𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫 | starring 𝐋𝐚𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐨 𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐥 & 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐃𝐢𝐨𝐫

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠

𝐎𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟗 ; 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐝𝐚𝐲

𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩, attempting to dream about my future husband and father of my future kids, LaMelo Ball, when I got the eerie feeling that I wasn't alone. Reaching for my phone on the nightstand, I hit the flashlight button, scanning it across the room, seeing nothing, but I still couldn't shake the feeling I was being watched. 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐞 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐢𝐝.

The following day, I woke up to a screen full of notifications from a newly formed group chat. I recognized the names belonging to people from the summer before that I use to be close with but no longer talk to. They wanted to meet to discuss some weird things that happened to them last night.

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Walking down the hallway to my ex-bestfriends dorm room triggered an abundance of different emotions and memories I hadn't even realized I suppressed. Last summer was an emotional rollercoaster that I almost didn't think I was going to make it off of.

The door to her room was propped open, so I took that as a clue to let myself in. "What's up gang?" Melo smiled, throwing his hand up in a wave. Sending a small smile back, the butterflies in my stomach fluttered watching as his eyes scanned my body taking in my appearance.

𝐋𝐚𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐨 Ball was shooting guard for our university's basketball team. He was a star prospect in the NBA along with a few of his other teammates. I've had a tiny crush on him since I met him, but never was able to muster up the courage to tell him. Back home I didn't have many interactions with boys. I was too worried about working and school to even entertain the thought of a boy, and I thought that was going to be the same for me here. That was until I saw how many fine boys were actually on this campus. Not taking the opportunity to learn how to flirt with boys when I was younger, has definitely hindered my dating experience so far. I never know if they're just being nice or they're genuinely interested in me.

Anyway, LaMelo sat next to fellow college basketball stars Jalen Green and Ja Morant. I met 𝐉𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧 at orientation and we clicked instantly becoming really good friends. Jalen was definitely a Cali nigga in heart and spirit. He had a super chill personality not caring too much about anything, unless it was basketball of course. I honestly couldn't even tell you what his major was, and probably neither could he. He was just completing his one year to get in the league.

𝐉𝐚 is probably the funniest one out the group to me. He was from South Carolina, which isn't too far from Savannah so we instantly bonded over that. He's super caring and maybe the smartest boy out the group even though he tries to hide it. Like the other's he was just doing his year 'sentence' to make it in the league.

𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐢 sat next to Ja, with her classic clear ray ban and sweatsuit combo on. She was the eccentric artist majoring in entrepreneurship with dreams of starting her own luxury fashion label. Her outfits were probably the loudest thing about her. She was typically quiet, but always ready to throw shade when she saw fit. She was blunt and straight to the point, but also had a very sweet personality when she favored you. And she seemed to favor Ja... a lot, which is how we met her and her roommate Mariah.

𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐡 was my 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐫 college bestfriend. She was majoring in biology to become a scientist, which was very fitting because Mariah is probably one of the smartest people that I've ever met. She wasn't your typical geek troupe, you know glasses, braces, nerdy and lame. She was actually really fucking fun, well 𝐰𝐚𝐬 before everything happened. After the summer was over, she changed.. and to me not for the better. Now she was superficial, only hung around those who benefitted her status, and a downright conniving ass bitch.

"Took you long enough." Mariah rolled her eyes, leaning her body against Melo's. His arm was draped across her shoulder falling slightly above her boob and her fingers intertwined with his.

"Go fuck yourself RyRy." I smiled sitting down in the corner crossing my legs not bothering to join their séance circle.

"Melo does just fine." She stated purely to get a rise out of me.

"Can you guys please just be cordial?" Marsai blurted out before I could even open my mouth to retort back. "We're all here for a reason. Obviously the 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 is back." Her face contoured in a distressed fashion, making her thick clear glasses fall slightly down her nose.

"How do you know it's back?" Mariah argued. It was just like her to try and go against her friends. "It could just all be a coinciden-."

"Bro, we all felt it last night, fuck a coincidence." Ja interrupted, shaking his head. 𝐉𝐚 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭, 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞

"That weird fucking feeling that somebody is watching you." I spoke staring at my red rainboots. "Even though you're all alone."

"The sound of those heavy ass footsteps running towards you." Jalen added rubbing the goosebumps that began to rise along his arm.

"The wailing and screaming." Marsai's lip glided between her teeth and she shut her eyes trying to rid the sound that was imprinted in her memory. Ja wrapped his arm around her shoulder, rubbing her arm to comfort her. Okay wait a minute did something blossom between these two while I was m.i.a?

"Why is it back?" Melo questioned. "I thought we put that nigga away for good? We followed every fucking step right." He threw the book of spells on the ground in the middle of the circle making dust float in the air as it made contact with the floor. An array of mumbles and yeahs filled the room questioning everything we just went through the summer before to save our lives. Was it all for nothing?

"Something went wrong somewhere. We gotta go back and check it out." Jalen rubbed his hands down his face.

"Hell no." Mariah shook her head. "I am not doing that shit again."

"I'm with Ry on that one dawg. That shit was scary as hell." Ja added. "And we barely completed that shit the first time."

"If we don't, it's never gonna stop haunting us until we end up dead. We all took the offer that it gave to us." The corner of my bottom lip became trapped in between my teeth as I chewed on it nervously.

"Unless we give our offer's back." Marsai mumbled.

"I don't know about y'all, but i'm not giving that shit back. I can't." I stared down at the floor absentmindedly thinking about the offer I took.

At the time, my father just left my mom and I for his side family. My mom couldn't afford to pay the bills, let alone pay for me to keep going to college. If I didn't take the offer, my dreams of becoming a physical therapist would fall completely down the drain and I would have to move back to Savannah. I worked too fucking hard putting my life back together after my dad left to watch it fall to pieces again. I needed something to go right for me for once. I needed that little motivation, or spark, to continue. So when, it offered me the money I couldn't refuse it.

"Yeah, I'm with Dess. I can't afford to give it back either." Melo rubbed the back of his neck.

We never told each other what our offers were and nobody dared to ask either. But some peoples offers were easier to find out than others. Melo told me, back when he was younger his mom suffered from a stroke, which at first completely erased her ability to walk or talk. He said over the years she's made good progress with walking with support and speaking short sentences, but it was obvious she was nothing like the woman she was before. But, maybe a couple of weeks after I accepted my offer, I assume Melo accepted his, because it was all over the news that his mom's life completely changed for the better. She quickly was back to her original self, as if the stroke had never done any damage. "𝐀𝐥𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭, 𝐰𝐞 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧."

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