CHAPTER TWO
My head fell back as the doctor moved my ankle from left to right. I wanted to fake it as if the gnawing pain didn’t exist, but it did.
“Ah shit!” I yelled.
I lifted my head to see the worried look on my coach's face. He ran his hand slowly down his face as he halted on his jaw. “What does this mean?” he mumbled.
The doctor looked at him with uncertainty. “Well, it means more recovery time and less court time.”
I knew things were fucked up when that white boy stomped on my ankle.
This was my dream, something I prided myself on.
I worked hard to get here... only to be told a nigga couldn’t play.
Over the last two years, I’d had scouts come just to see me, and now, in the most critical moments of my basketball career, I couldn’t even play.
March Madness was coming up, and that was when things got real, and I was stuck with a fucking boot on my shit.
Even though my brothers never said it, I knew they were counting on me. Hell, I was counting on myself. In my eyes, it was ball or nothing. The doctor wrapped my ankle and put the boot back on. He scribbled some shit on his notepad.
“I’m going to refill your pain medication. The best advice I can give you, Mr. Keyton, is to rest up. Don’t do anything vigorous, and in due time, you will be back on the court,” he said as he ripped the paper off and handed it to me.
My coach reached out to me to help me off the table, but I shook him off. I was angry, agitated, and fucking embarrassed. I still hadn’t shared with him how this injury had truly happened. I stood from the table as I damn near hopped my way out of the room.
“Xavier, I think the doctor is right. You need to rest up. Yes, we can use you for the last part of the season, but it doesn’t mean this is the end. When you come back, you just have to come back strong,” he said after we had exited the building.
I stopped walking to look at him. “You know, it’s easy for you to say that.
In order for Black boys like me to make the league, especially coming from an HBCU, we have to work harder and put in more work to show them that coming from a Black university makes us no less worthy than those coming from a D-1 school.
The last thing I want is to end up like you: a fucking coach,” I told him as I made toward the car.
The spring semester was just about to start, and I was already ready for it to be over.
It was crazy how I started out as a healthy athlete, but now I was seen as a player whose chances of getting more injuries were high.
My brothers had been asking when I would return to the court so they could come to watch me play, and I had given them excuse after excuse, but I knew I couldn’t do it much longer.
Pulling off a sprain was one thing, but a fucking fracture was completely different.
Dio helped me by bringing me to my appointment, and that in itself was a lot. I missed riding my bike, being able to do some shit on my own.
“I see you’re still stuck in the boot. Damn, my nigga. What they say?” he asked as he took off as soon as I closed the door.
I glanced out the window, trying to figure out why this shit was happening to me. “Talking about a nigga got to sit the rest of the season out. How am I supposed to do that?”
He laughed. “Easy. Sit out. Look, I know you have this notion that basketball is the end-all, be-all, but have you ever thought about what would happen if you didn’t make it? I mean, shit, we’re going to look out for you in the Zoo, but then what?”
“Okay, Smarty-fucking-Arty.”
He shrugged. “Call it what you want. It’s your life, not mine. Shit, look at it like it’s a break. Just know when you do step back on the court, you’ve got some shit to prove, and go ham. In the meantime, get you a girl. What happened to Dark and Lovely? What’s her name?”
I laughed hard as hell. “Nigga, her name is Phoebe, and I don’t know. Haven’t got to know her yet.”
“You got plenty of time. Figure your shit out. I got my own problems to worry about,” he said as he pulled as close as he could to my dorms. “Look, fuck what everyone else thinks. At the end of the day, it’s your life. Not your brothers’, not the coach’s, not the Zoo’s, or a bitch’s.”
His bringing up my brothers did nothing but make me think more about the situation. I tried to keep my issues away from my brother Mison because he was on the road to recovery, not just from being hit by a car, but also toward his sobriety.
Jalen was understanding, but I didn’t want him to worry about me taking care of myself. He was already doing enough and had a future of his own. His girl went to TSU, and I was sure he was trying to create some form of stability for both of them.
Being part of the Zoo was a blessing because having a hand-picked family to have my back when I needed felt good at times.
However, it wasn’t their responsibility to cater to my needs, so I understood where he was coming from.
I needed to figure this shit out. I was on a full scholarship, so I knew I was cool with that, but being redshirted sucked.
We dapped each other up before I got out.
After, what was supposed to be a few-minute walk to my dorm turned into a twenty-minute struggle.
When I finally got to the dorms, the halls were full of people, from girls barely wearing any clothes to the niggas being wild because they could.
Normally, I would’ve been excited to interact, but I didn’t feel like being bothered.
I moved through the group of people until I got to my room. As soon as I stepped inside and closed the door, I was greeted by one of the football players putting his stuff in the wooden closet.
“Sup?” he mumbled.
I didn’t even bother to respond as I sat on my bed, relieving the pressure on my foot. “I told them I didn’t want a roommate,” I muttered.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah, well, neither did I, but I guess being an athlete doesn’t always get us what we want.”
I waved his ass off. “Shit, that’s what you think.”
He shrugged. “Look, I’m not here to be your friend. I’m riding on a scholarship just like you. I'm not in the business of arguing with a nigga about a room neither one of us owns. I got bigger issues.”
I pointed at him as my finger shook. “Percy Milton, defensive end. The ladies’ man, the man with field power. The nigga who talks a lot of shit but hasn’t moved anything. The same nigga who rides on his best friend’s coat tail.”
He slowly turned to me. “Xavier Keyton, six-foot-eight height and no flight. The number one shooting guard that Toussaint State has to offer. Sometimes he can play small forward, but we all know the nigga starts crying like a bitch when he doesn’t get his way.
The same nigga who’s probably slept with every girl in that hall, but now he’s at the mercy of the Lord, praying for healing. ”
I lay back on my bed thinking about what the nigga said.
The first thing that came to mind was to hit his ass, but all that would’ve done was put me in a much worse position than I was already in.
I guessed that as quickly as I judged him, he had done it to me.
This dormmate shit wasn’t going to work.
As soon as I got up with my coach tomorrow, I was going to let him know that one of us had to go.