"Why basketball?" she asks, her side of the bed moving more than it was before as she inches closer to me.
"Why music?" I counter, hoping to steer the conversation away from me. But one thing I’m learning about Olive Herring is that she marches to her own beat. Only does things she wants to do or feels comfortable doing, unless she’s contractually obligated.
When she doesn’t reply, I know she isn’t going to let up any time soon, so I give in with a deep, hearty sigh. "My parents had me when they were young. I’m talking, high school age. And I guess as I got older, they grew apart. They were kids when they got together, you know? They realized that they didn’t have as much in common as they did when they were teenagers."
"Are you close with them?" she asks, and I say the word ‘yes’before her words have time to hang in the air, but they settle deep in my chest.
I love both of my parents. I owe everything to them.
They gave me the best upbringing they could, with what they could afford.
"So, you played to distract yourself from their separation?" she asks, sincere and curious.
"At first, yeah." I shrug. "When I had games, only one of them would come and watch. They couldn’t even be in the same room with each other without fighting." The memory of it all hits like a freight train, but it’s dark, and she can’t see the way my face contorts with sourness, so I continue as though it doesn’t have an effect on me. "But one day…one day I guess everything changed."
"And you kept playing?" she presses, but never interrupts.
"I started playing the game as a distraction, then it became a need. A requirement, almost. They were talking again, being friendly with each other for the first time in a year. I knew that if I wanted them to continue on that path, I had to keep playingthe game. And then, out of nowhere, Mom was pregnant with Noelle, and they told me Dad was moving back in. I praised basketball for making it happen. I thought that if I quit…" I let the words trail off, knowing my reasoning sounds stupid, but when you’re a kid, everything is skewed. You come up with ridiculous ideas on why things happen the way they do, and to me, basketball was the thing that brought my family back together.
"Your family would break apart again," she finishes for me.
"I couldn’t have Noelle growing up in a broken home, you know? I had to deal with it for two years. Two bedrooms, two homes, birthdays, Christmas’. It took a toll on me, and from that moment on, I made a vow that I would protect my family from anything. Especially my sister." My voice cracks, and I determine that’s where my story ends.
At least for the night, anyway.
Come tomorrow, though, I’ll pretend I never said a word to her about it. Hopefully she doesn’t expect more from me.
"You know it has nothing to do with you, right, and everything to do with the love they have for each other, and the family they created?"
I know she’s right. Of course I know. My reasoning for playing the game sounds as ridiculous as it feels when I even think about my family.
I nod instead of arguing.
"And you know that when you decide to give it all up one day, they’ll be proud of you for the career you had, the career you made for yourself based purely on your talent and determination?"
"You mean, my parents could still divorce, even if I don’t retire until I’m eighty?" I pretend to gasp, and she laughs.
"Why don’t you let the rest of the world see this side of you? The guy who is fiercely protective of his family."
The discomfort’s mine, not hers, but it cracks thick in the air between us.
She’s just lying there, patient and open, like she’s trying to see past all the noise in my head.
"I have. They didn’t see it that way, though. They deemed me reckless. Irresponsible.Aggressive." I squeeze my eyes shut to force the image out of my head. The way it made me feel when I saw those three words used to describe my character, when it’s so far from the truth…God, I’ll never forget how it made me feel.
But it’s the narrative I’ve chosen to run with, because I would prefer my image be tainted, than see my sister’s face on the cover of a magazine.
"Why music?" I veer the conversation away from me, realizing that I haven’t learned a single thing about her.
"Why not?" She rolls out of bed, her silhouette lit by the streetlights pouring through my floor-to-ceiling, curtainless windows.
One hand clutches the sheet to her chest while the other blindly searches for her underwear. Already halfway out the door.
"Not happening," I tell her, getting up in a hurry, looping my arm around her waist, and pulling her back into the bed with me. She places her cheek on my chest with a soft laugh.
"If you think a repeat ofthatis going to happen, you’re out of your mind." She shakes her head, but that isn’t what I want. Far from it, actually. "I’m sensitive after what you just did to me."
"I’m just trying to understand you. For this whole thing to work, I need to know you as much as you need to know me."
