Page 95 of The Fall

Forty-Six

“You seeing this shit, Kicks?” Hayes’s voice booms off the room’s walls. He’s chirping the rookie, Gunter. “Rookie’s got hands, I’ll give him that.”

“He’s gonna be a problem for the other teams,” I say.

Hayes smirks and moves on to hassle Fischer about his dangles. Hayes will crack a joke about Fischer’s mom teaching him those moves. Fischer will flip him off. Svoboda will throw tape ? —

The tape ball arcs through the air.

Of course it does. It all happens in perfect sync with the echo already burned into me.

Noise swells, all of it familiar, all of it wrong.

I close my eyes for half a heartbeat and see another overlay of this room.

What am I missing? A trick of light, or the tilt of a memory I can’t fully grasp?

My eyes open and land on my broken stick mounted on the wall.

The tape on the blade is still stained with black rubber?—

“Yo, Kicks.” Hayes frowns. “You all right, bud?”

Hard to answer that without betraying how off-balance I feel. “Just tired.”

“Tell me about it.” He drops beside me. “Coach is really putting us through the wringer this week. Wish I had a maintenance day today. Excuse to be lazy.” The wink comes exactly when I expect it. “You wanna cancel tonight?”

“Tonight?”

“Dinner? You and Calle and the fam? Lily’s been going crazy without you, but if you’re not feeling it...”

Sweet Lily with her dinosaur obsession and her absolute certainty that I hung the moon. “Yeah, of course.” The muscle in my jaw jumps. “Sorry, I had a long night. After the hit...”

“Yeah, Calle told me. Sorry, man. Concussions suck so much.” His hand waves vaguely at his temple. “I was out for two weeks with my last one. Couldn’t do anything. I sat around until I thought my eyes were going to fall out of my head.”

My eyes sweep the room, hunting for differences, for proof this isn’t a repeat, and drift back to my broken stick.

I remember the exact moment it snapped, the crack like breaking bone, but beneath that memory, another one is there, too: looking at this same stick and knowing nothing but confusion, not knowing why it mattered or why it was mounted, not understanding the significance of something broken being worth preserving.

Two memories. Same moment. My stomach turns over, slow and sick. Maybe I’m a ghost, caught between what was and what is?—

“You sure you’re okay? Calle’s worried sick, man.” Hayes studies me for another beat. “Look, if you need anything, you know I’m here for you, yeah? I’m not just Calle’s wingman.”

He means it; this man has become my brother in all but blood, and I want to tell him. I want to grab his arm and say something impossible is happening and I think I’m living through time twice and I’m terrified of what comes next .

But I can’t, because if I’m wrong, if this is my brain cracking from too many hits, I’ll lose everything, and if I’m right...

“Kicks?”

“I’m good.” The words are steady enough.

The door opens, and the atmosphere of the room shifts, tilting toward the man who steps inside. Blair. His arrival is a quiet rearranging of energy, and every anxiety, every spiraling question in my head, freezes in place.

He fist-bumps on the way to his stall, then strips out of his practice gear and drops it all in a damp heap. He turns, eyes searching the room until they land on me. He smiles.

What can I do but smile back?

How many times have we done this exact dance? His eyes meeting mine across a crowded room, a look that says yes, you and always you without words.

Some truths run deeper than time.

Hayes squeezes my shoulder before turning to his skates with a barely-hidden grin.

Blair pulls on his shorts, then yanks a navy Mutineers hoodie over his head. He stands, scoops his phone and water bottle from his locker shelf, and strides toward us.

“Come on, Kicks,” Hayes teases when Blair reaches us. “Let’s get you moving. Old man Calle here’s got to stretch those hammies.”

Blair rolls his eyes.

We peel away from the noise—Hayes launching into some story behind us about Axel’s “tragic” flexibility—and step into the corridor, side by side.

He nudges open the door to the training room with his shoulder and gestures for me to go first. It’s the same room: the big blue mat is in the center of the floor, a stack of kettlebells beside it.

He drops to his knees on the mat and stretches his arms overhead, then folds forward at the waist. His spine lets go with a quick, quiet sequence of pops.

“Come on, babe. Let’s do this. You’ll feel better.”

I mirror Blair’s stretch, arms reaching for the ceiling tiles.

“Hurt?” His voice rumbles between us.

“No.”

I lean forward until hamstrings burn and tension unwinds in reluctant increments. Blair shifts beside me; his palm slides up behind my knee, guiding me deeper. “Good,” Blair breathes. “Just like that.” His lips brush my temple.

Everything in me splits. I know he’s going to take my hand and tangle our fingers together, and he does. His thumb strokes my knuckles before his fingers slide between mine. We’re connected, palm to palm, past and future colliding in the now.

His breath stirs hair near my ear as he moves behind me.

I built this. I chose this. I fell in love with him through a thousand small moments.

Didn’t I? I walk back through memory after memory: his smile across the locker room, his voice beneath the fireworks on a rooftop in Dallas, our eyes meeting across the ice, the way he says my name when no one else is listening.

The snapshots flicker behind my eyes, faster and faster; I’m drowning in memories of loving him.

“Breathe, Torey.”

He guides me to the next position. I move with him, letting my body lead while my mind fractures.

“Tell me if you need to stop,” he says quietly.

What would stopping even mean? Pausing time here forever? Hiding in this room where nothing has broken?

His hand settles at the base of my skull, digging in deeper than muscle, deeper than bone.

“You’re doing great. Keep grounding yourself until you feel the release.”

He shifts closer, his knee brushing mine. Every second we spend like this is another second toward whatever’s coming, another moment I’ll have to lose.

The way he watches me—God, the way he watches me, like I’m the first clean breath after drowning, as if I’m proof that good things still exist in a world that took his brother.

His hand cups my cheek. His thumb strokes my jaw. “Torey...”

Blair has always been able to pack entire conversations into the way he says my name.

“I’m okay,” I tell him.

How many times have I watched the light fall and fade from his eyes?

If this is all I’m given, if this loop is the last time I get to love him whole, let it matter.

“We’re going to get through this,” he breathes.

But we won’t get through this. We don’t . All our love can’t change the physics of falling.

This is what I have. This moment, and however many times it plays out.

His lips brush mine, and my lips part for him.

More. The single thought is a bonfire in my head.

I need more of this, more of him, enough to last a lifetime I might not get.

His tongue sweeps my lower lip before diving deeper, a slow, searching invasion of salt and heat and all I know as Blair .

My hands fist in the front of his hoodie, twisting the fabric, trying to hold him here, in this exact second, forever.

His hand slides from my cheek to the back of my neck, sinking into my hair, tilting my head to give him a better angle.

I love you. I’m so scared. Don’t leave me. I pour my frantic thoughts into our kiss. I will not lose you, Blair. Not again.