Player's Guide To Catfishing (PLAYBOOK #1)

CHAPTER 66: Six months later

LIAM

"What do you mean you're joining the NBA draft this year?" Coach Carter has me locked in his office.

I didn't have the guts to tell him so he found out in the news like everyone else and when I confirmed it, he gave me that look.

It's one enough to scare a grown man straight but that's just it, my biggest fear has already come true.

"I have enough credits to graduate," I focus on a single object in his large office.

It's the only way I'll be able to talk.

"That's not what I asked you Griffith," he has his angry face on but I'm not shaking. "You still have a semester left, still have spring break and summer and the 4th. You still have—"

"No sir, I don't."

I won him the 4th championship this March which means for the first time since I stepped into campus 4 years ago, Dean Banks' nails are not knuckle deep in me.

I can get hurt and he won't threaten to kill me. I have made him and this school enough money and now he has finally backed off.

"Graduation is in December. Don't you want to walk with your teammates? Banner? Ferguson and Johnson? Go full throttle with your boys?"

No.

"My graduation is next month sir and my teammates will understand," I doubt they'll even care.

I'm not dying, we'll still hang out.

"Liam, what's really going on here?" He asses me like he is seeing me for the first time, "I thought you wanted to—"

"Leave." I release my grip on my knuckles, "I want to leave Oakwood sir." I want to see it my rearview mirror more than anyone.

"Why?" He asks the wrong question.

I learned the hard way that asking the wrong question is just as bad as using the wrong weapon in a fight.

Its simple kids, don't bring a sword or knife to a gun fight and never expect a fist fight to be fair—ever.

"Why now." I take pity on someone I know actually cares about me. "The right question sir, is why now?"

Why do I want to leave Oakwood now?

"Fine." Coach Carter tugs at his championship pinkie ring. "Why now?" He has always been a smart man.

"I can't take it anymore." I finally tell somebody, "I hate the campus, I can't stand my house and the court..." that's the worst place.

I need a new environment. I need a new...everything.

"Son—"

"Please." My lower lip trembles on its own and doesn't stop as I add "Please. Don't make me stay."

I can't take it anymore.

I endured 6 months but I know for a fact, that I cannot take 6 more. I can't even take 6 weeks, let alone 6 more days.

Even six hours here is pushing it.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He looks really worried, like he can't understand where all this is coming from.

Of course he can't, when we returned to school for senior year, I tapped into what John B called extreme mode.

I became Liam Griffith of the past but the 2.0 version. No longer was I the simp getting on planes and mopping around because of a girl. If I wasn't at the gym training, or in class, I was in the library studying.