by Liara Tamani
CARLI
“Don’t say that. You’re not an asshole,” I tell him. But the tight squeeze of his closed eyes and the low hang of his long jaw tells me he doesn’t believe me. I wrap my arms around his waist and bury my head in the crook of his neck, hoping to drive some of his pain away.
He hugs me back and cries into my hair.
“It’s not your fault,” I tell him. “You were a newborn.”
He lets out a low moan, and it vibrates through my body—baby explosions of pain. They make me feel like I’m dying.
Oh my God. Is this what Rex feels like? I can’t even imagine. My pain doesn’t even come close to his. At least both of my parents are still alive. Just thinking about it makes me feel grateful. And for half a second, I half forget about Rex’s pain and feel happy.
Seriously, Carli? How could I possibly feel anything good when Rex is feeling so bad?
Oh no! Panic rings through my body like a three a.m. burglar alarm. What if Rex just felt my happiness like I could feel his pain? How could I even begin to explain?
But it wasn’t me. It was gratitude.
The truth never sounded so stupid.
Part of me waits for him to push me away, but he pulls me in even closer. And I’m so relieved I could cry. But the relief doesn’t last long in the swarming guilt, under the crushing weight, where it’s a strain to find my next breath.
We can’t stay here.
I take in a slow, deep breath—my belly pressing against Rex’s trembling belly—and let it out. Again. And again, until the trembling stops. Until his belly finally pushes firmly into mine and falls away. Until his breath picks up the pace of my own—now warm and moist on my face.
I lift my head out of the hot crook of his neck toward the bright blue sky. So cool and sweet I have to close my eyes. When I open them, Rex is looking up, too. I take it as a sign that he’s okay and start walking again.
At the corner I guide us left. Daddy says there’s a park up here. Figure it’ll be a nice to sit on some swings and chill out for a little while.
“Y’all got a court over here?” Rex exclaims, face lit up like a kid on Christmas. He reclaims his arm from around my shoulder and picks up the pace.
I look for a basketball court but can’t see it. Then, just above a thick hedge ahead, I spot a slither of orange hoop. How did he even see that?
We cross the street, Rex with extra pep in his step. It’s crazy how much spotting the court lifted his mood. It’s like the whole breakdown over his mom never even happened. Who knew basketball was out here working miracles like this?
“Man, I’ve been looking for a court out here for the longest,” he says excitedly. “They got this joint hidden! You know white people don’t like basketball courts in their neighborhoods . . . attracts too many of us,” Rex says, and rubs the top of his brown hand with his pointer finger. He’s walking so fast I can barely keep up. “Well, guess what? We found the secret court and we’re tellin’ all our friends!” He laughs. “Wait, I don’t really have any friends,” he says, and turns back toward me. “But now at least I have you.”
We walk through a small opening in the thick hedge.
“No friends?” I ask, looking around the secret park. No swings. Just the court to the left and an open field in the back. Leave it to Daddy to find the only public basketball court in Woodside.
“Nah, not really.” He walks ahead of me, then turns around so that he’s walking backward, facing me. He brings his hands up to eye level, about body-width apart, and moves them in sync—right to left, left to right, right to left—like windshield wipers or something. It’s strange. “I guess there’s Dante and Paul, two of the dudes I used to ball with at the court close to my old neighborhood. But once I moved out here, I haven’t seen them. Same with Craig and James, two of my old teammates who were pretty cool.”
He pushes his arms toward the sky, flicks his right wrist, and I see it. The follow-through. The invisible basketball. I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner. Jordon’s always playing with hers.
“And forget about any of my new teammates.”
“So, who do you hang with then?” I ask, hoping he’s had somebody before me. Everybody needs somebody.
But his feet have already hit the court. A huge smile flashes across his face before he turns around and takes off running, dribbling his invisible ball. Approaching the goal, he crosses over left, dribbles between his legs, and goes up for a windmill dunk—head almost hitting the rim. When he lands, he shouts, “What! These fools can’t hold me . . . they can’t stop me!”
