Chapter Three
Bee
“There is absolutely no way you’d pick Les Mis over Spring Awakening?!” My little sister, Celeste, yelled in the kitchen while her twin, Colette, shoveled more lumpia into her mouth at the dining room table.
“My name is literally in the show, Celeste, that was such a no-brainer!” Colette yelled back and adjusted her curly bun, currently half red and half white from an anime reference I knew nothing about, as it gradually became loose the more she fought.
“That was a brave choice to make, Nessie.” I taunted because it’s literally my job as the middle child.
With no twin of my own yet smack dab in the middle of two sets of them, I was raised to stir the pot, and then go back to being a fly on the wall.
I took much joy in starting shit then hiding my hand.
Besides basketball, antagonization might be my greatest gift.
“Dude, it’s the newlywed game! How do identical twins lose the newlywed game!”
“Because you somehow think I’m not vain enough to love a show because a character has my name!”
“Spring Awakening was your top-played album for the last five years! Are you kidding!” Celeste moved back to the table, now across from Colette and now it was my turn to get up.
As much as I loved instigating, I knew my little sisters enough to know the conversation would shift away from this current debate onto whatever the latest gossip was at their college theater program. Nothing ever lasted long with them.
“Finish up please, we need to get the A-Team from the airport,” I instructed authoritatively as the oldest person in the room.
Our mom was off at the community theater where she’d been a costume designer for as long as all five of her kids have been born, and our dad was heading over to perform in the orchestra for the yearly rendition of the Nutcracker.
“You know Aaliyah checked like three bags, we don’t have to be that prompt.
” Celeste mumbled around her food, her curly bangs no doubt hiding the massive eye roll she was giving.
While she was most likely correct, Celeste would pay you twenty dollars just to sleep in a little later.
The Lee prompt timing gene somehow made it to her twin but not to her.
“Tell that to Amir,” Colette retorted.Celeste raised an indifferent shoulder.
Our oldest siblings, Aaliyah and Amir, were the A-Team in both age, authority, and by name. If Celeste and Colette were attached at the hip, Aaliyah and Amir shared a brain, and I was just the court jester.
This was the last holiday break before the C-Team turned twenty-one, and all the Lee children were actually real life adults. Gross. I wanted this holiday break to go perfectly. The fights were inevitable, but the vibes must always remain high.
It was also the last holiday break that I came home a Jersey Jaguar, but I had yet to break the news.
I wish I could say when the idea hit me.
Maybe somewhere between learning Rashida was retiring, or actually becoming champions, the ache I’d been trying to bury in my chest—this incredibly inconvenient feeling of wanting to start over and try something new—became unbearable.
No smart person left a team right after winning their first ring, but I’d never been someone who followed what everyone else did—or logic, to be honest. My existence in this family was the biggest example of that.
The Lees were a family of dancers, musicians, actors, artists, you name it, and then there was me.
I couldn’t remember if the first time I touched a basketball a heavenly light from above shined down on me, or maybe the tectonic plates shifted, but all I wanted to do was have a ball in my hand, raise my arms to the net, and run back and forth for forty minutes.
I loved it when a play worked, when I could sink a three, when a rookie got the shine they worked hard for.
Everything about basketball just felt right.
It didn’t matter that I had to explain the rules to my family time and time again, it didn’t matter that sometimes not all of my siblings or parents could come to my games because of their own performances and showcases.
Basketball was the one thing I had in my family of seven, and I loved it fiercely.
From high school, to college, and now professionally, every team I was on felt like a pit stop. A time and place with an expiration date. High school ended, and so did college, and for the first time since I stepped onto a court, I could stay where I wanted for as long as I could.
And for once I had the itch to leave—but calling it an itch was undermining it. It was a rash that wouldn’t heal, it was the way my butt spasmed when I was on my period. It felt urgent, painful, uncomfortable. It just simply couldn’t be ignored any longer.
It felt surreal to acknowledge these feelings, less than three months after having my dreams come true.
From having my whole family in Jersey, decked in Jaguars jerseys and merch, to finally beating Nola Young, I should want to stay.
I should want to feel loyal, committed, grounded, and whatever else rational people feel.
But that’d never been me.
