“You are late.” Mom’s three words of disapproval deafen me. At least she’s talking to me again, but when she does, it’s all anger and pain.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter. After practice, I still wanted a game. Nobody was playing at Tuxedo, so I caught the bus to the UAB. There I got a game against college players. I lost, but I’ll call it a win since I didn’t let myself get down getting beat by guys older and better than me.
“You need to sit down and study.” Mom points at the empty chair.
“Way I remember it, Mark never studied and he still went to college. So I don’t—”
“For less than one year.” Mom slaps my face with her words. I join Mom at the kitchen table, where she’s eating Dollar Store popcorn. It doesn’t pop, just like the cafeteria breakfast cereal. It seems nothing around here lives up to the hype. Not cereal, not snacks. Not Mark, maybe not me.
“Stuff happens,” I say. Mom’s hard look somehow grows harder. “It wasn’t his—”
“Luke, don’t you have studying to do?” Mom camouflages her command as a query.
I think about Mark. He was twice as good as me on the court. Now, he won’t even play. He’s too busy making green to bother with the orange ball. “Why didn’t you take Mark’s money—at least just until you can go back to work?” The question attacks her ears, but it is her back that Mom clutches like I’d stabbed her.
“I don’t want his dirty money in my house,” Mom says. I look around the small, empty apartment. This isn’t a house or a home. It is shelter from the storm of our endless poverty.
“But—” I get in one word before Mom blocks my sentence with a “shut-up” stare. The only things hotter than Mom’s angry eyes are Mark’s hundreds burning like hellfire in my pockets.
The more Mom talks, the worse I feel. She’s trying to inspire me to be better than Mark and Josh, but her words drag me down like a weight. “My back is killing me,” Mom moans.
“It will get better,” I say, not sure if I believe it, but I know I have to stay positive—always.