“You’ve been back for days, and I still feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” Alex gushed.
I let my arm drape over him. “Clingy, much?”
“Do you think it's a bad thing?”
I stared at the ceiling and shook my head while I absentmindedly rubbed his back. “Not at all.”
Alex peered up at me with a slight frown on his face. He could tell I wasn’t fully there. “You still thinking about the game?”
That, and everything else. Nodding, I let out a sigh.
The first weekend of the NCAA game ended three days ago, and we didn’t advance. While we won the first game, the next team was strong. It wasn’t a wipeout, but we still lost.
“At least you made it there. Lots of teams can’t say that.” Alex patted my chest encouragingly.
“You’re right. There’s always next year.” I intertwined his legs with mine. “I just wish my dad could’ve seen me.”
“I know,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Riv.”
I remembered the last game my dad was at like it was yesterday.
It was my first game at TXST. I wasn’t in the starting lineup, but I wasn’t a bench rider either. He and Mom had gotten custom-made shirts with my face plastered on them, and they made sure everyone saw them. It embarrassed me to death, and now I wished I could go through it again.
Dad was my first coach. Basketball was his life when he was a kid, so when he realized his only son liked it too, he raised me to be the prodigy he always wanted to be.
I recalled a game from when I was roughly seven-years-old. It was my first real one after years of practicing, and I was so nervous about it that I cried the entire ride there. In the parking lot of the building, before taking us in, Dad knelt before me and took my hands in his.
“River,” he said, eyes firm on mine. “What’s really bothering you? Because I know it isn’t this game.”
I sniffed. “I don’t want to mess up.”
“Messing up is normal, I’ve told you that.” Dad poked my chest firmly. “What is wrong?”
My eyes hit the floor, still watery and brimming with tears. Then, I whispered, “I don’t want to disappoint you.”
The floodgates opened, and I then was crying in the busy parking lot before the game. The other six and seven-year-olds looked at me as they passed, probably thinking I was going to be easy to beat. I wanted to go home.
“River, look at me,” Dad demanded. Our eyes met. “The only way you can disappoint me is if you don’t get out there and give your all.”
“But… but what if I miss? Or—or let the ball go out of bounds?” I asked shakily.
“Then you messed up, but it’s okay, son,” he told me, giving my hands a tight squeeze. “I’m proud of you right now, and I’ll be proud of you after this game. I’ll always be proud of you, even when you aren’t proud of yourself. Do you understand?”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks and gave a sharp nod. Dad pulled me into a tight embrace, and then he brought me into a gymnasium for my first official basketball game. My team won that night.
Alex drew shapes on my chest with his fingernails as he hummed, and again I wondered if this was real. How did I land such an amazing person? He knew nothing about what happened to my dad, and even with all my nightmares and sadness, he never pushed me to share.
I loved him for it.
I took a shaky breath. “Since TXST was close to my old house, Carson and I lived there our first year of college. Do you remember how strict my dad was with the bills? He never wanted me to leave the space heater running, even when it was freezing outside.”
Alex chuckled. “Yes, I remember freezing my ass off in your house. Then your mom would get mad at your dad because he’d rather us be cold than run the heater.”
“And then we’d get to use it because she threw a fit.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the memory. “Well, one day, I got mad too. My dad had been on my nerves that entire day, and when I finally got home from class, he wouldn’t let me use my space heater.”
“So, did you suck it up and freeze?”
“No, I used it anyway. I had done it lots of times before without him noticing.” I tightened my arm around Alex, pulling him closer to me. “Car and I had practice that evening, and when we left, I accidentally left it on.”
