The Fall

by Tal Bauer

I park my truck at the far end of the beach and walk until the only footprints in the sand are mine,

Ocean and sky have welded together into a single slab of darkness, and the world has lost its border.

I still dream in highlight reels, but now, all I see are the plays I fucked up. I relive them at night. I relive them when I blink.

How do you fix yourself when you don’t know what’s broken?

Or worse—what if you’re not broken and this is just you, as good as you’ll ever get? What if this is it?

maudlin midnights

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

A hopeless part of me clings to happy endings. I want destiny, and forever, and my name stamped in silver that screams to the universe that I existed, that I mattered.

Everything I used to love about my life is either irreparably shattered or has withered and died.

But I get up. No one is coming to save me from myself.

I wish I could go back in time and cut this path off before it began,

The floor beneath my feet is tile, cool and smooth.

Tile in a bedroom?

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

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.

I’d scribble in his scent, the whisper of my contented heartbeat.

What if I’m not partway to rebuilding my memories but halfway to losing them completely?

The conversation has shifted from debating the best flavor of Velveeta to arguing whether the guys would rather fight one horse-sized duck or ten duck-sized horses.

I look exactly like what I am in the reflection behind the bottles—a man hanging on by his fingernails. But I am hanging on.

Moping about how no one my team liked me

No one *on* my team.

I’m sprawled across a king-sized bed that’s too soft.

I swear, a lot of hotel beds are too soft.

I will not beg the past to spoon-feed me a future.

“So don’t fuck it up.” * * * I fuck up immediately.

I need something that says “thank you” without screaming “I’m in love with you.”

“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.”

😭😭😭

His hands slide up to the sides of my neck.

Slide up? They were on your face. Wouldn’t they slide down?

“Do you know what it did to me?” His other hand comes up to frame my face. “To see that you looked at me like—like I was worth capturing?”

My heart is a monument to your name.

“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.”

He draws a breath, and his hand slips down to catch mine, squeezing.

He was already holding your hands.

“Yeah?” I try to sound cool. “Where were you thinking?” Anywhere. A deserted island, a crowded city, the dark side of the moon, doesn’t matter as long as he’s there.

I say, softer than a secret, “Fall in love with me the way I’ve fallen in love with you.”

“Where are you sleeping?” “I’ll take the couch.”

There’s no way bro doesn’t have a guest room.

“Trust me,” Blair says. “You’ll love it.” I doubt that, but I love him, so I’m willing to try.

“Careful,” he says, his voice serious. “Sharks really like number-two-overall draft picks.” I flick water at his face. He swims toward me. “I’ll protect you, though.” “From the sharks?” He treads closer until our knees brush underwater, and he steadies me with one arm around my waist. “From everything.”

“I love you, Torey Kendrick.” His words flow into me, rich as honey. He kisses the corner of my mouth, then my chin, then returns to my lips. This is how forever starts. “Come inside with me,” I whisper.

Say you love him back!!!

He is the axis my world tilts on,

“Yeah, I’m all packed.” “Not much for eight months.” “Everything that matters is coming with me or driving me home.”

“And about your first pair of skates. You really slept with them on?” “Oh, he walked all around the house with them, stomping around in his skate guards like he was a baby horse.”

Dr. Khatri can map the lesion’s boundaries, but he has zero way to predict which moments live in that tissue

“Okay,” he whispers on an exhale of fear and faith. “Okay.”

He’s choosing to shatter himself to become whole.

“Small victories.” He sits beside me and rubs my thigh. “There’s no such thing as small victories anymore. Only victories.”

“Cody loved cardinals,” Blair says. “He thought they were show-offs, same as him.”

Tonight feels like summer I want to keep in a jar.

I think about time slips and second chances, about love that transcends logic, about brothers who still love each other from the beyond, and about the terrible grace of losing everything and the fierce joy of working to build it back.

…about the terrible grace of losing everything and the fierce joy of working to build it back.

You came back to me twice. Once from a future that couldn’t hold us, once from the edge of leaving me behind. We have faced the worst together and we survived. You are the bravest person I’ve ever known.