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She marches around the house, to the back…
The moment I turn the corner and see what my mother sees, everything solid inside me shatters into pieces.
“Mom!” I shout.
Dad curses, yells out, “Marcella!”
But neither of us moves. We simply watch, frozen in horror, as she approaches a shirtless boy around my age—his athletic body moving swiftly on a makeshift half-court. I spot the white of his earbuds in his ears, and I can only imagine how loud he must have them blasting, because it’s clear he’s oblivious to what’s happening, to my mom yelling at him tostop. Togo away. Toget the fuck off our property.
It’s not until shechargesat him, all 4’11” of her, that Dad and I finally come to and go after her. She’s slamming her fists into this poor guy’s chest now, one after the other, and she’s yelling, and I don’t know what she’s saying, but she’s screaming. Crying.Wailing.
And this boy… this poor, innocent boy just stands there, his dark hair falling over his brow, droplets of sweat at the ends, hanging on for dear life. Eyebrows drawn, he takes tiny little fists to his bare chest, over and over, while some insane woman curses at him for merelyexisting.
It feels like a movie. Like slow motion. Like I’m standing in a fictional world with fictional characters and the sounds distorted and nothing makes sense.
Dad wraps his arm around Mom’s waist, lifting her gently, while I try to pull on her arm.
“Mom.” It’s a whisper.
Aprayer.
And the boy’s eyes lift from my mother’s to mine, as if he could somehow hear my pleas. Our eyes lock. One second. Two. Three. Four. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Mom yells, and the boy breaks our stare to look down at her. Slowly, effortlessly, he grasps her wrists and lowers them just as Dad pulls her away.
“Sorry,” the guy tells her, his voice deep,calm,and surely, he has no idea what he’s apologizing for. He just knows that he should. Because that’s how everyone acts around my mother.
Dad has Mom turned around now, and he whispers words in her ear… words I can’t make out. After a few seconds, he sets her back on her feet, and I peer over at the boy just in time to watch him pull a single earbud from his ear.
“Sorry,” he repeats.
“This is my house,” Mom cries, turning to him. My shoulders deflate. “You are not to step foot anywhere near here again!” She marches a few steps away, toward the basketball, andkicksthat fucker away.
My eyes drift shut, but only for a second before I force them open again. I try to make eye contact with the stranger in front of me so I can convey with my eyes what my mind won’t comprehend. “I’m sorry,” I want to tell him. “She’sgrieving.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” he says for the third time. “It won’t happen again.” Then, abruptly, his eyes meet mine, and my breath halts at the sudden familiarity. The sudden realization. I know that stare. Ilivethat stare. There’snothingin his eyes but emptiness.
He doesn’t argue, doesn’t talk back, doesn’t call out her crazy. He simply walks away, not even bothering to collect his basketball, and I watch, transfixed, wondering what the hell happened in his life to make him act as disconnected as I feel.
“He’s just a kid, Marc,” Dad says, and I tear my attention away from the boy’s back to my dad, now sitting on the concrete with my mom in his arms. “He don’t mean nothin’ by it.”
Mom cries harder, gripping my dad’s biceps, and I think back to the times my dad used to hold her exactly like this, back when they loved each other. Back when they showed that love in the form of affection.
“Come on, Harlow,” Uncle Roy says, putting his arm around me and turning me away from my parents. “Why don’t we check out the house?”
I glance over at the general direction the boy walked, only to find the space as void as my heart. Then I look back at my parents, now sitting separately on the concrete, their gazes lowered, their minds as lost as my spirit.
And then, for the first time in six months, I allow a single tear to fall from my lashes.
So much for new beginnings.
CHAPTERTWO
Jace
Iplay ball with my brain, not my body.
From the exact moment a basketball lands in my hands and my feet make their first move, I know exactly where I’m going to end up. If I wait a millisecond too long, I’ll have an opponent on my ass, or worse, defending me from a power position. If I’m too quick, my teammates won’t be ready for the play.
I know that if I’m at half-court and the defense is lacking, I can make it to the three-point line in two steps. Three steps more to get me close enough to the hoop for a lay-up.
