Basketball is Not Life

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Parker's dad and sister drove separately. Which left Parker and me in my Range Rover with Spartan on my lap. Parker plugged his phone into the speaker, and "Last Christmas" started playing over the speaker. We belt Christmas songs out horribly on the drive. Halfway through to our destination Parker turns it down and reaches for my hand.

"I can't remember the last time I was this excited for a Christmas." He squeezes my hand.

"Why?" I ask.

He rolls his eyes at me. "Ren." He groans. "You know why."

I shrug my shoulders and look out the window even though it was pitch black, and we were on the interstate.

"I didn't get you a gift." I lie. I had, but it was shipped to Durham, South Carolina. I had assumed I would bring it back home and give it to him after Christmas. That was before I knew that he had intended to follow me around wherever I went for Christmas.

He squeezes my hand again. "You being with me for Christmas is the gift."

His words were too kind.

"I'm not used to this," I admit. "I'm used to getting put down." Last Christmas, Ryan had spent most of it at my parent's house. This was before he had decided to end things with me. My mother had catered dinner for the basketball team for the ones who could not go home. Ryan had accused me of flirting with one of the redshirt freshmen. When he got me in my room by myself, he shut the door, locked it, and dragged me by my hair over to my bed. He shoved me down onto the bed; this time, he had pushed my head into my pillow, making it hard to breathe. He said if I wanted to be a whore he would treat me like the whore I was. After that night, I avoided all eye contact I could with guys. Even at school, I had never had Ryan be that possessive over me. He stayed the night and held me; he cried and apologized over and over. He sat rubbing my back. My parents never checked my room; otherwise, they would have seen a boy torn in half over what he had done to me.

Parker squeezed my hand. "Where were you there?"

"Somewhere that needs to be forgotten." I smile over at him. The fun Christmas music mood is now long forgotten.

"If you ever need to talk to me, I'm here." Parker's voice is soft.

I nod and then respond. "I'm starting to see that. And I really appreciate it. But I don't think you want to know some of these stories. It is still hard for me to understand why I thought it was ok, why I never told anyone or got help."

His voice is pained when he talks next. "If it is going to help you, I will listen." I wonder if he is thinking about his mother, who took her own life. If he wonders if someone would have reached out to her, if things would have been different for her. He had yet to talk to me about it. I would have to bring it up sometime to him.

So instead of bringing up his pain of a pass. I do something I should have done years ago to anyone who would have listened. I open up and tell him most of it all. I do not know if it is because I felt like it was brimming over, ready to burst if I did not tell him or if because with Parker, there was something that made me feel like I was safe. That he would not sit there and tell me that I was stupid or dumb. He was not going to pull over to the side of the road and pull me into the back seat of his car, so he could hit me in the legs because my tone was off.

"When you pulled over that first night after dinner with Ryan, I had flashes of him pulling off to the side of the road. His rage was so strong he couldn't wait a couple of minutes to do it to me until we got home. I was scared of you for a split second, old wounds and whatnot. Instead, Parker told me that I was the easy choice between an amazing season or just a subpar season. I think that was when my ice for you started melting." His grip on mine had not wavered; he held it the whole time I told him every horrible detail of a relationship I should have never been in.