me & tomfoolery

Enclosed pt. 2 | Jahan Dotson Short Story

Early morning practice. Jahan would be the only person walking around at 5 AM preparing for a 6:30 AM call time to the stadium. Terrance didn't come in last night so that would be one less person to interrupt his routine. Preparing his protein shake, Jahan searched through the cabinet for his favorite powder. He could not find it. A string of short curses left his lips as he slammed a cabinet a little harder than expected. Wynn walked in with eyes full of sleep. She needed something to drink because her water bottle was empty. She glanced over to see his protein bottle on the counter and yawned opening the pantry.

"Good morning, sorry if I were loud." He gruffed. Jahan couldn't help but notice the oversized sweatshirt and shorts combo. She normally wore pants or tights around them, never shorts. It was too early in the morning for her to think about covering up more, no one was supposed to be up.

A Walmart bag hit the counter and Wynn unpackaged his favorite powder. She placed the empty plastic bag back under the sink and proceeded to go back to refilling her water bottle.

"You got this?" He stared at the package before turning to face her. Wynn would get things for the house all the time, but this action in particular stood out to him. "Yeah, did I get the wrong one?"

"No, this is the right one 100%" even down to the special edition flavor her preferred. "Thank you Wynn."

"No problem," she yawned, "I'll see you at study hall later."

"What is it you want in life? You want championships? You want money? Do you wanna destroy your opponent? What is it that you want? What keeps you up at night?" Coach ran down his daily motivation as the players took a moment of rest under the beaming Happy Valley sun. It was a beautiful day and that meant Jahan would take full advantage of it after his class.

"We're headed to Berkey, you tryna go?" One of Jahan's teammates asked. He looked at the time and realized he was cutting it close to the time he needed to be at study hall.

"Yeah, I can't be there too long. I gotta go study".

"Dotson making time to study?" Another teammate chimed in. A group of them laughed before their oldest player cleared his throat. "Nothing funny about wanting to be smarter. That's why you idiots ain't making it. No let's go before Coach calls us back in."

The line at the Berkey Creamery was long and grueling per usual. Jahan wasn't going to make his session in time and he cared about it only because it was Wynn willing to help.

Wynn, I'm in line at Berkey so
I'm definitely going to be late.

He awaited a response which didn't take long.

Wynnifred Harper
It's fine Dotson. We can reschedule.
The rest of my group is over there too.

I'm really sorry. Do you want
anything from here?

Wynn didn't bother texting back. Not because she was upset but because she needed to do some studying herself. She was used to people not making it to study halls, she spent alot of time working by her lonesome. She also had an important social event to handle later that had her on edge anyways.

"Rob, can you check the noodles for me?" Wynn yelled running to the bathroom to fix herself up. She would be hosting a few members of the Med Club for dinner and games. This was big for her as she didn't feel she belonged in the club, let alone her major. It was unfortunate since she was top 5 across the major. It just didn't help that she was one of few black women in the program.