Mercedes and Jade sat holding hands on a big green sofa in the corner of Halle’s basement. Music boomed around them, punctuated with laugher. The sounds of victory.
On the table in the middle of the crowded room sat the Pleasant Grove Girls High School Tournament trophy. One by one, Kat snapped photos of each player hugging and kissing the trophy.
“I want you up there with me,” Mercedes whispered into Jade’s ear.
“I didn’t do anything.” Jade pulled Mercedes closer. “Seriously?”
“I thought I’d lost everything, but you helped me find my way,” Mercedes said. She knew before the end of the season she needed to share the same words with Coach.
“You always had it.” Jade squeezed Mercedes’s hand. “Sometimes life gets blurry. That’s how I was before I met you, Mercy. Everything was blurry, like looking through a haze of smoke.”
Mercedes glanced at her phone, wondering if she wanted it to ring. Would it clear the haze from her life, not just for thirty-two minutes on the court, but for the rest of her days? “Mercedes, get to the hospital quick,” she imagined her mom’s words, “because Callie is—” But then she didn’t know which word would come next: Awake? Dying? Dead?
“So what’s next?” Mercedes asked Jade. “You should apply to Auburn. I am so in.”
Jade rolled her big brown eyes. “I can’t get into Auburn. You know that.”
While Jade had brought her grades up, Mercedes knew Jade’s first two years were nothing but tough Ds. Mercedes pulled the scout’s card out of her pocket. “What’s that?”
Mercedes told Jade about the scout speaking with her. “You have to go,” Jade said.
Mercedes rested her head on Jade’s shoulder. “What about us?”
Jade didn’t answer.
For all the clatter of the day’s victory, Mercedes knew her future held so much loss.