Chapter 7 Ash
Atlanta in August is a physical experience I did not expect.
The heat doesn't arrive. It's already there when I step outside, hitting me like a wall I have to walk through to get anywhere.
Humid in a way that San Francisco never was, air that sits on your skin and stays.
By the second day I've stopped fighting it.
By the fourth, I almost like it. There's an honesty about a city that doesn't pretend to be comfortable.
The apartment is in Buckhead, a two-bedroom with tall windows and hardwood floors and more space than one person needs.
Denise found it in under a week because Denise is a force of nature.
I tipped her double and she told me I was her favorite client, which I suspect she tells everyone, but I chose to believe her.
Unpacking is a project I approach with the same energy I approach everything, which is all of it, all at once.
Boxes opened, contents distributed, decisions made fast. The kitchen is done in an afternoon.
Books on shelves by sundown. I hang a few photos, push furniture around until the living room feels like a place where people could gather.
The city is interesting. I learn it fast because learning new places and new restaurants is a thing I'm good at.
The coffee shop three blocks north, where the barista's name is Tasha and she does a pour-over that I tell her is the best I've had in Atlanta, which is true because it's the only one I've had in Atlanta.
The running trail along the Westside Beltline, where the humidity turns a five-mile run into a negotiation with my own lungs.
The restaurant on Peachtree, one of the seventy-odd streets named Peachtree, where the bartender asks if I'm new to town and I say yes and we talk for forty minutes about absolutely nothing and it's great.
I text Marco photos of the apartment. I send my mom photos of the skyline.
The group chat gets an update with a photo of the running trail with the caption if anyone needs me I'll be melting on this path every morning.
Jensen responds with a flexing emoji. Berger sends a three-paragraph weather analysis of Atlanta's September forecast that nobody asked for.
Murray says his family just landed and his kids are already complaining about the heat.
I'm building a life at full speed, which is the only speed I know.
On a Thursday afternoon, I'm admiring a bookshelf I bought at a furniture store in Midtown and assembled on my own.
I type to Avi.
Just built a bookshelf with my bare hands. By "built" I mean assembled from a box with an Allen wrench. By "bare hands" I mean I broke a nail and had to take a break. Anyway, the apartment is coming together. You should see it when you get here. When’s your ETA?
His response comes twenty minutes later.
Next week.
Two words. I grin at the phone the way I've been grinning at his responses for two months, which is disproportionately. There's no reason two words should make me feel like the room just got warmer. But they do.
The days fill themselves. Morning runs, afternoons at the facility where the ice is being prepped and the staff is trickling in.
I introduce myself to everyone. The equipment guys, the trainers, the woman at the front desk whose name is Carmen and whose daughter plays high school hockey, which I know because I asked.
I learn names the way some people learn stats.
It's automatic, and it's the fastest way to make a new place feel like yours.
But the apartment at night is quiet.
Not bad quiet. Just quiet. The air conditioner cycles on and off and that's the only sound, and my footsteps on the hardwood are louder than they should be, and the fridge has food in it but I eat standing up because sitting at the table alone feels like something I'd rather not do.
I turn on music. Always. The second I walk in, speakers on, a song with energy.
I scroll through the group chat. I text Marco about one of the restaurants I tried.
I text Coop a meme I know he’ll find funny.
I call my mom and tell her the apartment is great and the city is great and everything is great.
The night before players start arriving for camp, I'm on the couch with the TV on and my phone in my hand and the AC humming, and the music playing low. Everything is on. Every source of noise I have is filling the room, and it's still quiet underneath.
My phone lights up. The group chat again.
Guys checking in, sharing excitement, posting photos of bags in various states of unpacking.
Someone, I think it's Marchetti, writes LETS GOOOO in all caps with about fifteen fire emojis.
The energy is building. Tomorrow this apartment won't be just mine.
It'll be the city where my team lives, where the hallways and rinks and restaurants will fill up with voices, and the quiet will get pushed into the corners where I don't have to look at it.
I set the phone down. Look around the apartment and it doesn’t feel full. Not yet.
I'm fine. I've been telling myself I'm fine for so long I don't know what it would mean to be anything else. And the thing is, it's mostly true. I am fine. I'm healthy, I'm employed, I'm in a new city with a new team and a future that has more shape than it did three months ago.
It’s not a lie, but maybe not the complete story, and the rest of it lives in the quiet that I keep filling before it has a chance to speak.
Tomorrow the team starts arriving. Tomorrow the noise begins. I'm counting on it.