Chapter 5 Colson
five
Colson
I’m crossing the street after grabbing the mail, minding my own business—well, trying to—when I hear her voice cut through the morning air.
“Colson!”
I close my eyes. Of course. Of course she’d show up the second I try to disappear back into the house.
The last few days have consisted of me binging shows on Netflix; something I didn’t have time for during the season or training.
I’m not doing any of that now. I turn around slowly, deliberately, because if I move any faster it might look like I care.
Sadie jogs toward me—ponytail bouncing, cheeks flushed from whatever work she’s doing. While I’m dreaming of coffee in an IV, she’s clearly been up for hours. She looks like the embodiment of morning. I look like someone who could barely survive this one. Fantastic match up.
“What?” I ask, not bothering to hide the rough edge in my voice.
“I, uh… need help,” she admits, and I’m already irritated because she looks nervous about asking me. Like I bite. Which, fine, maybe I do.
“With what?”
“A heavy cabinet in the storage room. Like ridiculously heavy. And the kids can’t get to the equipment until it’s moved.”
I try to get past the interaction. “I’m busy.”
Sadie looks at me with the mail in my hand, and her eyes linger longer on my somewhat disheveled hair. Like she knows I’m going to do nothing but rot in my bed.
“With mail?” she presses.
I stare at her. She stares back, trying to look unbothered but clearly bracing for me to double down on no. Not because she thinks I’m lazy. Because she thinks I’m mean.
“Don’t you have a boyfriend who can help you?” I ask because the last thing I need is some guy getting in my shit over something like this.
Sadie blinks slowly and time stretches between us. It’s like the mention of the word brings her down a notch—almost like a trick I may need to keep in my back pocket.
She breathes in, holding it for a second, before blowing it out—like she’s trying to keep her cool. “No, Colson. I don’t have a boyfriend.”
I don’t know why but that surprises me.
I should say no. I should absolutely say no. But I hear myself grumble, “Where is it?”
Her whole face lights up like I did something heroic. Christ.
Inside the community center, the air smells like gym floors and craft glue—like a childhood I didn’t really get to have. She walks ahead of me, talking with her hands, and I try not to notice how her hips sway or how she smells faintly like orange slices and something warm.
We step into the storage room and I take one look at the cabinet.
“This thing’s ancient. Why do you even have it?”
“Historic,” she corrects immediately. “And we’re a community based rec center. We take any and all donations… well, almost all. Once, someone tried to donate a bunch of mismatched shoes and how does one even end up with individual shoes—”
I sigh, looking at her, and it’s enough to get her to stop as soon as her eyes meet mine. They’re light, almost the color of brown sugar.
If I use my legs, and my good arm for the lifting, I should be okay. My other arm can simply guide and keep it in control. I was only wearing the sling when I was with the team, needing to protect myself from a rogue ball coming my way.
“Where are we moving it?” I ask, hands on my hips, taking in the orderly chaos around me. Plastic bins with kids’ names on labels, ones that probably change as the year goes on. Shoeboxes with extra socks. A desk off to the side where she probably works every once in a while.
“Like ten feet that way,” Sadie points, past the door to where it will no longer be blocking the door.
Nodding, we crouch down to lift. Slowly we stand, keeping eye contact to maintain the same pace. She smiles through the concentration as we start to move—me walking backward, her forward—and fuck, she’s pretty.
Her face lights up and she says, “This is good.”
We slowly lower it to the ground and right before I’m in the clear, a bite of pain nips at my shoulder. I clench my jaw through it.
She notices. Of course she notices. “Shoulder okay?” she asks, all soft and concerned.
Part of me wants to ask her how she knows it’s my shoulder, but if she knew who I was, I’m guessing she knows about my injury. “It’s fine.”
Sadie raises a brow like she doesn’t believe me for a second. “You’re compensating.”
That makes me look at her. Really look at her. “Let me guess, when you’re not wrangling kids at the rec center, you moonlight as a doctor?” I ask.
She shifts her weight to one leg, hands on her hips, and shakes her head. “My dad was a college basketball coach. I grew up listening to him talk about player injuries and seeing them first hand.”
Okay, I didn’t expect that. Didn’t expect her to understand anything about the hell of recovery. It looks like she was going to continue but she stopped herself. Something shifts in me—something I don’t want to name.
Before I can respond, the hallway erupts with the door opening and then complete kid chaos.
