Maybe this is how it goes for everyone. Even the brightest stars fade into obscurity with time.
I toss my towel in the bin and head for the door.
Nova calling me last night was a big deal. Not only because it’s the first she’s reached out since she returned to Denver, but because whether she meant to or not, it wasn’t only a phone call.
She needed someone to be there for her. She asked me.
Seeing her work online, I couldn’t help letting her know how proud I was. I wanted to let whoever made her feel like shit about her work have it.
The irony is, looking back, I made her feel like shit for the moments of happiness she found in LA.
Back in my condo, I go to the bag I packed when I hurried back to see Coach. It’s mostly clothes and essentials, but there was one other item I shoved in the front pocket.
The journal Nova made me as a Christmas gift last year.
I open it to the blank front page again.
This time, the empty space feels a little less like a void and a little more like possibility.
“I’m taking him out for the afternoon,” I repeat.
The nurse looks at me hard. “Have him back by five.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Coach says.
After the workout, I still have pent-up energy, so I bust Coach out of the care home where he’s convalescing.
“Get me out of this thing,” he mutters as we breach the doors with his wheelchair.
“Nope. You can use it when you get out of the car.” I help him in, then pack the chair into the back of my vehicle. “I’m taking you for a drive. That’s it.”
“Pssh. I need fresh air.”
“Crack a window.”
He side-eyes me.
“Heard you got traded to LA,” he says.
There’s a full minute of silence, then I burst out laughing. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”
“We got Kyle for you. That’s a good deal.”
“You ever meet Kyle?”
“He’s a good player.”
“Who only cares about money and himself.”
“What do you care about now that you’ve got everything you could want?”
“World peace,” I say.
“Alright, Miss America.”
If I had the answer, I probably wouldn’t be here with no contract babysitting my geriatric former coach.
A few minutes later, I find myself pulling up in front of Kodiak Camp.
Coach hoots. “The hell are we doing here?”
“Recovering.”
When I wheel Coach inside, the manager greets us each with a warm hug, then crosses to the doors and calls to some kids on the court.
“Counselors-in-training,” she explains.
I go outside toward them, wheeling Coach in his chair and pulling up at the side of the asphalt. Along the horizon, there’s the crest of the hill beyond which the lake looms where Nova and I went swimming. The cabins where we fooled around for the first time.
This isn’t why I came here, but it calls to me. It washes over me like a wave, the longing and the freedom.
The feeling of learning there could be more to my life.
Of being seen by a pair of bright blue eyes I wanted to live in forever.
A ball hits my arm before I can grab it out of the air.
“Sorry!” one of the kids calls.
I pass it back, and he takes another shot. It bounces the same way, and I grab it again, this time crossing to give it back to him.
“Wrist,” I say under my breath.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s your wrist. You’re involving it too early.”
He snaps me the ball, and I hesitate only a second before squaring up to the basket. I haven’t done this in months.
Maybe part of me thought I couldn’t.
I bend my knees, rise up, and follow through. There’s silence for one second. Two. The ball swishes through the net.
Hollers go up.
“Your turn.” I nod to the boy, and he takes the ball, tries it. Gets it on the second go.
“I hear you need a coach,” Coach calls.
The other team descends. “Hell yes.”
“Hell no.” I check my phone. “We gotta get back, old man.”
I go to get his wheelchair, and he lifts his legs, kicking me when I get close.
I grunt. “Jesus, Coach. We’ll both have bad knees after this.”
“Well, stop trying to make me do what I don’t want to.”
My guy sulks in the corner while the other team runs circles around him with the ball.
“I’ll play you for it,” I decide, praying I don’t regret this. “Underdogs, you’re mine.”
We organize the three-on-three match. It’s down to the wire when the call comes in from the care home.
“He needs to be back,” the employee says stubbornly.
“I know. I’m working on it.”
“Can you work faster?”
“Not unless you want me to carry him out.”
I click off and watch for another minute. My team sinks the final basket.
“That was solid,” I tell them, clapping each player on the back.
One of the guys pants his way over to the bench, grabs a Gatorade, and drains it.
“Okay, five-on-one,” one of the other guys says, pulling the guys around him and squaring off against me.
I laugh. “You guys are good, but you can’t take me.”
“Let’s try.” They look at one another, nodding. “You first, old man.”
They call me the same thing I called Coach, and my brows lift. “Now you’re fucking with me.” I grab the ball and dribble, running around and dunking it before snapping it back to them at half court. “You’re up.”
He takes it, one of the other guys screening me so he can get past and take it to the basket. The guy on the bench holds up his phone and records our game.
By the time we finish, it’s dark. I’m tired in a way the workout earlier couldn’t tire me out.
When I sneak Coach back into his care home, muttering every apology I know, the staff looks ready to kill me. It was worth it.
After showering, I pull up the offer from New York.
It’s not objectively terrible.
I head for the second bedroom in my condo. The one time I came back since the move, I grabbed more stuff. Didn’t even move out the trophies or old jerseys or photos. Rummaging through them, I find the first trophy I ever won, back when my entire life was ahead of me.
I won it at basketball camp. Like those kids today, all I wanted was to play. I was high on getting better, on feeling as though I fit in.
I click out of my email and into my texts.
Clay: I was at camp today. Thought of you. Remembering when we went swimming.
Dots appear almost instantly.
Nova: Was that all you remember?
My breath sticks in my chest.
Clay: I remember your smile.
Nova: I remember your tattoos. Your hands. The way you said my name.
I close my eyes, watch it play in my head like a movie.
Clay: That was a good day.
Nova: And today?
I turn it over.