REX
Carli’s walking up to the three-point line, looking at me like I’m half-crazy. Okay, maybe the yelling was a little much. But when it comes to basketball, I go straight beast mode. I can’t help myself.
“Carli Alexander has the ball,” I say in my commentator voice, trying to take the attention off me, and chest pass her the invisible ball.
Her arms stay by her sides. She doesn’t even try to catch it.
“Oh, so you’re not playing with me?” I ask, standing underneath the rim, dramatically throwing up my hands.
She cracks a small smile, playfully rolls her eyes, runs to get the ball, and dribbles it back toward me. “Happy now?”
“Yes,” I answer, mostly because it’s good to see her run. I knew she was feeling better, but not that much better.
She bounce passes the ball back to me.
“That’s all you got?”
“Yep.”
“What about that behind-the-back move you did with all those ponytails? Man, that was sick.” I bounce pass the ball back to her.
She catches it. “Ugh, I’d almost forgotten about that. I can’t believe my dad. I’m so sorry. He’s a bit of a basketball freak and he’s—”
“Are you kidding me? I loved it!” I say, walking toward her. “Seeing you ball way back in the day and the old footage of me was everything. I swear your dad is the best. My father would never.” And I stop right there. Not about to give her two sob stories in one day.
She dribbles toward me. “Seriously? My dad makes videos like that all the time. So annoying. But I must admit, I liked seeing you when you were little. Too cute.” She backs into me, still dribbling.
Behind her, I swipe like I’m trying to steal the ball.
“I can send you the video if you want,” she says before dribbling left.
I was hoping she’d offer. “That’d be cool,” I say, arms extended wide in my defensive stance. She goes up for a layup and I put both of my arms straight up in the air. Nobody gets an easy shot. Not even just-had-surgery Carli. Yeah, I’m savage like that.
“Oh, it’s like that?” she asks, getting up in my face after she makes her layup.
I step closer to her. So close our bodies are touching and I’m getting lost in the patch of freckles around her nose, in her smiling brown eyes. “Yeah, it’s like that.”
CARLI
The way Rex is looking at me . . . it’s like he knows everything about me. Everything that ever was. Everything that will ever be.
Looking straight into his dark, tender eyes, all I want to do is lose myself to the infinite parts of me that he sees and forget about what’s actually going on in my life. But the way he just opened up and poured out all his pain makes me feel bad for keeping so many secrets.
But it’s too late, I think. I’ve already lied, omitted so much truth. He can’t know I could lie to him. He needs someone to trust, someone to be his friend, someone to help heal his hurts. I can be all of that, I tell myself. I can be his everything.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say, and kiss him. Pressing my lips into his big, soft lips is way easier than admitting my parents are getting a divorce and I have to decide which one to live with. And rolling my tongue over and around his tongue is way better than letting him know I plan to quit basketball.
He pulls me in closer, his strong hand pressing into my back, making me feel thin
gs in low places. Low places that want to explode. Then he pulls away and looks me in the eyes. “I’m so happy I met you,” he says.
“Me, too,” I say, head tilted back, looking at his face. It’s radiating with adoration—for me. I take in as much of it as I can, whole skies of it, hoping it will stay with me forever.
He briefly kisses me again. “Seriously, my life is so much better with you in it.”
“Mine, too.”
“Carli,” he says, looking straight into my eyes.
Words cannot even touch the happiness I feel . . . here . . . with him . . . under the light of the winter sun. Happiness in a way I’ve never felt before. “Yes,” I answer.
“Who’s recruiting you?”
Hold up a second. How did we get on basketball?
“I know Texas probably is. UConn, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Duke? You’re probably getting recruited by the top schools in the country. Tell me I’m wrong.”
I don’t, because he’s not.
