Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
CADEN
Sleep took its time last night, the way it always does when my leg won’t quite settle and every shift in bed feels like I’m dragging someone else’s limb around with me.
By seven thirty, I give up and get moving.
The shower sputters like it’s clearing its throat.
I wash fast, towel off, and seat myself on the edge of the bed to put on my liner and socket.
The motions are automatic—liner rolled smooth, limb guided down, the quiet click and seal as the carbon fiber shell seats into place.
I flex. It’s solid with no hotspots. The day will be cold-start stiff until I warm up, but that’s normal.
I reach for my athletic cover—the matte black one that disappears under shorts when I’m training—and snap it into place.
It feels like suiting up and coming home at the same time.
I text Cameron.
Me: The Roll in 15?
He texts back as I lace my sneakers.
Cam: Definitely. Bring your appetite and your terrible taste in coffee.
It’s not my taste that’s terrible. It’s The Roll’s coffee. That’s half the charm.
I cut through town on foot. Gomillion wears Saturday mornings well.
Sunlight unspools across Main Street, making the shop windows glow like they’re holding their breath.
The bell above The Roll’s door jingles when I push in.
The scent hits like a hug: butter, cinnamon, sugar, and a hint of burnt drip coffee.
There’s a banner behind the counter that’s probably older than some of the kids Theo trains, reading Voted Best Cinnamon Roll in the State for Over Twenty Years! Someone added, in Sharpie: They gave us the title for life and retired the category. I barely hold back my laugh.
Cameron already has a table by the window, all elbows and easy charm in a soft gray jacket and a T-shirt that probably cost more than my first month’s rent after college. His hair is immaculate. His grin isn’t.
“You look like a man who fought a mattress and lost,” he says as I drop into the chair across from him.
“I slept in a bed that had the springs of my youth,” I say. “It was nostalgic. And crunchy.”
He slides a plate toward me. Eight inches of spiraled sin glistens under a sheet of frosting, steam curling off the top like it’s performing for the camera. There are two forks and two paper cups of coffee that smell like they were brewed yesterday.
“I bought the wheel,” he says proudly. “And the state-sanctioned bad coffee.”
“Bless you,” I say, and pull the plate closer. The first bite is indecent. Sweet. Warm. A little yeasty, a little crispy at the edges. Joy in carb form. The coffee tastes like deadlines and determination. I drink it anyway.
Cameron watches me like he’s timing a split. “Scale of one to sacred?”
“Somewhere near baptism,” I say around another bite.
He laughs, then leans back and studies me. This is the part where he stops being my high school buddy and becomes the guy who negotiates with billionaires for breakfast. His eyes get a little sharper. He knocks softly on the table with his knuckles. “So. Eleven o’clock.”
“The alumni game.” I wipe my mouth with a napkin. “I saw it on the schedule.”
“Come on,” he says lightly. “Play. Ten, fifteen minutes. We’ll check with whoever’s wrangling team rosters. You start, you smile, you get out before your knee and residual throw a fit.”
I snort. “Oh, so you’re my trainer now?”
“God, no,” he says. “I like my body too much to put it through whatever you put your clients through.”
We share a grin. My chest loosens a little. It’s always easy with Cam: old rhythms and new respect. He helped thread my life back together when I let him back in. He also knows when to push.
I cut another forkful of roll, stall with a sip of terrible coffee. “It’s not about the leg,” I say. “It’s the… theater of it.”
“Then control the script,” he counters. “Wear shorts. Walk in like yourself. No hiding. No explanations. You’ll be on your terms.”
I know he’s right. I also know the difference between a San Francisco gym full of clients who know me and a small-town high school where the bleachers are stacked with the past. No one here has seen me on a court since I was a different person with two natural legs and a future that felt like it couldn’t break.
He sees it on my face and softens. “Listen,” he says.
“You love the game. You always will. Today doesn’t have to be a referendum on anything.
It’s five-on-five in a small gym with a whistle and a scoreboard that might still buzz wrong on odd-numbered days.
You’ll run, you’ll pass, you’ll shoot once or twice.
You’ll wave at people who once painted your name on poster board.
And then you’ll go heckle AJ for clapping off-beat. ”
His usual joking tone doesn’t quite land, but I don’t push him on it.
“You say that like he’s not going to turn this place into a minor celebrity sighting,” I say.
