Chapter 21
Of course, Jadea answers immediately and says she’s on her way. I use one of my shoes to prop the door open so she can come right in. It feels right, considering she’s not used to knocking.
I gave Jadea my room number, and when she arrives, I’m sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed. The tears have dried and crusted my cheeks. My thoughts keep cycling, imagining all the places I’ve gone wrong. All the mistakes I made in the name of fear.
How do Largers face a problem?
They don’t.
I peek up at her from the corner of my eye as she comes in. She looks run-down. Her braids are pulled into a halfhearted top knot, and she’s wearing sweatpants and slides. She doesn’t say anything, just closes the door behind her, tosses my sneaker aside, and slides down the bed to sit next to me.
There’re a few heartbeats of silence.
Jadea breaks it, like she always does. “How could you do that to us, Annie? We needed you.” Her words are laced with hurt, accusation.
The gut reaction is to say we might have lost those games either way, but I push it down.
Either way, I ran away from my best friend without a word.
“I’m so sorry. I thought I was protecting the team,” I find the courage to say, guilt almost choking me.
“I saw how you were all fighting when the news broke. If my girls doubted me, how could we play together? How could we play normally if you all thought I was a cheater? What if we lost because of me?”
Jadea is quiet for a moment, looking around the room. Abruptly, she turns to face me, swiveling her whole body. “In the end, Annie, you’ve been thinking about this all wrong.”
I flinch a little. “I know, I know. I probably don’t have as much of an impact as I think—”
Jadea cuts me off. “No, listen! You will always have an impact. When it comes to those games, we’ll never know.
Maybe your impact would have been bad, like you imagined.
Maybe your impact would have been great, like I imagined.
” I crack a smile at that. “The truth is: you’ve inherited a family.
You might not claim the Smiths, and Trenton sure tried hard not to claim you, but you’ll be associated with that family of billionaires forever. ”
I cringe away from her brutal honesty. She notices and soldiers on enthusiastically.
“That’s what I mean: you’re thinking about this all wrong.
We’ve been thinking about this all wrong.
All the press about you and the WNBA, we should use it to our advantage.
Your name is now associated with money, privilege, and power.
Journalists, social media influencers, even old-fashioned newspapers will want to hear from you.
People will want to hear from you.” I cock my head, considering.
She sees she has my attention, gesturing wildly with her hands.
“You don’t have to just talk about your family.
You can help the league, help women athletes, help anyone you want.
You’ve always had a voice in this league, more than some of us do, so use it! ”
She deflates a little after the rush of energy, waiting for me to respond.
I let what she said really sink in before slowly nodding in agreement.
“I know you’re right. If I could let go of my fear and self-doubt, I could help change this league for the better.
Maybe the Smith family name can even help me do that.
” I shudder a little at the idea, but admit, “I really want to be braver. Just like you are every day.” She grabs my hand and squeezes it gently. I squeeze back.
I remember sitting in Trenton’s office, genuinely excited by the idea of him setting up a fund for young women and non-binary athletes. He won’t be keeping that promise to me, but could I do something similar? To help women athletes myself? Will I ever see any of the Smith money? Do I even want it?
Jadea breaks through my swirling thoughts. “We have to talk about Daniel now.”
It's an unavoidable conversation, but an important one. I nod at her to keep going.
The words come tumbling out in a rush. “The games, the scandal, I might understand. Trenton was ruining your life and disrupting the team. Maybe it would have distracted everyone even more if you had played. I don’t know.
” Impossible situation after impossible situation.
“But, Daniel…” I’m shocked to hear the hurt in Jadea’s voice.
The hush that falls over her, the way she avoids my eyes, lets go of my hand.
“How could you not tell me? Then or now? What did I do wrong?”
I take a deep breath, trying to focus. Finding the right words should be easy, but that’s never been my strength.
I turn to look her in the eye. “I wanted to tell you, deep down. Something incredible was happening in my life, and it killed me that I wasn’t saying anything. That I was lying by omission.”
