The Fall

by Tal Bauer

How do you fix yourself when you don’t know what’s broken? How do you find your way when you’re so lost you don’t know which way is north?

I’m not suicidal, but I’m desperate, and the difference is razor-thin.

I lean in, closing the distance. Our lips meet. It’s not Blair’s first kiss, but it is mine, and it’s perfect. It’s fireworks and lazy mornings and gentle midnights, promises and declarations and silent, secret glances, all at once. It’s a tidal wave, pulling me under, and I’m not even close to fighting it. I’ve dreamed of this moment, but reality is so much better.

“Sometimes I look at you,” he says, his voice low, “and I forget how quiet my life was before.”

It scares me how deep this love runs when I have no memory of how we got here. Every atom of me is oriented toward him. He is my North Star.

You are the part of me I never knew was lost, my missing piece I never knew I needed.

How do you mourn someone who’s standing right in front of you? How do you let go of a love that was only ever yours?

“Who the fuck needs a slap-shot when you’ve got a Barbie arm?” Simmer shouts.

“Dead serious,” Hayes booms. “My man saw a crying four-year-old and said there’s no way this kid’s going into cast life alone. Put me in, coach!”

“Hollow, you shoot about as accurately as you pass. If Kicks’s shot left the state, yours is still looking for a GPS signal.”

“You could have anyone centering you.” In the half-dark, Blair’s face is all shadows and certainty. “I don’t want anyone. I want you.”

“Beautiful hockey doesn’t mean shit if you’re not there.”

“Leave the fighting to me. That’s my job. I’m the one who buries guys, and I’m the one who puts them through the glass if they fuck with you.”

“I’ll take on the whole fucking league for you, Blair.”

“Last night, somebody tried to take me out of the game.” The words come out sharp as broken glass. “And one of you decided that wasn’t going to stand.” My taped knuckles throb. The cuts beneath have started to seep through the white gauze, tiny blooms of red spreading like watercolor. “That’s what this team is about. That’s what we’re about.” Blair’s hands curl into fists. “So when they say we don’t have what it takes, when they say we’re done before we’ve started, we show them they’re wrong.” His split lip pulls when he speaks, and I know it hurts. “We show them what happens when you underestimate the Mutineers. We show them,” Blair says, and now his eyes find mine and stay there, “what loyalty looks like.” His voice spikes. “And who on this team has made it his personal fucking mission to prove everybody wrong?” He pauses. “Torey fucking Kendrick.”

“And if you want something breathtaking, you’d better be willing to burn for it.”

“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 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.”

“You are all I think about, Torey. You’re there when I’m taping my goddamned sticks. You’re in my fucking head when I’m running drills. All I think about—” His teeth clench, the words fighting their way out. “—is you.”

“I want everything with you. I want to wake up and not dread the day. I want to remember what it feels like to be whole. I want— I want to stop being so fucking scared all the time. Of losing. Of feeling. Of you.”

“I don’t know how not to fall for you.” His confession sinks past bone and into the very center of me. “Fall,” I choke out. “I’ll catch you.”

“It wasn’t one moment,” I say finally. “It was... all these little things adding up. It was the way you pushed me to be better and believed in me before I’d given you any reason to. It was the way you had my back.” I turn my face into his palm, breathing in the scent of his skin. “It was your laugh,” I whisper. “It was...” I swallow. “It was everything, every single piece of you.” I shake my head. “Loving you is like breathing. I can’t stop if I tried.”

“Play stupid games.” Blair grins. “Win stupid prizes. Nobody fucks with what’s mine.”

“I’ve lost too much already, pieces of myself I’ll never get back. I survived, barely, but I did. But you—” His voice cracks. “Losing you would end me. There’d be nothing left worth fighting for. Nothing worth salvaging out of me.”

The dark blue fabric of Blair’s home jersey has always looked amazing on him, with the captain’s C made to ride over his heart. But when he twists, stretching out his obliques, my heart surges into double overtime. This is the first time I’ve seen our new jerseys on him. Our nameplates have been updated: Callahan-Kendrick.

Blair’s thumb brushes across my cheekbone. “I would have found you,” he says, “even if it took a thousand lifetimes, I would have found you, Torey.”

He is the beginning and end of every timeline.