“Please,” he says. “He’s pretending to be my date. We plan to be aggressively boring.” He glances down at his phone as something shifts in his gaze, then back up at me. “You in?”
I look down at my plate. The roll’s half gone. The frosting’s found a home on my fingers. The coffee is cooling into something fearless folks might use to strip paint. I take a breath and let it out.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m in.”
Cam doesn’t fist-pump. He just nods, satisfied, like he knew he could land this before he ordered. “Good. I’ll text the coordinator. You’re starting.”
I blink. “We’re just giving me the ball right away?”
“You were born with it,” he says. “The alumni will survive the insult.” His grin slants. “And let’s be honest, you like starting.”
I do. The nerves lace into something else—a steadier hum. The part of me that lives in the rhythm of the game finds the beat again. Warm up. Check the floor. Feel the bounce. Read the angles. No pressure. No stakes. Just the thing I love, in the place that made me love it.
We eat in companionable silence for a minute. Outside, Main Street collects itself—shopkeepers flipping signs, a mom jogging behind a double stroller, a pair of teens gawking into the formalwear window at a wedding dress that looks like a chandelier.
Cam breaks the quiet with a fond groan. “I forgot how this town smells like grass and sugar at the same time,” he says.
“It’s the butter,” I say. “And the humidity.”
“And the ghosts of our bad decisions,” he adds.
“Oh, those,” I say. “They’re loud.”
He tips his chin at my leg. “Shorts today?”
I hesitate for half a heartbeat, then nod. “Shorts,” I say. “No use pretending. The kids should see it. The old crowd too.”
“You’ll handle it,” he says simply. “You always do.”
I wipe my hands, stand, and feel the familiar tug of the socket as I shift my weight. The first steps out of a chair are always the most honest ones: a quick inventory, a private negotiation. Today, everything answers yes.
We leave cash under the sugar shaker and step into the light.
“Meet you at the gym,” he says, slipping on sunglasses. “I’m going to collect AJ.”
“Say hi to your fake boyfriend.”
A frown dips his brows low for a beat before he replies, deadpan, “We prefer the term ‘temporary decoy.’”
I snort and wave him off as he slides into his car, windows down, some smooth R&B rolling out as he pulls away.
I stand there a second longer, let the town line up around me: the brick, the awnings, the dog tied to the bike rack, tail thumping like it’s part of the percussion.
I roll my shoulders back, turn toward the school, and start walking.
The “small” gym looks half the size I remember, which feels impossible.
Light spills through the high windows in diagonal bars, dust floating like static.
Bleachers line both sides. The scuffed varnish shines like a memory that got a fresh coat.
Banners climb the walls, a few new ones tucked in among the old.
The locker room still smells like damp cotton and detergent that gave up too soon.
A few alumni are already there, pulling on jerseys with the faded lettering spelling out FORMER on the back, talking about knees, kids, and early bedtime. Half the current varsity team has bounced in early, all long limbs and quick grins, their nervous energy snapping the air like rubber bands.
I nod hellos and a few how-you-beens, then duck into the locker room to change. The shorts feel familiar in my hands, but unfamiliar against the back of my thighs when I pull them on. I sit to tug my sock smooth on my intact side, then stand and look at myself in the mirror.
This is me. Not the before. Not the almost. Just me.
I step back into the gym with my warm-up tee in one hand and my bottle in the other. Conversations dip a fraction. Not silence—just a soft recalibration as eyes flick down, clock the hardware, and come back up. There’s surprise on a few faces. Curiosity on most. Pity on none that I choose to see.
Then someone whistles.
“North!” It’s one of the older guys—Ray Barker, power forward from our day, with the same broad shoulders and a dad bod that wears its history with pride. He grins. “Look at you. Still built like trouble.”
“High-fiber trouble,” I call back. “Powered by cinnamon rolls.”
Laughter bubbles out across the baseline. The tension diffuses another degree. I bounce the ball someone passes to me, feel the give of the floor, the return of the rubber. The first dribble is a handshake. The second, a promise.
I stretch along the sideline. Hamstrings.
Quads. Calf. Hip flexors. The residual limb doesn’t stretch the same way, so I work the muscles around it, take my time, feel the heat build.
The team manager rolls out a rack of balls, and I take my first shot from the right elbow.
Swish. The second hits back iron and drops.
The third misses left. I adjust my feet, lift through the core, and the next five sing.
There’s a whistle, and I turn.
Theo is there.