3. Not So Sweet Serendipity
3
Not So Sweet Serendipity
Rockwell
I ’m finishing up one of my papers for the Curriculum and Instructional Design class I’m taking this semester. This is my first assignment and class with this professor, but these upper-level education classes that I thought were going to be grueling, have been so fucking interesting. Doing the coursework has actually been fun. The semester has just started, but with it being volleyball season now, I can’t afford to get behind on classwork.
Choosing history as my major is something everyone’s on my ass about, but it’s the only subject that keeps my interest long enough for me to comprehend it. Not long ago, I decided to go down the education route to become a high school teacher and, hopefully, a coach one day. More things these rich fucks don’t understand. Maybe if they shared some of that wealth of theirs with the teachers and schools, or just put it back into the communities, our education system wouldn’t be so pathetic. Teachers being heavily underpaid is a major issue in our country, but I have a passion for history and helping kids find the same love I have for it as well.
If I hadn’t had the caring and compassionate teachers that I had all throughout my earlier years, I could have easily slipped through the cracks and become just another drop-out statistic. Having two working parents and a younger sister that requires more care and attention than myself, it sometimes felt like I was pushed to the wayside. The teachers helped pick up any of that slack and mold the man I am today. I want to be able to do that for other kids.
Shutting my laptop and setting it on my desk, I start getting ready to head to the gym. I find one of my Nickelback cropped tees, five-inch inseam athletic shorts, and my lifting shoes and head into the bathroom. I have some unruly hair. I re-wet it to get some of the curls to form again and throw a little gel in it as well. Can’t forget to stop by my full-length mirror to get a picture. I am the brand rep for the shorts I have on, and I can never pass up an opportunity to throw a rep code out.
?? On my way out, I grab my volleyball bag that has all the shit I’ll need for practice after I get done lifting. Not that I’ll be getting a ton of playing time if we’re not just running drills. This not having a partner shit is already getting old.
Heading down the front steps after locking my apartment door, I pull my phone out and call my mom. I haven’t talked to her in a day or two. I try to call and check in at least every other day, mainly to make sure my younger sister, Liliana, isn’t driving my parents completely insane.
My mom, Cassandra, picks up on the second ring. “Hi, Filho , how are you today?” I love hearing my mom speak Portuguese. I miss it so fucking much. I feel a little guilty; I haven’t told her or my dad what happened with Sanders. I’m so in denial it’s not even funny at this point.
I grab the door handle to my basic as fuck Toyota Camry—it may be basic but this thing has gotten me anywhere I’ve needed to go these past three years. “I’ve been better, Momma.” Fuck, I sound so defeated. This isn’t me. I need to get my shit together. I’m still on the team and have my scholarship and health. I need to stop the sulking .
“What’s happened, Rockwell?”
“My partner got in trouble with the law, so he got kicked out of school and, of course, off the team.” I pause for a minute, but she doesn’t fill the silence. She just leaves me the room to keep venting. “I still have my scholarship, and I’m at the top of the list for the alternates, but it just sucks. I have goals, and not being able to play because of Sanders being a pig, royally screws with those plans.” I shouldn’t be talking on the phone and driving, so I quickly throw my Airpod in so I can still talk but have both hands free.
“ Foder, I’m so sorry, Rocky. When did this happen?” I let out a schoolgirl giggle; it’ll never not be funny hearing my mom cuss like a sailor.
“Yesterday. This will be the second practice on the sidelines watching. I’m trying to make the best of it and hit the weights even harder to stay ready if I get the opportunity.”
“That’s all you can do. You call if you need something, okay?”
“I will, Momma, amo você. ”
“A mo você, and always will with everything in me.”
I couldn’t have asked for better parents. They did everything they could, and still do, to give my sister and me the best life we could have. We weren’t rich by any means, but the love we have as a family is overflowing. At times, their relationship makes me want to vomit, especially when my dad, Joesph, is at my mother’s feet at all times. When she moved to the states for him so they could get married, he took her last name so she could “keep some of her ancestry from Brazil.” They say it was love at first sight, and to this day, they’re still obsessed with each other. They make my standards for relationships pretty much unattainable.
I park in one of the closest spots since I’m the first one here due to lifting before practice instead of after. If I’m pissed off enough, I’ll even hit some cardio after to blow off the extra steam.
My entire workout flies by, and before I know it, I’ve gone through my whole leg day, and I’m making my way toward the gym we’re practicing in. Hopefully, Coach wants to run drills today; I don’t want to sit on the sidelines and watch them scrimmage. I want in on the action.
I head to the locker room to get my pads on and take out my nose ring and earring—it’s my favorite one. An upside-down dangling cross. I find it beyond comical when the ladies at Momma's church glare at me when they realize what it is. Every time I wear it she tells me to stop antagonizing them, and every time, all I do is laugh.
We fly through warm-ups and start to pepper around to loosen up some more. Coach calls out that we are going to be scrimmaging this practice, and I huff out with the most dramatic eye roll I can muster. Coach looks at me but doesn’t say anything; he knows how I’m feeling.
Jax and Clayton are on one side, scrimmaging one of the junior teams. It’s been a tight game so far and fairly entertaining, I will give them that.
The juniors serve and send a rocket over the net. Jax passes it to the front of the net beautifully, right into Clayton’s waiting hands. Clayton sets it at the perfect height for where Jax is on the court. Jax takes off in his approach, but on that second step he doesn’t land right, and he hits the ground, grabbing his knee before he makes it to his third step.
The ball hits the ground right in front of him. The sound resembles a bomb on the quietest of battlefields.
Theo, our athletic trainer, comes barreling out from the staffing offices and lands on his knees beside Jax, who’s been inconsolable since he hit the ground. But once those first hushed words are passed between Theo and him, he’s instantly calmed.
What the fuck is going on there?
You know what, I don’t even want to know. I have enough to worry about already.
I lock eyes with Clayton across the gym, and for the first time since I’ve met him, I know the two of us are thinking the same thing. “There’s no fucking way.”