Summer Sanders is going through it. The pressures of school are mounting, and her home life is completely falling apart. Feeling bored and lonely on a Saturday night, she decides to get buzzed and surprise her hookup buddy with her best lingerie. Th...
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IT TAKES ONE final kick in the face from Mila's tiny foot for me to wake up for good. She's somehow flipped sideways in the middle of the night, and now her head rests on Summers shoulder, and her legs on my chest, causing her to lift them and hit me in the chin.
I pinch her toe, then take her feet off my chest to sit up. It's 5:30am and even though I didn't set an alarm, my body still wakes up as a habit. I'm glad about it. Lying around will do nothing for me, it's time for me to start my day.
I'm careful not to wake Summer and Mila while I get out of bed and change into basketball shorts in the bathroom. When I finish, I grab my phone and earbuds, then head out the door towards my usual running route.
I haven't stayed home long enough to go for a run in the neighborhood since freshman year of college. I don't feel nostalgic passing by my old high school or the Dunkin Donuts I used to go to most mornings. Not even the Mexican restaurant I insisted all my tacos come from. I've moved on. I feel nothing for my old life.
The burn starts to kick in and I welcome it by increasing my speed and turning up the Kendrick song blasting in my ears.
When I get to the park, I circle around it twice then take a seat on the bench facing the basketball court where I first learned the game. Staring at it, I finally start to feel something. The freedom of all your problems vanishing away, the joy of being apart of a community, the excitement of knowing you have something special. It makes me smile as much as it fills me with sadness.
I'm gonna take this feeling and put it towards the semi-finals, that's for sure.
As I catch my breath and reminisce about my old games on this court, I hear footsteps coming behind me.
"Heard the Reyes kid would be back in town longer than 2 minutes. Looks like it's true."
The voice shocks me with stillness. Is this who I think it is?
He jumps over the back of the bench and plops himself down besides me. A smirk forms on his face, one that used to be full of mischief that now seems more sinister.
I remove my earbuds and sit myself up straighter.
"Don." I try to remain unphased. He's apart of the most shameful time in my life, and even though I would've been fine having never seen him again, it's not like he scares me or anything. I could break him like a twig back then, and I'm sure I could do it now too.
"You owe me a shitload of money, you know. Till this day my brother's on my ass for all that weed I stole for you... and the coke, and the percs, and shrooms. My god." He laughs. "We really did a shitload of drugs back in the day. The fact that neither of us are under some highway bridge scratching and begging for spare change is a damn miracle."
He's still pale as a ghost, tall and slender as ever. The girls used to love that, especially paired with what they called his "chiseled" face and blue eyes. I think he used to hypnotize people with them, some straight up voodoo stuff. That's the only explanation I could come up with.
