CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Michael
Idrive with no real destination in mind, headlights cutting through the dark, winding roads of Tagaytay.
The air outside is crisp with pine and damp earth, touched with the faint sweetness of roasted corn and chestnuts from roadside stalls long closed for the night.
Kate rolls down her window, sticks her hand out into the wind, and starts tracing lazy shapes in the air.
It’s such a small, ordinary gesture, but something about it feels like progress.
Like she’s letting the night carry her, even just a little.
We don’t talk for a while. I let her be in her thoughts, and I stay in mine. The silence isn’t uncomfortable. So I try to calm myself down and not overthink it. I drown out thoughts of my career in basketball. My murky future. The interview Heather proposed. My sponsorships. Everything.
Right now, I’m here. Driving nowhere, with someone in the passenger seat who somehow makes nowhere feel like somewhere.
Then, out of the dark stretch of highway, lights appear—flickering in the distance. I spot the soft glow of a Ferris wheel turning. I see a large sign that reads “Starville Funland – Open 24/7 until December 30!”
Kate jolts upright, hair whipping around her face. “No way. Is this real?”
“You tell me,” I say, already pulling into the gravel lot.
We step out of the car and look at the giant amusement park in front of us. “You know,” I say, voice a little lower, “I’ve never been to an amusement park.”
“Ever?” Kate’s eyes widen.
I nod. “Never had the time. The friends. The opportunity,” I say.
“That’s sad,” Kate says. “And that’s the only reason I’m going out of this car, into that amusement park, wearing my pajamas.”
“I appreciate it, Katie,” I say with a chuckle.
We enter the park, and I’m glad to see it’s not packed with people.
We head inside, and the park is practically empty—just a few other silhouettes in the distance, a couple of workers in faded uniforms, and a sleepy energy hanging in the air like the final hours of a party no one really wanted to leave. It’s perfect.
We wander past the food stalls, which, frankly, are just energy bars and soda at this time of day. We reach a couple of game booths, none of which are appealing until the final one, where Katie grabs my arm in excitement, her cold hand sending jolts into my system.
“Oh my gosh, that’s like a giant version of the bear I have at home!
” she exclaims, pointing to the giant teddy bear plushie with a bowtie on the highest shelf of a game called ‘Swish it to Win It.’ I remember the miniature version she’s talking about.
The one sitting on the shelf in her room, beside two other bears.
The lady running the booth is sitting half-asleep behind the counter, nursing a thermos of coffee.
She perks up when she sees me eyeing the basketballs.
“Five consecutive shots for a consolation prize,” she says, pointing to the rules taped haphazardly to the table. She continues in a flat, uninterested tone. “Big bear plushie if you get all ten. But don’t get cocky, it’s professional-height. Most people don’t even get three.”
I snort, and Kate elbows me. “Too bad you’re just someone who played some high school basketball, huh?”
I laugh. “Ten consecutive shots?” I ask the lady. She grunts a response and hands me the basket of balls.
I take a ball, and the moment my fingers wrap around it, something in me clicks into place. I shoot. The ball arcs perfectly, drops clean into the hoop. I hear Kate’s small gasp. Then I make another. And another. By the fifth shot, the lady running the booth is staring.
By the tenth shot, the woman’s shaking her head in disbelief, muttering something about miracles. Kate’s laughing, half in awe, half in disbelief herself.
“Well,” the woman says, grabbing the giant teddy bear from the top shelf. “You’re one in a million. You should play professionally,” she says.
“Yeah, I should,” I reply. “Maybe point guard or something.”
“Congratulations,” she says.
I turn and hand it to Kate. It’s so big it nearly swallows her whole; the bowtie practically brushes her chin.
Her face softens. “You didn’t have to—”
“I know.” I grin. “But I wanted to.”
“I think I’ll name him Starville.”
“I forget you love naming inanimate objects,” I say.
We keep walking, her hand brushing mine sometimes by accident, sometimes not.
Kate decides it’s time for the Ferris wheel now, so I follow her. The operator waits for a few minutes to fill the booths. Obviously, there aren’t many people, so we won’t be waiting long.
When the Ferris wheel picks up steady rhythm as it goes round and round, we look at the surroundings.
The view at the top is nothing mind-blowing—just silhouettes of trees, the glow of old bulbs, and the outline of the town in the distance—but Kate lets out this little gasp anyway, like it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.
I’ve been to hundreds of places. Hundreds of skylines. But somehow, this tops all of it.
“It’s beautiful up here,” she says. And I nod in agreement. “Puts things in perspective,” she adds.
“Why do you need to put things in perspective? Something going on?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says. “Well, nothing new.”
I look at her, the light from the booths beside us reflecting on her. “It’s okay, you can tell me anything, Katie.”
