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Clearly I recognized the hint – the extension of another invitation – but as much willpower as it had taken to come outthistime? I couldn’t make that kind of guarantee.
Instead, I focused on the other part of his words.
“What you trying to say?” I asked, stopping to face him. “I can’t take a loss without being a bitch about it?”
Isaiah drew his head back, lips twisted in disbelief. “You say that shit like it’s new information. You never could take a loss; your ass was always ready to throw hands when you didn’t win.”
I immediately opened my mouth to argue the point, but then thought about it for a second and…
Shit.
He wasn’t wrong.
As a kid inThe Garden, I was wild, sensitive, andhatedlosing, to an irrational degree. I’d just already lost so much – had so muchtakenfrom me – that when it happened in a casual context, where I had the illusion of a modicum of control?
It was a problem for me, so I was making it one for everybody, ready to throw hands with any and everyone.
I was gone winsomething.
But…
“I’ve changed,” I spoke up, shooting another basket even though we weren’t playing anymore. When it bounced off the rim instead of sliding smoothly through the hoop, the usual disappointment gave me a little flinch,nothingcompared to the internal rage I would’ve felt about missing a shot all those years ago.
“Haven’t we all?” Isaiah responded to my declaration, grabbing the rebound before I could get to it. I didn’t chase him down for it, just gave him room to make a couple shots of his own.
Hehad changed for sure.
Hell,changewas putting it lightly; he’d gone through a whole damn metamorphosis.
The nigga was married and had a damnbaby.
The last shit I would’ve ever expected.
“So you ended up with Alicia’s baby sister,” I said, bringing my thoughts into the open as he made his way back down the court to where I was. “That’s wild.”
He shrugged. “It’s not that wild. That’s where they put me inThe Gardenafter they separated us, you know? She was a big deal.”
“Yeah, so was I.” I chuckled. “Only instead of giving me a productive detail, they sent me off in the wilderness like an animal.”
He started toward the bench, gesturing for me to follow, and I did. “In her defense, she wasn’t nearly as violent as we were,” he said, then took a long swig from a water bottle. “You know what’s crazy? When I think about it, everybody I started connecting with… I always got separated from. They did it to everybody it seemed like, they didn’t like us getting close. But over the last few years…everybody’s coming back.”
“Don’t get too used to it,” I told him, using the towel he tossed me to wipe the sweat from my face. “I don’t plan on hanging around long.Can’thang around long.”
“Why?” he asked, dropping to a seat on the bench. “You got somewhere better to be?”
Fuck.
Why did that question… sting?
Growing up with my mother, things had always been rather fraught, but in a fucked-up way… Ibelongedthere. It was home.
Being abandoned atThe Gardenwas my first lesson in not getting too comfortable with that word, and still… I’d gotten used to it. I had missions to accomplish, times when I was sent away. And when I was there it wasn’t like there were goddamn warm hugs and cookies waiting.
And yet… it was where I was supposed to be.
I could take everything off, the gear, the character, the façade of invincibility,everything.
And I could just…be.
