Meadow shook her head. “No. What is it?”
Zaire looked over at her. “It’s the part after the game, after all the pressure…after you done givin’ everything you got and it still ain’t enough or it was more than enough.”
Her eyes flicked to his.
“It’s the only place you get to breathe,” he continued. “The only spot where nobody’s judging your score or waiting on you to fail again.”
He paused long enough for his chest to rise slowly.
“It’s where the tired people go,” he whispered. “The worn-out ones, the ones that smile through losses and take punches the world don’t see.”
She could only nod, following his lips desperate to press hers against his.
Zaire looked straight ahead. “I been living in my 19th hole for a long ass time. This house… your mama…Ray…you…” His voice dropped lower. “It don’t feel as lonely up here.”
“You can breathe here,” Meadow whispered. “Even if it’s just for a minute.”
Zaire turned his head, their noses almost brushing. “And you?” he asked. “You breathing yet?”
She thought about it…thought about Magnolia…thought about the pain…thought about the room he’d cleaned without speaking. “A little,” she admitted. “More than I was.”
Zaire nodded. “Good.”
After spendingthe rest of the morning with Meadow, Zaire finally made it back to his temporary place of rest. He kicked off his shoes, pulled his shirt over his head, and sat on the edge of the bed, with his elbows on his knees. Before he could think too much about anything, his phone buzzed across the nightstand.
It was a call from the Department of California Prison.
Zaire’s lips lifted into the first real smile he’d had since he left L.A. He cleared his throat and answered. “Yo.”
Life without his Dad had shaped everything. Antwan had been locked up since Zaire was five, serving a life sentence that felt like a forever nobody in the family could argue with. Growing up, all he had were supervised calls, short visits, and a mother doing the work of two parents while trying to keep her son from folding into the streets like the neighborhood expected him to.
Every tournament Zaire played in, every swing he perfected, every interview he answered, he carried the same prayer in his chest…one day, somehow, his father would see him play in person.
Not through a TV in the rec room…not through a phone call…not through secondhand stories his mother or uncles passed along.
In person…on real grass with only freedom and pride between them.
Some days that dream felt stupid and other days it kept him alive.
Antwan’s deep voice filled with static and warmth came through the line. “What’s up, young king? You alive out there?”
Zaire leaned back on the mattress, stretching out like a kid again. “I’m cool, just tired.”
“Ain’t no just,” his father replied. “You sound tired-earned. Big difference.”
Zaire chuckled. “You come up with that in group therapy or somethin’?”
“Nah,” Antwan said. “Came up with it while watchin’ my cellmate lose his damn high blood pressure meds for the fourth time this week.”
Zaire laughed, head falling back. The sound loosened something in him.
Antwan hummed like he was smiling too. “That’s better. I ain’t heard that laugh in a minute.”
“Yeah well,” Zaire admitted, “ain’t been nothing funny goin’ on.”
“Then make something funny,” Antwan told him. “Life don’t stop because it gets too loud for you. You gotta squeeze joy out wherever you can find it.”
Zaire rubbed his face, thinking of Meadow cleaning her cheeks with the sleeve of her hoodie. Thinking of Magnolia calling him Ray and touching his face like he was hers.
