quiet settles around us, full of unspoken things.

When he finally turns his head, his gaze finds mine again. “I was wrong about you,” he says. “From the beginning. And everyone followed my lead. They were wrong, too, but only because I was first.”

“You weren’t wrong about me.”

“I was. I didn’t give you the chance to prove yourself. I wrote you off before you even stepped on the ice.” Blair’s eyes hold mine. “I decided who you were, and I was wrong.”

I shake my head. “You had every reason?—”

“No.” The word cuts through the night air. “I didn’t.”

His denial is absolute. It leaves no room for argument, no space for the excuses I try to build for him. He won’t accept my defense of his actions. Water laps against the pool edge. Someone laughs, the sound carrying across the yard.

“You proved me wrong. You proved everyone wrong. No one gave you a chance; you took everything you earned yourself.”

I swallow hard.

“You’ve changed this team,” he says. “You make everyone around you better. You should be fucking proud of that.”

All the struggle, the pain, the fight to stay sober and prove myself.

.. it was never for the team. It was never for me.

His approval was the finish line I never admitted I was racing toward.

This should be a victory, a relief, but instead, it’s a total collapse.

He looks at me, waiting, but I’m stripped bare, reduced to the one thing I’ve tried so hard to hide from myself, from him, from everyone.

“I only want to make you proud,” I whisper.

Blair goes very, very still.

For a long second, then two, there is only the frantic beat of my own heart in my ears. Then, his throat works as he swallows. He turns his head slowly, and his eyes find mine in the dim light.

I brace for him to recoil, to laugh, to say anything that will shatter this moment into a million jagged pieces I deserve.

His voice, when he finally speaks, is a low rasp that slices right through me. “You already have.”

Three words. They’re only three words, but they hit me in my soul. I tear my eyes away from his and stare at the lights overhead, strung in the same perfect arcs from my dream. They dissolve, blur, go double.

He doesn’t say anything else, and eventually he gets up quietly and walks back inside.

Inside me, the world has ended, but these little lights keep casting their glow. I’m not alive. I’m not breathing. I’m not anything. I’m not anything except his, and I belong to him, and I belong to him, and I always have, and I always will, and?—

God, these lights turned Blair’s eyes into midnight sparklers. He spun me in a circle, kissed my knuckles. He held me close; we had forever.

I close my eyes and let every broken piece of my mind—from a night that never happened, under these same lights that never saw us dance—slash into my heart and bleed through me.

I want .

And I break.