Gravity

by Tal Bauer

And he is— Calisse, he is everything I have been searching for.

Tu me manques tellement,” he finally breathes. “I miss you so much.”

I play because you inspired me to reach for something beyond myself. You were the driving force behind every day that I spent at the rink. At night, I’d lie in bed and stare at that poster of you from Sports Illustrated. You know, the one from your rookie year? I’d try to imagine the world through your eyes. What was it like to be so incredible?”

This is the man I have been missing. Not my hero. Not the man from the posters on my teenage walls. The real Bryce, the man from midnights and empty drives and lonely rivers, and the man who looked me in the eyes and dared to risk everything because, somehow, I made his heart beat faster.

I am head over heels for you.”

You asked what it all means,” he says. “I didn’t know then, but I think I do now. I think we were meant to find each other, and I think we were meant to do this all together. Everything. Play this game, live our lives. Be us. That’s what I want, Bryce. I want you. I want to be with you, on the ice and off. I’ve held you after a goal, but now I want to hold you like this. And… more.”

It’s every game I’ve played. It’s every goal I’ve scored and assisted on, every win I’ve shared with my team. It’s skating across the ice and saying bonjour to Hunter and seeing him smile at me for the first time. It’s my dreams coming true. I die the first of what I hope will be a thousand deaths in his arms, and he follows me over the edge, burying his face in my neck as we shatter.

Everything I don't know—about this world, about my life—could fill the oceans, but there are a few things I do know: Bryce and I, together, mean something. There is something between us, something that maybe has always been there, waiting to be discovered and unearthed. Is this what falling in love really is? Discovering pieces of yourself inside another person? Finding that half of your heart lives within another? Having all your questions and wonders and worries from before answered through the shape of someone else's smile?

The truth is, Hunter, mon coeur… you are my strength.”

“Tu me fais tourner la tête,” I tell him. “Je brûle de désir pour toi,”

Bryce, mon amour. Mon coeur. L'amour de ma vie. The love of my life.

Tu es la lumière de ma vie. Tu es l’homme de mes rêves, de ma vie. Tu es tout pour moi.

Hunter is here, and so is my frail and trembling voice, and there are words I need to say to him. We kiss until I take his face in my hands and hold him to me, eye to eye, nose to nose, lips against lips. If I can't get the sound out, I want him to at least be able to feel what I'm trying to say. “Je t'aime aussi, mon amour.” My voice is more breath than sound, a whisper strained through silence. But these words have shape and weight, and they move from my lips to Hunter's ears. “Je t'aime de tout.” Then we're kissing again, and crying, and his tears slide down my face as he holds me tight and says to me, “Tu es le seul pour moi, mon amour.”

“Je veux passer ma vie avec toi.” His lips are parted, shock painted on his face. “Hunter…” I kiss his fingers and smile. “Veux-tu m'épouser?” “Mais oui.” Bryce beams. “Mon Dieu, oui, oui, mon amour.”