I was usually more mature than this, more pliable to whatever role I had to play. My brain said to communicate with Brittney, but my body did the opposite. I heard her, but I wasn’thearingher. Sweat dripped down our bodies and my legs begged for a break, but it was like I was actively choosing to keep this horrible practice going.
The whistle blew a final time, a hard-won reprieve as Tashi approached us at a slow, methodical pace. Her face was scrunched as if she was finding the right words to say. Maybe biting her tongue to prevent voicing how regretful she was on signing both me and Brittney to the roster.
“You’re lucky I’ve seen worse,” she started. My eyes darted across to Brittney, her eyes already on me, but her face was blank. The smallest hint that she was stressed in the way she worried the inside of her bottom lip.
I was raised to let elders finish speaking—whoever had the most authority in the room lived off long pauses, holding tension, whether good or bad. For the longest time, I didn’t know what that meant. My previous coaches believed in getting to the point as soon as possible.
“I would say you guys should fight it out, but I learned a while back your generation doesn’t…respond well to violence?” she questioned like an assistant coach had told her this before. “Instead, you guys will do one-on-ones, next week. Whatever this shit is…it’s gotta go. Or figure it out. Leave it on the floor and play like you actually know what to do with a team.”
She shook her head as she made her way off the practice court and back into her office, her words trailing behind her.
The sweat on my body felt useless. What was usually an indication of a hard day’s work felt pointless today when I couldn’t deliver.
“Okay, so she could’ve said worse.” Farrah barely had time to finish her sentence before Brittney blew out a long breath that was more like an agitated growl.
“Noted,” she mumbled then pivoted on her heel and headed toward the locker room. I wasn’t in the mood to have company, and I bet neither was my roommate.
“You can be real with me, Farrah.” I opened up because even if I didn’t want to be here, there was always a name or two I was living up to.
“You guys need to play like y’all are on the same team. You know…because you are now?”
“I’m trying!”
“You’re definitely not,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I dare you to go home tonight and ask Bee what she thought. The only two people who can fix it are y’all, which means, oh, I don’t know.Listeningto each other.”
I didn’t know Brittney let people call her Bee. Huh.
“Right. Is Tashi serious about one-on-ones?”
Farrah nodded “She did the same thing after we finished the expansion draft last year. It’s like her version of survival of the fittest, king of the court, you know. And we both know how good Bee is at man-on-man.”
My mind flashed to eighteen-year-old Brittney, hair in space buns, face serious as she took on our tournament team. If Brittney and I were the equals—andI knew we were—next week would feel like playing against myself.
The trick would just be how to get in Brittney’s head andthinklikeher.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Bee
I let the rainfall shower pelt my head, the water dripping down my skin as I silently screamed. Eyes squeezed tight, mouth so wide I could taste the eucalyptus shower steamer when it hit the back of my throat. At least the one positive of being the middle child was that I’d perfected how to be in agony in public. For every roast session, for every time I had to explain my love for basketball, I’d been able to morph my face into whatever I needed it to convey.
Today, I needed it to convey patience and mild agitation.
Nola spent two hours doing her absolute best to ignore my presence on the court. While yes, I, too, would rather eatseveraldenim jackets before I trained my brain to see Nola and I on the same team, I simplyhad to.
I didn’t have the luxury of being deliberately defiant. I didn’t have two parents who could make a call to the next owner they knew to get their daughter on a new team. My aunt wasn’t the commissioner, nor did my last name carry decades of legacy.
I was the underdog; a moniker college sports media started and had stuck ever since. I didn’t ask to have millions of followers on socials, and hadn’t gone running to every athletic brand on the planet to secure a sponsorship deal. Everyone who had chosen me had done so because of my skill and talent. I earned my spot on the Jaguars and became a staple for the franchise.
But now I was a traitor.
It was hard to ignore the title every time I was tagged on socials—I was too nosy for my own good. I went to bed last night crying over people threatening to throw out my Jaguars jersey. Yes, I’d seen it coming, and knew a vague statement via Instagram would sound worse. My own friends barely got it, so why would a stranger? I owed no one an explanation, but the hate was killing me.
I angrily scrubbed the rest of my body, all the hard work I didn’t do because my roommate thought she could do it all herself. I was honestly proud of myself for not blowing up on her. The itch to ask for an explanation was under my skin. I managed to hold my tongue in public—an effort that tookimmensestrength I hadn’t known I had. There were no more anonymous reports that Nola and I’d had another bad day, so I gave myself a pat on the back.
Why shouldn’t I demand an answer from Nola?
She’d come home before I got into the shower, breaking the little piece of mind I tried to grab onto on the car ride.
