Page 9 of The Fall

Inside the drawer are cough drops, spare cables, balled-up sports wrap. Painkillers. A sketchbook, which is… I haven’t drawn in ages. I used to doodle away the hours on the long, long bus rides in juniors, filling up book after book of sketches of hockey rinks and hockey players and sweet plays.

But that was a long time ago.

Apparently, I’d gotten back into it. The sketchbook is nearly full. Mostly it’s pictures of my teammates, scenes from the rink, moments from games, real-time, freeze-frame. I suppose I have a theme.

I stop on a sketch of Blair.

It’s startling. Intimate. My pencil captured him in our bed, his gaze locked on me. He’s artfully covered by the graphite lines of a bedsheet, but everything else… He leaps off the page as if he’s about to reach for me.

I trace the lines of his jaw, the angle of his shoulder. I know the sketch can’t touch me back, but I almost expect Blair to pull me down onto the rumpled sheets and kiss me senseless.

God. The ache in my chest sharpens. I think I want what this picture promises. At the least, I want to crawl inside this memory and know . I want to understand.

I’m so jealous of the Torey from yesterday who lived all of this, who had all of this.

I don’t remember loving Blair, but I must—deeply. Why else would I pour so much of my heart and longing into this sketch?

I close the sketchbook and tuck it back into the drawer.

On Blair’s nightstand, there’s a bottle of lube, and in his drawer, there’s a box of ultra-thin condoms.

I mean, I knew. I knew what it meant to be with a man, to wake up in bed with a man who says he loves you and kisses you in the dark.

A year ago, two years ago, three years ago, I’d had a thought here and there, a midnight curiosity and a stray porn search, but that was it.

If I thought about it, well. Everyone thought about it, right?

And if I sometimes dreamed about someone kissing me who was bigger than me, taller, bulkier?

And if I liked those dreams, maybe too much, and would sometimes wake up and want ?—

How did I traverse myself? How did I go from my own refusal to wonder—even for an hour, or the length of a single daydream—to this? How did I let myself be happy?

God, I fucking wish I remembered .

I slide my hand across the bedspread, hoping for some mango magic to spark once again. No luck, of course, not when it comes to the most important memories I need back.

Coconut whispers through the air, warm and wonderful. Like a full-tilt creeper, I sink my face into Blair’s pillow and breathe in. It’s his scent, and I go boneless, melting into his pillow, his side of the bed.

I’ve probably been here before, face-down in his pillow.

I’m off the bed in a flash, hands running through my hair. My hands are shaking, my heart is racing. It’s too much, it’s not enough, it’s everything and nothing at once. I need to know and I’m terrified of finding out.

There’s a door leading to the lanai from the bedroom, another wall-length glass slider. It’s an escape, and I take it.

The lanai is breathtaking, and so is the backyard.

It’s an open-air living room with another massive sectional, another huge TV viewable from the couch and the pool, chaise lounges—I’ve been photographed there—and an outdoor dining table.

Long lines of globe lights arch above my head.

From the patio’s edge, a slope of lawn leads down to the canal, a wide ribbon of water wrapping around the house.

There are no neighbors across, only palm trees and unspoiled nature.

The water laps gently against the dock, tiny, careful waves, whispering to me.

This house, this feeling of home, that amazing career. They’re not mine. They can’t be.

But I want to be that Torey. I want to belong here, in Blair’s life. I want to belong with him. I want to love him.

But there’s so much missing.

Hold on. I have to hold on.

Remember.

When Blair gets home, I’m back in the bedroom, face buried in his pillow, fast asleep.

I pop awake as he’s stretching out on his side, facing me.

I’m up on my elbows in a flash, trying to appear as if I were doing something other than mainlining his pillow, trying to crack open my skull and pour his scent into my brain.

I don’t know how long I’ve been out, but it’s long enough for the late-afternoon shadows to stretch across the bedroom floor.

Not long enough to make sense of any of this.

“Hey, hey,” Blair says. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

I collapse belly-down, face right back in his pillow. He glides his fingers over my head, digging into my scalp and sliding through my hair. “Mmph.” It’s all I can manage.

When I roll again, mirroring him, propped on my elbow on my side, his hand drifts from my scalp to my jaw, then lets it fall to the mattress. I reach for him instinctively, tangling us together.

He showered and changed at the rink, and his hair is still damp. “Hey, you.” His voice is warm and low. “Sorry I’m late. I stopped for those Key lime tarts.”

I hate this. There’s so much I don’t remember, so much I should know but don’t. So much I can’t do or be. There’s a whole year lost between us.

“We need to leave soon,” he says. “Hayes and Erin are expecting us around seven.”

I blink. Another something I don’t remember. Wait, no, Hayes said earlier today… “That’s right, dinner.”

He nods. Still, neither of us moves.

His scent, that intoxicating blend of coconut and Blair, envelops me. My body remembers. My body craves.

I want to trace the lines of his face, feel the warmth of his skin against mine.

Sink back and let him follow me, feel the strength of him surrounding me.

