Collision
Monday mornings hit different when you’d spent the weekend winning—on the table, and in the kind of bed that rewrote what rest even meant.
The halls at Carver smelled like floor wax and cologne sprayed too heavy, lockers banging in time with sneakers ontile. I walked it like always—coffee in hand, lesson plans in my bag—but my head wasn’t here. It was with Rayna.
The way she’d leaned into me in front of everybody at The Green Room, lips hot, fearless. The way her hand had found mine after, like maybe she was starting to believe I wasn’t going anywhere.
We’d played doubles and won, and that said plenty. But I wanted more. I wanted in.
Sunday dinner had cracked me open further than I meant to admit. Watching Rayna sit at Grandma’s table—voice even, eyes unflinching, holding her own like she’d been there for years—it did something to me. Jada clocked it, I could tell. Grandma too, though she didn’t push. Ruth Hale never wasted words, but when she said Rayna passed light down, I felt it like prophecy. Made me wonder if she saw more than I did, or if I was just late catching up to what was already true.
I knew Rayna’s parents were divorced. I’d seen the lines that left on her—walls tall as gym rafters. I’d met Shawna, laughed with her over drinks. I’d seen videos of Darren and his kids, knew he’d fuck me up if I hurt her. But I hadn’t been around them. Not really. Not inside. And for a man who’d already walked her into his grandmother’s kitchen, who’d let her see where my heart was most unguarded—that gap was starting to itch.
Second period, I stood at the board, chalk squeaking as I drew two arrows—different lengths, different directions.
“So,” I asked the class, “what happens when you combine two forces that aren’t in the same direction?”
Devon raised his hand. “You get a new direction.”
“Exactly.” I drew the result, an arrow splitting thedifference. “It’s not one or the other anymore. It’s something new. Stronger.”
They scribbled it down like it was just physics. But inside, it felt like a confession. Rayna wasn’t my plan. She wasn’t my angle. But she’d shifted me anyway—deliberate, unrelenting—into something I didn’t see coming.
At lunch, I picked through the turkey and cheese sandwich I packed, grading quizzes with one hand. My phone lit up.
Hey.
Just that, from her.
I smiled, thumb hovering. Wanted to typethinking about you. Too much.Wanted to askhow’s your day?but it felt too flat. I set the phone face-down and drank water like it might wash down the restlessness.
“Mr. Hale.”
Nia Coleman’s voice. She was at the counter, pouring coffee, wrap dress hugging her frame. She glanced over her shoulder, lips curving. “You’re always so serious. Bet you only smile when nobody’s looking.”
I gave her the smallest one I had. “I smile.”
“Mhmmmm. I’ll believe it when I see it.” She stepped closer, hand brushing my arm like it was an accident. But it wasn’t.
I leaned back a little, quiet enough to make my point. “Hope your morning’s good, Ms. Coleman.”
Her eyes flickered. “It’ll be better if you stop calling me that—I’m Nia.” A beat, then, “It was nice meeting your… friend. Rayna, right?” She said it light, but her eyes were waiting. “Didn’t realize you two were serious.”
I set my pen down, finally met her gaze anddidn’t bother correcting her about calling Rayna my friend. She was my—well, I didn’t know what she was yet. “That’s because you don’t know me.”
Her smile faltered just a fraction. “Guess I don’t.” She picked up her cup, heels clicking toward the door. But she’d said what she wanted to—dropped it like a seed.
Pretty. Smart. Easy. But easy was the problem. With Nia, I saw the trap coming a mile away. With Rayna, I’d walked straight in and didn’t want out.
After school, I slid into Marlon’s chair at the shop in East Liberty—happy he had Monday hours. Clippers buzzed, men argued about the Steelers, a kid swept hair like he wanted to quit already. The air was talc and alcohol wipes.
“You looking fresh, Q,” Marlon said, snapping the cape. “Got company tonight?”
I stayed silent. He grinned like he already knew.
Then I saw it out the window—Whitaker Electric,stenciled bold on a van. My pulse kicked.
The site was alive with hammering, shouts, dust hanging like smoke in the late light. Bones of a building stretched up around us, metal and wood becoming something new.