It’s true. All of it. Every day, I’d end our FaceTime call and wonder why I couldn’t just spit it out. Why did I feel tongue-tied? Awkward?
I hold her gaze, forcing myself to continue.
“Jadea, you’re my best friend in the world.
You’re loud, funny, compassionate, a natural-born leader.
I want you on the court with me, I want you shopping with me and forcing me to try on a fuzzy bucket hat, I want you going to dinner with me and our moms. When you moved to St. Louis, to my school, I felt saved.
By you and basketball. Suddenly, we were a duo.
The Jadea and Annie show. You spoke for both of us, and I liked it that way.
We agreed on most things anyway; we understood each other.
” I take a deep breath. “But when you left Stanford, I had to adjust. I suddenly had all this space in my life that I didn’t know what to do with.
” I’m relieved to find Jadea watching me, actually listening.
“I had to be the leader of our basketball team, facing a serious letdown in expectation and enthusiasm since you graduated. I had to listen to you talk about Nike shoe deals and TIME Magazine spreads, all while I was feeling anxious about going to a simple college party. And so, when Daniel and I got together…I kept it to myself. I was used to you setting me up on blind dates or calling me up to the karaoke stage or slipping people my number, and I guess I was worried what you would think. What if you hated Daniel? What if the one time I tried on my own, I chose wrong? What if you wanted me to be your single best friend and nothing more?”
The words are just as hard as I expected. When you love someone, it’s hard to say anything critical. But the truth was that Jadea sometimes eclipsed me.
And it was my fault for letting her.
I’m not surprised to see Jadea’s expression grow furious, but what she says does surprise me.
“Annie, you’re not the only one who struggled that year apart.
I may have achieved a lot of my dreams, but I was also away from my best friend in the world.
I was being followed by paparazzi. People on social media were commenting racist or homophobic things on my posts.
Commentators were constantly analyzing whether I was ‘worth the hype. ’” Furious tears waver in her eyes, but she doesn’t let them fall.
She hates crying. “I should have asked you about your love life, but I never did, and it’s not because I wanted you to be just my best friend.
It’s because I wanted the Stanford years to stay perfect in my memory, to never change.
I didn’t ask what had changed in your life because I didn’t want those memories of us playing together to be tarnished.
And when you finally graduated, all I wanted was for you to come to St. Louis so we could start our life together.
I thought I might feel that same joy and comfort if we were together again.
And I did. That’s all that mattered to me.
I’m sorry I wasn’t thinking about how hard it was for you to be left behind. ”
I remember those conversations about me moving to St. Louis to work with Jadea, even if I wasn’t drafted. How she seemed excited about slotting me into her new life. Now, I can see she was just anxious for a familiar face. For something in her life not to be catapulted into the public arena.
I scoot closer to her, pulling her into a fierce hug.
I press our cheeks together, wrap my arms around her shoulders, squeeze her tightly.
“I’m sorry, too. I guess we were both afraid of change.
” I pull away, gesturing to the room. “That’s how I ended up in this motel room.
I couldn’t adapt. I couldn’t figure out what I wanted, so I just froze. ”
“And now?” Jadea watches my face. “Did you figure it out?”
I smile for her. It feels freeing. “I know what I want to say, Jadea, finally. I can’t be afraid to talk to the people I love.
I can’t be afraid to stand up for myself.
Trenton is basically ruined after Daniel’s show.
It’s time for me to tell my side and stop worrying if I say the right thing.
In fact, I might say exactly the wrong thing, but that’s okay.
I need to try.” I nudge her shoulder playfully.
“But I’m not some new person. You can still do most of the talking at press conferences. I hate those things.”
She laughs, wiping at her eyes. “Some things never change. But some changes are good.” She regards me seriously, her brown gaze holding mine. “Daniel is one of the good ones. He’s not perfect, but he’s good. And that’s what matters.”
I’m sniffling a little now, too. “I ruined things between us, Jadea. I accused him of trying to control my life after he told you about our relationship. He had all these plans for me, and I was so overwhelmed, I snapped. But he was just trying to help.”