“Oh my gosh, it’s him—”
“COACH SADIE—”
“He’s SO TALL—”
I freeze like someone pulled a fire alarm in my chest. Sadie leaps in front of them. “No ambushing strangers. Outside please!”
They scatter, still whispering about me at full volume. I drag a hand over my face. I don’t know what I thought would happen when I got here, if I’d be able to hide away and be a secret recluse or what. I’m not even sure what I wanted.
“Sorry,” she says, a little breathless. “They’re excited.” She shrugs her shoulders. “Older group, so there are some basketball fans, some that may recognize you, I’m guessing.” She gives me a sad thumbs up that I think is supposed to make me feel better.
“Whatever you say.”
Sadie tips her head towards the antique cabinet. “You’re surprisingly helpful for someone who scowls as a hobby,” she teases.
I should ignore that. I should walk away.
Instead I hear myself say, “It’s a talent.”
Her smile hits me like a chest blow. I recover quickly, stepping back, putting distance between us before she can make me do something else stupid—like smile back.
“Thanks,” she says quietly. “There’s a door if you want to sneak out the back.” Sadie points down a hallway.
I grunt something noncommittal and head for the door.
And the worst part? I can feel her watching me walk away. I hate—hate—how much I want to look back.
I’ve been in Golden Harbor a week and have only left my place once to get groceries. The only place I’ve existed is in the confines of this house. One that’s starting to haunt me. Looking for a coffee mug, I put my hand deep in the cabinet, pulling one from the back.
I expect it to be one of the matching mugs I’ve used previously—clearly a set my mom purchased.
But instead, I’m looking at a picture of me and my mom.
A mug I got her when I was probably twelve that features the two of us at one of my basketball league championships.
I’m all awkward and too tall for my age and she beams, still wearing her shirt from waiting tables at the diner.
My mom loved coffee mugs. She always seemed to collect them but would still stick to her same three to four favorites, this being one of them. The idea of her keeping it all this time has me grasping at air, fighting for it.
Grief is a funny thing… in the sense that it’s not funny at all.
It’s dodging uppercut punches and kicks to your teeth while you’re scrambling back.
Grief doesn’t care how strong you are or how many minutes you played last season or how many times you pretended you were fine on national television.
It just hits. Without warning, without mercy.
Taking a step back, my back hits the kitchen island and I slide to the floor, leaning against it.
I pull my knees into my chest and put my head between, trying to get air.
My hands tremble as the tightness digs deeper into my muscles, infiltrating the ligaments and tendons—the things that keep me physically together—and I feel the sharpness of its nails.
Rubbing my hands together, I try to steady the shaking. My chest keeps tightening, compressing, folding in on itself like a collapsing tent. I can’t get in a deep enough breath. My throat burns. My eyes sting.
I press the heels of my palms into my eye sockets, willing myself to get it together. To breathe. To not fall apart in a kitchen painted the exact shade of yellow she picked because she said it made her feel like the perfect summer day.
It’s been months and I haven’t cried since the funeral, haven’t let myself. Crying feels too final. Too much like admitting she’s really gone and that this house—this stupid, bright, too-quiet house—is all I have left of her.
The mug stares back at me from the counter like a dare. Like a reminder. Like the wound you forget about until you hit it just right.
A sound escapes me—something between a breath and a choke. I pull my knees tighter, trying to cage the shaking before it gets worse.
It doesn’t work. I bow my head, fingers digging into my hair, and let the weight roll through me. The regret. The pressure. The loss. The stupid, suffocating ache of missing someone who saw every version of me and loved me anyway.
The sting behind my eyes finally breaks, tears dripping down my cheeks. I don’t wipe them away. What’s the point?
I don’t know how long I sit on the floor, letting myself finally shatter in a place where no one will see me.
No cameras. No teammates. No commentary. No one.
Just me, a picture on a mug, and the kind of grief that comes in waves—a current you can’t swim against.
When the shaking slows, I drag in a breath—thin, jagged, enough to keep me upright. My head thunks lightly against the cabinet behind me, the wood cool against my overheated skin.
I stare at the mug again. A memory buried in the decades. And even now, I can hear her asking me, “What are you going to do?” That was what she’d say every time I came to her with something she thought I was capable of handling. Most of the time she was right.
“I’m trying,” I whisper to no one. To her. To myself. “I’m trying.”
I’m not sure if that’s a lie or a promise.