She tilts her head back and pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. The wind blows her hair, and she tries to hold it back, but fails. Her pajamas are almost sparkling in the light inside the Ferris wheel.
Kate looks at me for a few seconds, as if thinking if it’s right to tell me whatever she’s feeling, then sighs.
“Sometimes,” she says, voice so soft I have to come a little closer, “I wonder if I’d still be doing all the things I’m doing if life turned out differently. Or if I ever actually… chose for myself. Like, made a decision not based on what I was told, but what I wanted.”
It startles me, because it’s what I’ve been feeling too. Letting life happen, showing up where I’m expected, performing the role.
“And what do you want, Katie?”
She chuckles. “I wanna have my own bakery. I mean—I already bake everyday anyway. I want those little bakeshops with chalkboard menus and customers that smile at each other.” She moves her hands as she speaks.
“Then what’s stopping you?” I ask. “I’d buy out your cookies every day until I’m legally or medically prevented from doing so.”
That makes her laugh.
“Oh, I don’t know. Fear? Practicality? The deep and unshakable belief that maybe I’m only good at things when no one’s watching?”
I tilt my head. “For what it’s worth, I’ve watched. You’re really good.”
She smiles, and it’s small but grateful. “Maybe someday,” she says. “I know it sounds like a lame dream, but I’ve always been more inclined to… softer things.”
I look at her as she continues, the moonlight bouncing off her face.
“I never understood why, when people talk about ‘living life,’ it almost always involves movement. Climbing mountains, diving into seas, dancing under neon lights and collecting passport stamps. It’s always loud, always fast, always out there.
You know? It’s like the value of life is measured by how many experiences you can cram into a lifetime. ”
That lands harder than I expect. Because she’s right. And I know. That kind of ‘living’ is what I’ve been sold my whole career. Bigger, louder, higher, faster. And even now—after all the success—I still sometimes feel like I’m not doing enough. Not living enough.
Then Kate continues, “I’m still learning to accept that ‘living fully’ doesn’t look like that for everyone.
For me, it’s slower. Quieter. More… still.
Like sitting on the couch with a book that I like.
Listening to a song I’ve heard a hundred times.
” She sighs, and adds, in the softest whisper, “Isn’t that living too? ”
I don’t answer, because I know she’s not done.
She takes a moment to pause, glancing at the world around her.
It’s cramped in this booth, but outside is a blur of lights and midnight silhouettes.
Kate looks at me, removes her glasses and wipes them on her sleeve.
She continues, “I can’t help but ask myself, though, if this version of living is what I really want.
If I really want to be a baker in a small town or someone who travels the world and collects fridge magnets.
I don’t even know if I really want to be a mother and have a family.
Until you asked me weeks ago, I always thought it was the default. ”
I watch her for a long moment. The way her brow furrows slightly, like she’s bracing for someone to disagree.
She sighs. “I don’t know. I can’t choose.”
“Katie,” I say gently, “you don’t have to choose.” I put my arm on the railing behind her, and tilt my body so I’m facing her.
“You can have both,” I say. “Or neither. Or something in between. You can want the slow mornings and the unknown cities. You can be the girl who builds a bakery and still boards a plane. You can live in the same town your whole life and still grow into a thousand versions of yourself.”
She doesn’t move, but when her eyes meet mine, they glisten like she’s holding a hundred feelings at once.
“There’s no one path to a meaningful life,” I say. “And definitely no rule that says soft people don’t get to live big, brave lives too.”
She’s still looking at me, and a tear falls from her right eye. I can’t help but reach out and wipe it away with my thumb.
“So go open a bakery,” I add, a smile tugging at my mouth.
“Be a preschool teacher. Or an athlete. Or a lion tamer. Or all of it at once. Change your mind ten times.” And then I pause, hand still on her cheek as I add, “Fall in love. Get married. Or don’t.
Just… whatever you choose, choose it because it’s yours.
Not because it fits the version of you everyone else decided on. ”
I take my hand off her face. Her warm, pink cheeks, and somehow the feel of her skin on mine radiates even after I’ve touched her.
Kate’s voice is a whisper when she says, “And if I do want a family someday?”
“Then I hope you build one,” I say. “And when you do… I hope you know you deserve to be happy in it. Not just useful. Not just present. Happy.”
And at the same time, my own advice clicks. I don’t have to define what life means outside of basketball. I can live multiple lives without worrying about how I’ll be perceived. I don’t even have to know what I want right now, but I can find out, slowly, when I’m ready.
“I hope you will be happy too, Mikey,” she adds with a gentle smile.
And then I feel… seen.
If this is what happens when I choose for myself, then maybe coming here is the best decision I’ve made in my life.