Gravity

by Tal Bauer

Out of all the men Bryce could have, out of an entire planet of men… me? Our weekend together rewinds and replays. Either I am the world’s most oblivious human—possible, distinctly possible—or Bryce has concealed this so completely inside of him that not even an archeologist could have unearthed it.

“Hockey is… It is human nature distilled. We take men and we compress them by putting them on ice, putting walls around them, slapping blades on their feet, and giving them sticks. Tell them, ‘Go as fast as you can,’ and chase this little puck. We force them to react under total pressure in fractions of a second. Alors, put a man's career, his reputation, and his future on the line? Calisse, you will see him revert to his bare self when he skates.”

“When you see the game from that perspective, you realize what you're really doing out there is finding weaknesses. That is what the whole game is about: uncovering someone else's weakness. Digging it out, over and over and over again. Like when we beat Seattle. We beat them in their minds before we beat them on the ice.”

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.

We’re shoulder to shoulder, exactly like we were at a different river. The questions Bryce asked that day echo within me, and now I'm asking the same questions he is. What does any of it—hockey, the game, the salary, the chase, the team, the city, the championships—mean without this? Without someone beside you? I understand him today in a way I didn’t then.

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?

And if he asks me, I won't say no. I'll give him everything. Anything he wants, anything he needs. I'll cradle his hopes and keep them safe until he can take hold of them again. I'll build scaffolds for his dreams, too, and I will lift him on my shoulders until he can touch the stars.

Bryce: Mon amour, it's agonizing to be here while you are there. I want to be by your side every moment of our lives. I wish I could place my heart and soul in your hands and live forever as close to you as I can be.

Me: You are with me each and every moment. My heart is in your hands. My heart, my life, my everything. Put your hand on your own heart, mon amour, and you'll feel mine beating next to yours.

At the darkest, most petrifying moment of my life, you were there. You have always been there. Tu es la lumière de ma vie. Tu es l’homme de mes rêves, de ma vie. Tu es tout pour moi. I have something I need to say to you, but I want to say it. So as soon as I am able to speak again, I will. I'll hold your hand and I'll look you in the eye, and I'll tell you. Because I do, Hunter. I do, more than anything. More than everything.