Page 72 of High Baller

The only good thing to come out of this is that I know the public like Sky. Someone has been sharing her Instagram posts saying that she looks like the sweetest girl, or she's the girl next door; she knows how to have fun. The public likes everything about her, everything that I love about her. I've found a girl that I'm deeply in love with, and somehow, I fucked it up. I don’t know how the fuck it happened, but it did.

I hear the door close, and look up to see Derek walk into the room. “So, how fucked up is all this?" I ask him as he sits down and pats my leg. “Have you spoke to her or Calvin?" I need someone to tell me how she is. Not knowing is killing me.

"Not answering my calls, neither of them.” He turns to face me. "We need to talk." The look on Derek's face right now doesn't look like anything good is going to come from what he has to tell me.

"Is she okay?"

"She had a good reason for not going public, Trey. Sky went public because she knew the backlash you'd get, but she's paid a higher price for it,” he explains. He gets up and walks into the kitchen. He can't say something like that and just walk away from me. "Beer?" He sits back down and holds out a bottle for me.

"Is she in trouble?"

"Her parents aren't dead, they’re… Two messed up fucks that she can't get rid of, no matter what. From a young age, she's had to watch her parents take more drugs than any girl should have to, drinking themselves stupid, and they rob her of everything she has." Derek stops to swig some of his beer.

I lean back as I process everything Derek’s telling me. Drugs and she's out. Sky's seen and lived with what it does to someone.

"When I got to her house, it was empty. Her parents took everything, and left a picture of you two kissing that said, 'we need the money you don’t anymore.’ Now—"

"I can buy and send things to the house for her—"

"I don't think that'd be smart—she’s already told me that she wants nothing from us," Derek tells me.

I just stare into the space in front of me, thinking about Sky in an empty house with nothing, and it's all my fault. I take out my phone.

Trey - Shorty, if you can please answer my call, I only want to say sorry, nothing else. I promise. X

"Sky will be okay—she’s a fighter.”

I look over at Derek without saying a word. He's only trying to make me feel better, but I feel shit. Nothing he says is working. My girl has been robbed, my girl has nothing, my girl isn't with me.

I quickly lift my phone to my ear as it rings. "Shorty?" I ask.

"No," Calvin answers.

I sigh. “Calvin, can you please tell her that I—"

"Trey, she doesn't want to talk to you right now—she doesn't trust you. I think you might want to watch the entertainment news She wants the press to leave her alone." With that, the line goes dead.

I change the channel and see Sky coming out of her house.

"What's she doing?" Derek asks.

"I don't know."

"Sky, have you spoken to Trey?"

"Sky, are you going back to America?"

"Sky, do you believe that Trey slept with those two girls?"

The questions are non stop, and they're still shouting more out to her, but she looks over her shoulder into the house, then back over to the press.

"I'm going to talk to you. Not because I want to, but because I want you to leave. I want you to leave my property, I want you to leave me alone. The only thing that I'll say is, Trey and I broke up before those pictures were taken. With me traveling back and forth so much, and the season starting, I knew that things would be a lot harder for us to see each other. So, I made the choice to end things between us. Now that you know the truth, can you please leave me alone?”

I stand up and walk closer to the TV and watch her walking back into the house. What did she just do? She hasn't blamed me; she hasn't talked shit about me. Why?

I turn to Derek, as he looks at his phone while it beeps.

"Even though Sky made you look like you did nothing wrong, there are a lot of people that are calling her the perfect girlfriend that you let slip away," he tells me as continues to read some of the other tweets.