“I know I’m getting way ahead of myself. Waaaaay. It’s a whole year out. But wouldn’t it be cool if we lived in the same city after we graduated? At least the same state. Trust, you’d have front-row seats to every game you could make. And you’d better have some seats with my name on them, too. I could even visit you at your dorm. Kick your roommate to the curb for a little bit,” he says, and laughs.
“Yeah,” I say, feeling his words flying around inside me with no place to land. Most of the schools recruiting me will be off the table if I don’t play basketball. Who knows where I’ll end up?
College applications are due next January. I need to start working on them this fall, but which ones? If I want to study astronomy, Vassar and Vanderbilt have cool observatories. If I want to be some type of artist or designer, RISD or Parsons would be good choices. If I want to be a writer, Northwestern and Brown have good creative writing programs. If I want to be some type of historian, UCLA would be a good option. It’s not like I haven’t done the research. The signs just haven’t spoken yet. But what exactly am I supposed to do about that? I’ve done everything I can! I want to yell from the top of my lungs. I want to tell him everything.
But I don’t. And it feels miserable. It’s like all of Rex’s pain got to go outside and play in the rain—with everything we feel, with his dreams—until the sun came out. But all of my pain is still stuck inside, staring through rain-streaked windows at everyone playing.
Bubbles of Hope
CARLI
Mom pulls into the lot behind her design studio. We just got back from my two-week checkup, where I got the worst news. Dr. Williams advised easing back into playing over the next day or so but said that I should be able to go full force for the first round of the playoffs next Saturday.
“So that’s it? You just want me to show up for practice on Monday and start playing again?” I say, rubbing my hands together in front of the vents of her old Land Rover Discovery. I swear it took the whole drive over here for the heat to kick in. I’ve been telling Mom she needs a new car. She’s had this thing since before I was born but refuses to give it up. Says she likes the old body style. I’d take good heat and not having to stop at a gas station every three seconds, but that’s me.
“Well, you know, Dr. Williams did clear you to play,” she says, and starts wrapping an oversized mustard-yellow scarf around her neck.
“Maybe she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I could go back to play too soon and rip my stomach apart,” I say, annoyed at my own high-pitched, whiny voice.
Mom grabs her phone and keys out of one of the cupholders in the center console and says, “Okay.” But it’s not a you’re-right okay. It’s more like a you’re-being-ridiculous okay. Doesn’t she know I can hear the difference?
“I’m serious, Mom! I bet you won’t be so nonchalant when my stomach rips open.” Then I remember Mom and me getting down to old-school Ciara this morning in the kitchen before she took me to the doctor. I had the nerve to drop down into the splits. Yes, the splits! With ease, like I never even had surgery. I’m telling you, technology has gotten too advanced for its own damn good.
“Not sure how that’s gonna happen. The puncture wounds were so tiny you didn’t even need stitches.”
Oooo, I hate when Mom calmly throws out facts when all I’m trying to do is pitch a fit.
“And honestly, Carli,” Mom says, reaching into the backseat for her neon-yellow Cambridge satchel, “I don’t see any reason you shouldn’t finish the season if you’re physically able.” She throws her phone and keys into the bag.
“But you know I hate basketball!”
“Yes, but the championship game is only . . . what? Two weeks away. And that’s if your team keeps winning. Either way, it will all be over soon. After that, you can choose a different direction. You have a lot to think about, you know.” She lifts her portable tea infuser from the cupholder closest to her and takes a sip.
“Yeah, how can I forget?”
“Come on,” she says, and opens the car door, cold air blasting my face. Late February, and winter finally decides to show up in Houston. It’s freaking thirty-one degrees. I swear everything wants to be on my nerves today.
We walk through the back door and down a hall lined with tiny, glass-front offices. It’s been forever since I’ve been in here. I don’t recognize any of the girls behind their white, modern desks, staring at their large Mac screens. But their white, pushpin walls, covered by all things interior design, are just as cool as I remember.