I’d long tuned out whatever my sisters were talking about at the table and tried not to tear up, a weird emotional reaction I had to being happy ever since game seven.
As the middle child I’d always been emotional, but it varied by who I was with.
If I was in the eldest sibling role, I got sentimental very fast, opting to take pictures at the most random moments just to have the ability to freeze a moment in time.
However, when I was with Amir and Aaliyah, my immaturity popped out quickly in a way I would say was embarrassing, but given the A Team were my agents and benefitted from the big checks from my big sponsorship deals, I could never feel that bad.
I needed someone to talk to. Someone who would get it. I needed my friends.
Before I lost the urge, I pulled out my phone and called Daniela Da Costa.
If there was anyone who’s an expert in starting over, it was her.
In seven years she’d been on three teams; her last trade to the Jaguars a willing move.
I used the long rings to sit out on the front porch away from my screeching sisters.
Danny’s entire face took up the camera on the last ring. “I didn’t know we were the FaceTime type.”
I shrugged. “What can I say? I miss your beautiful face.” I batted my lashes.
“Hey, don’t steal my woman, Bee!” I heard Perry, her fiancee and marketing director for the Jaguars, interrupt.
“Eh, she’s not my type anyway.” I said to her, totally ignoring the friend I actually called.
“So did you call to insult me, or?”
“Nah, I called to flirt with Perry.” I winked.
“She takes some girls home from the bar and thinks she can pull anyone, huh?” Danny rolled her eyes, knowing I’m kidding.
“I called because I think…I need your advice. In the least dramatic way possible—which is a lot coming from me, I know—but this feels like life or death.”
“Woah, okay, well, I mean everyone does say I’m wise for my age.”
“No one’s ever said that.” Both Perry and I corrected.
Danny nodded her head at our diss. “Okay, so I’ll just hang up!”
“No! Please! I’m being serious,” I whined.
“What’s up?”
“I think I’m getting the itch…”
“You should go to the gyno for that, Lee.”
“Ugh, no! Let me finish. I think I’m getting the itch to start somewhere new…” My last sentence sounded more like a question than a statement, but God forbid a girl gets nervous. I was met with resounding silence on the other side.
“Hello?” If it weren’t for Danny’s blinking, I would think the phone froze.
“This is the part where you tell me your thoughts.”
“My thoughts on you leaving a championship-winning team?”
“Yes…” I winced like I’ve been hit.
“And my thoughts on abandoning me!” Perry shrieked.
“Well no, it’s just…”
“First Rashida retiring, now you leaving. Where do you even want to go? Since when have you been feeling like this?” Danny peppered question after question without a break.
I knew she meant well, but I should have expected this reaction.
Of course anyone in this organization was going to feel like this—especially my two closest friends.
But I could be the player who stayed on the same team for the rest of my career, or I could push myself.
The idea of staying in one place too long sent a shiver down my spine.
“I just—I don’t know! I have this feeling that I want to start over again.
I loved being the underdog; I loved proving people wrong.
I want to start from scratch, I want to get in the mud, I really want to feel challenged.
” I felt raw, exposed, like I peeled off a layer of my chest or abdomen or wherever my souls sat in my body in order to feel understood.
I’d only been this vulnerable with my siblings.
But Perry and Danny were family too, and I needed them to understand how I felt.
“That probably doesn’t make sense, sorry.
” This wasn’t even a goodbye yet, and I felt the tears spilling down my cheeks.
I cried so easily it was extremely inconvenient.
At some point, Perry had stopped being off camera and came into full view. It reminded me of Rashida’s wife Allison—that fierce and loyal desire to protect her family—that’s when you knew she was being serious.
“That absolutely makes sense, Brittney.”
“I haven’t even told your dad or Trish. I’m a free agent this upcoming season and I just think it might be for the best.” I wiped my snotty nose onto my sleeves.
Danny came back into frame. “Then do what’s best for you.
Even if it does hurt my feelings.” She pretended to wipe a nonexistent tear away.
“But I appreciate you wanting to talk this over with me.” My friend smiled and the pressure in my head eased just a tad.
“Obviously you’d be missed, and all I want to do is convince you to stay and help us get another win. ”
“Obviously.”