Lose myself in the depths of his eyes. Right now, I want the memory of our first kiss back more than anything I’ve ever wanted, because if I had that, I might have the courage to reach for him and pull him in.

“Torey?”

I blink, dragging my focus back to what he’s saying, not the way his lips move when he speaks.

“Something on your mind, Kicks?” His voice drops, and his smile goes molten.

“I’m…” I clear my throat. “Thinking about dinner.”

As if. Breathe. “How was everything with Coach?”

He shifts closer. “All good. Nothing big, reviewing the call-ups.” He skims his hand along my hip.

The heat of his palm slips through my shorts. It could be now. My second first kiss. I could do it, lean in, tilt my chin up?—

Blair’s eyes darken. “Come here,” he says.

I’m moving before my mind catches up, leaning into his chest. He’s so solid, so real. I want this life, this man. I want to remember loving him, and I want to love him again. It’s going to happen, my second first kiss?—

But no. He brushes his lips against my forehead, an achingly gentle touch. I close my eyes.

“We should get ready.” I feel his lips move against my skin as he speaks.

I hum, nose at his jaw, bury my face in his throat. I can imagine him guiding me back, skimming his big hands under my shirt.

Blair tightens his hand on my hip. “Torey... Concussion protocol.”

“I know, I know.” Fuck. No strenuous activity.

He nods, a muscle jumping in his jaw.

“We can’t be late,” I say. “Hayes will eat everything.” The words come out from I don’t know where. Memory? Instinct? Pure guess?

Blair chuckles. “Fair point. He’s a human garbage disposal.”

Score one for me.

“But so are you. Don’t forget your suit. Last time we were there, you ended up swimming in your boxers.”

From victory to defeat.

He says it like an inside joke, a shared memory that should spark laughter and fond recollection. Last time. An innocuous throwaway phrase, but every “last time” is going to be like this.

Blair clambers over me to get off the bed, stopping to cage me and bury his face in my neck and nibble at my collarbone. I try to snake my arms around his neck, but he snags my wrists and kisses the inside of each before his feet hit the floor. I can’t fucking breathe.

Then he’s gone, padding into the master bath.

I push the heels of my palms into my eyes until stars flash behind my lids.

The shower starts. Blair reappears, holding out his hand.

Oh, shit. My heart launches into overdrive. I was ready for a kiss and ready to imagine a little bit more, but this? Showering together?

“Shower’s warming up,” he says, tugging me to my feet. “Take your time.”

He pulls me in, wraps his arms around me, breathes in my hair, and then pulls away. He shuts the bedroom door behind him on his way out. I blink.

The shower helps, the hot water and steam clearing some of the cobwebs. I let muscle memory take over, reaching for products without checking labels. The smells are comforting. His smells. Our smells.

Wrapped in a towel, I stare at myself in the foggy mirror. My reflection looks back, known and unknown. This is my face, my body, my life.

I dress fast, not overthinking it. My clothes in my drawers in this house are more evidence of my life.

Blair’s in the kitchen, packing a paper bag with chips, soda, and Key lime tarts. The house feels different with him here, warmer, more alive.

“Ready? You know how Lily gets when we’re late.”

Lily. The name sparks a flicker, a half-formed image of a little girl with a French braid and a gap-toothed smile. Hayes’s daughter? It feels right, but I’m not sure. It’s another piece of the puzzle I’m desperately trying to solve.

“Ready.” I join him at the island, and he looks me up and down. What a blast from the past to feel so fluttery and inexperienced again. He pulls me in, sliding his hand around my waist and curling it into the small of my back. I’m plastered to him, all of me up against all of him.

I tip my chin up, a clear invitation. For a moment, Blair looks at me, something unbearably soft in his eyes. He leans in, and my breath hitches. I’m ready. I think.

His lips land on my forehead and stay.

I exhale and hold him tighter to me. I can do this. I can be the Torey that Blair loves, the Torey I want so desperately to remember being.

Too soon, he pulls back. “We should go,” he whispers. “Or we probably won’t get out of here.”

I huff a laugh, but I’m trembling. It’s tempting, so tempting to hide away here, in this bubble of me and Blair, but I can’t hide forever. I can’t avoid the world or my life. “Promises, promises.”

“Later,” he says with a wink.

The drive to Hayes’s house is a blur of palm-tree-lined streets.

The sky pulls thin ribbons of coral and indigo across what’s left of the evening.

Streetlights blink alive overhead, casting the world in that low Florida blue.

Snatches of memory flit through the sun-dappled palms. The particular shade of yellow on that house.

The fountain burbling in that yard. The view of the waterway as we cross over a causeway.

It’s déjà vu in reverse—I know these streets, these turns, but I can’t place how or why.

Blair’s profile is limned in light. He’s humming along to the radio, thumbs tapping the steering wheel, at ease in his own life. Happy.

I reach across and tangle our fingers together. He brings my hand to his lips and kisses them. “Hey,” he says softly. “You good?”

I take a breath, let it out slowly.

“Yeah,” I say, and for the first time since I woke up, I believe it. “I’m good.”

Maybe in this life, in this version of me, being good is as easy as breathing.