One office rushes at me with color and patterns—a photo of a cobalt-blue sofa below a turquoise chandelier; a sample of a hot pink, orange, and gold rug; and swatches of diamond-patterned fabrics. I stop walking and look inside. On the back wall there are photos of beautifully tiled Moroccan arches and columns. This house is gonna be dope, I think, before the Emma Watson–looking girl behind the desk, with a brown pixie cut and dark red lips, looks up. She sees Mom, grabs a folder off her desk, springs out of her chair, and quickly tiptoes around the intricately carved cream tile organized on the concrete floor.
She swings her glass door open, says “Hey, Carli,” like she knows me, and runs to catch up with Mom.
“Mrs. Alexander!” calls a different girl, from somewhere behind me.
I turn around like she’s calling me, like I’m the boss. And for a second, my neck gets long, my shoulders roll back, and I’m feeling myself. Like I’m doing it big and I have life all worked out. Then she runs past me to secure her position on the other side of Mom and bursts my little bubble.
The front of the store opens up to the retail shop with its teal-framed floor-to-ceiling windows enticing everyone passing by on Westheimer Road to come on in. Oh my God, it smells so good in here. And I see why. There’s a long rectangular table full of candles. I pick up one with two small crystals sitting on either side of its wick.
“That’s the moon batch candle, hand poured only during full moons,” says the guy behind the hammered gold checkout desk. He’s a young black dude wearing a multicolored, silky, patched jacket. Sounds ugly, but it’s super cute. There’s a huge yellow G on the front, left side of the jacket above a patch that reads Men at Work. And the right sleeve is full of bright blue stars of all different sizes.
“Cool, I’ll take one,” I say, and then add, “Cute jacket.”
“Thanks, made it myself,” he replies.
I can’t believe how much the shop has changed. Mom used to sell only home accessories, but now there are kimono robes, leather totes, woven pouches, handmade jewelry, fancy chocolate, notebooks, gold engraved pencils, and wait— There’s a whole wall of greeting cards. I walk closer to see what they’re talking about.
You have the trying-to-be-cool section with sayings like Yaas Queen and Birthday Squad printed over graphic images. Then you have the legitimately beautiful section with intricate designs and lots of gold leaf. There’s even a whole collage section. A sympathy card with cut-out footprints in the sand. A congratulations
card with cut-out champagne flutes. Come on, now. I could do better than that.
The best one is a printed collage of a girl standing in a long T-shirt holding a bouquet of peach flowers over her face. In the background are planets, stars, a dog on its hind legs wearing a party hat, and the words dance to your own music . . . it’s your birthday. My birthday is not until November, but this card absolutely belongs on my walls next to the watercolor I did in art class last year. A bouquet of balloons high in the sky carrying a baby elephant—the only other mammal that knows how to dance.
At the checkout desk, the guy with the cute jacket asks, “Are you adding this to your mom’s account?”
I guess everyone in here knows who I am. “No, that’s okay,” I say. Mom and Daddy always stress the importance of me and Cole budgeting for what we want. Plus, I have plenty of money in my checking account. We’ve both had accounts since we were ten. That’s where Mom and Daddy deposit our allowance. And I like to see my money stack. I mean, I spend money on magazines and the occasional cute top or jumpsuit or whatever I find in thrift shops. But that’s it.
“You sure?” he asks, his bright blue-lined eyes looking confused.
“Yeah, I’m good.” I reply, and pull my phone out of my back pocket for Apple Pay. There’s a missed text from Rex asking how the doctor’s appointment went. I don’t even feel like thinking about that.
And there’s a missed group text from Daddy asking to stop by tonight. Mom has already responded with OK. Cole responded with My heart lifts and twirls in my chest at the thought of the whole family being together again. I can’t help but think it’s a sign that there’s still hope.
REX
Sitting in my pickup truck in the parking lot after school, heat on blast trying to warm up, I check my phone again. Still no response from my father. Took me all week to work up the nerve to send him that video Carli’s dad made. Each time I’d load the video into our conversation—where my last message, 1st game of season tonight at 7 if you wanna come, still sat unanswered—I’d delete it.