“You guys met doing the things you loved! Why can’t I?” I asked the room like I was doing standup.
“Well, how can you meet someone at work when you’re only watching the ball?” My mom looked up at me.
“Oh, so you do know how the game works?”
“Brittney Lee, are you scared to put yourself out there?” My mom glared at me, appalled.
“No, Mom, please. I am confident, secure, and onlyslightlyvain. I know I’m a catch.” If there was one thing Lita Lee had taught my siblings and me, it was how to walk into a room like we owned it.
What I didn’t feel like saying was that I was absolutely terrified at finding myself in a relationship. Like I would just wake up one day and be held within the confines of someone else. The idea of someone else’s mood competing with my own? No thanks. I already had enough experience of that as a middle child. There was no way I would sign up for that voluntarily.
I got my joy from casual relationships, random make outs, and some good DM flirting. I had no interest in showing every piece of my heart and brain to another woman.
“Well, we just want you to know we’d be excited to meet anyone you bring home.”
“Thanks, Dad. I will keep that in mind.” I nodded, so many rants and musings on the tip of my tongue, and yet my words fell short. This was a conversation for my best friend, Farrah White, but if Miami ended up happening, I wanted to surprise her.
And then drop the lore that was the last three months of my love life.
What I also didn’t want to say was that the first person I thought I wanted to trust with my heartandbasketball ruined that chance for everyone.
Especially for those who had to deal with the public eye. One way or another, I had convinced myself my heart was safest in the confines of the sport, within the safety of hardwood courts.
And I had yet to be proven wrong.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nola
“So what I’m hearing is I’ll have two beds to pick between when I come to Miami?” Olive wiggled her brows. She was the only person in my family I was willing to let see my face, let alone speak to since I’d found out I was leaving Chicago.
No matter how many times my mom, dad, Clay, Aunt Rashida, or Aunt Allison called me, I didn’t have any ounce of me ready to speak to them.How many of them had known?Was no one going to give me a hint that the place I’d been making my home for the last four years all of a sudden went to my mother? Everything I’d worked for had gone up in smoke, and the only person who could feel a semblance of what I did was the sister half my age, furious she’d be starting high school in a new city.
“I’m going to need some good stories to help me make new friends next year.” Olive huffed, snapping me out of my own spiral to actually listen to my sister.
“I’m sorry, Olly. I know this sucks more for you.”
My sister and I both got our lack of vulnerability from Olivia Young. Our faces were constructed of solid marble, and we only broke around the people who could read our signs. As much as I wanted an apology from my mom, I knew she’d just force me into accepting her betrayal.
She’d tell me that I was too sensitive, that I needed to let things roll off my shoulder better, or that I should’ve been a better player. That if I was truly the best at what I do, then the Violets wouldn’t have let me go for her.Chalk it up to the game, this isn’t the end, blah, blah, blah.
For once I was going to make her sweat it out. She would call and I wouldn’t answer. This plan would work for Olivia and Clay, but avoiding Rashida and Allison would be harder considering I was playing for their team now.
I was the opposite of dramatic, but the thought of doing anything else that wasn’t hiding from the world was tough. So instead, I focused on my sister.
“Have you told your friends yet?”
“No. I’m still in the denial phase.” My sister had always talked like a middle-aged woman.
“Maybe it’ll be easier after mom leaves? You’ll get more time to breathe without her. You and Clay can do a goodbye tour or something.” I tried to make sure my voice didn’t quiver. The idea of Thanksgiving being the last time I was in the home I did the most growing up in, killed me. I had always adapted, but Olive didn’t have as much experience starting over. Being flexible.
“Yeah, but then I’ll be sad mom isn’t here to do a goodbye with us.”
I was getting bad at not being negative so I changed the subject. “How was Valentine’s Day at school?”
“Everyonelovedtheir orders. Some guys tried to give me their own homemade chocolate chip cookies…” She scrunched her face up.
“Not good?”
