Made Choices
The late afternoon heat softened under the shade of the oak trees lining the park’s walking path. Cicadas buzzed in the distance. Children’s laughter rose from the nearby playground, where Julian toddled his way up a too-big plastic slide and grinned proudly at his parents from the top like he’d conquered Everest.
Rana sat on the bench, one hand absently cradling a water bottle against her thigh, the other shielding her eyes as she squinted toward the jungle gym.
Tyrell stood behind her, arms crossed, wearing the kind of quiet that only came from knowing when not to speak.
“He’s not getting better,” Rana said. It came out like it had been waiting for hours.
Tyrell didn’t ask who.
“He’s been in and out the ER all month,” she continued, voice low. “They told Mama he probably has weeks. Maybe days.”
Tyrell stepped forward and sat beside her. Julian’s squeals echoed behind them.
Rana’s shoulders sank. “Reg been a lot of things. But he’s still my brother.”
Tyrell didn’t look at her. Just nodded.
“It’s like we cursed,” she whispered. “Romeo gone. Daddy in Angola. Reg about to die. Ro…” She trailed off.
“Still here,” Tyrell offered.
“Yeah, and the last one standing’s the one that don’t even know how to let people love him.”
Julian let out a victorious yell as he made it to the bottom of the slide, clapping his own hands. Tyrell smiled faintly. But Rana’s eyes didn’t leave the dirt at her feet.
“We’re a Louisiana family through and through,” she said. “Black as they come. And somehow it still feels like we only get one. One man in the family who gets to really live. Who gets out.”
“You saying that’s Ro?”
“I’m saying he’s the only one who’s still got a shot.”
Tyrell nodded slowly, weighing the words before speaking. “You know he thinks your mama chose Reg every time, right? Reg or Romeo.”
Rana blinked. “What?”
“He won’t say it, not in so many words. But he carries that shit like it’s carved into him. Every phone call missed. Every visit skipped. Every time she told him to be patient ‘cause Reg was going through it.” Tyrell exhaled. “He feels like she never chose him. Not once.”
Rana sat with that for a moment. The wind shifted, and a leaf floated down between them.
“She used to say he didn’t need as much,” Rana murmured. “Said he was strong. Smart. That she didn’t have to worry about him the way she worried about Reg.” Her mouth curled, bitter. “Maybe that’s what broke him.”
Tyrell rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands together. “I don’t know how to fix that. I don’t think she does either.”
Rana glanced over at him. “You think I’m wrong? Wanting him to make peace with everything?”
Tyrell’s jaw worked. “I think peace ain’t a thing you give somebody. It’s something they gotta find when they’re ready.” He paused. “But you can help him stop running from it.”
Julian came barreling toward them, arms wide, cheeks flushed with joy. Rana scooped him into her lap and kissed his temple.
“I just don’t want him to die angry,” she said softly.
Tyrell didn’t ask who she meant this time.
Because they both knew—there were too many names, and only one left that mattered.
~~~~~~~~~~
The lights in the studio were dim, the only glow coming from a massive screen at the front of the conference room. Royce sat back in a leather swivel chair, arms folded across his chest, eyes locked on the flickering footage in front of him.
A slow-motion shot played: a young wide receiver catching passes in the dusky glow of a makeshift field in Donaldsonville. The camera panned to cleats kicking up mud, then to an old man in a folding chair yelling encouragement, and finally to the boy’s face—focused, lean, beaming through the grime like it was armor.
The voiceover cut in, deep and measured:
“Before they saw stars, we saw soil.”
Royce shifted in his seat.
Delpit sat a few chairs down, leaning forward, hands clasped, grinning. “That line right there? That’s what sells it. That’s what people respond to. Real story. Real roots.”
The video continued. A montage of three Louisiana high school players—each younger than Royce—lifting weights, running stairs in stairwells that looked like old projects, praying with mothers at the dinner table. Then came a flash of the product itself—a regional soda brand wrapped in retro design, bottled in nostalgic pride.
Delpit turned to Royce. “You see it, right? This ain’t just a sponsorship. This is legacy branding. This is Russell Westbrook to LeBron James, Ro. This is turning you from a star into a symbol.”
Royce let the words hang.
He didn’t dislike the footage. It was clean. It was powerful. But it wasn’t him.
They played gospel chords behind a shot of a kid tying his cleats under a bleacher like he was suiting up for war. Then the camera floated to an aerial view of the Mississippi River. A soft swell of brass instruments rose under a narrator saying, “We weren’t made in labs. We were made in backyards.”
Delpit smiled. “The campaign’s called ‘Roots and Rise.’ That sound like you?”
Royce raised an eyebrow. “They showing the rise. Ain’t no roots.”
Delpit looked at him.
Royce leaned forward. “You know what my backyard looked like? That dirt had blood in it. My roots? That’s my daddy in the bing up the river. That’s old heads on the side the road smoking rock, young niggas selling pills, weed, pussy, everything. That’s my little sister asking what happens when people die ‘cause she too scared to ask if it’s gonna be me next.”
The room fell quiet.
Royce sat back again, jaw tight. “Ain’t nobody wanna market that, though.”
Delpit exhaled slowly, measured. “You’re not wrong. But here’s the thing—you don’t have to show it all. Just let them know it was there. Enough to feel the weight without them needing to carry it.”
Royce stared at the screen as the video faded to black.
The campaign’s tagline blinked into view: “From what we were to what we are.”
He felt a flicker—of pride, maybe. Or guilt. Or the rot, as he called it, humming low in his gut.
Delpit watched him closely. “Look, Royce. You play your heart out every Saturday. You knock the breath outta running backs and stand tall like nothing touches you. But this—this is what gives people something to hold on to.”
Royce didn’t respond at first. He reached for a bottle of water, twisted the cap off, and took a long sip.
“I’ll think about it,” he finally said.
Delpit smiled and clapped his hands once. “That’s all I’m asking. Think about what it means to not just be seen, but to shape how they see you.”
Royce stood. He looked once more at the blank screen, then turned toward the door.
“Just don’t let ‘em white wash me,” he muttered.
Delpit called after him, amused, “Nobody clean, Royce. That’s what makes it sell.”
Outside, the sky had just started to dip into gold. Royce paused before stepping off the curb. Somewhere behind the screen and the slogans and the rise, his roots were still tangled deep in the ground he never asked to grow from.
But he was still standing. And maybe that was something.
~~~~~~~~~~
The soft hum of the Roux Interiors office mingled with the rhythmic tapping of keyboards and the low shuffle of fabric swatches being flipped. Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the tall windows, pooling gold across Alix’s desk and casting shadows on the carefully arranged samples she’d spread out: soft white linens, sleek brass hardware, clay-toned tile.
She stared at her monitor, the cursor blinking in rhythm with the tightness coiled behind her eyes. The moodboard on the screen was clean. Polished. Safe.
And it bored the hell out of her.
Her client had asked for a “modern home with old soul.” What she’d given them was modern, sure. Streamlined. Trend-aware. But where was the soul?
Alix blew out a breath and sat back in her chair. Around her, her coworkers buzzed in muted collaboration—someone murmuring something to a vendor on speaker, Jules gliding by with an armful of sample books.
She stared at the screen again. Then, quietly, she hit delete.
Gone was the white-and-oak minimalism. Gone were the magazine-ready neutrals. She opened a new file, rolled up her sleeves, and reached for a folder she hadn’t touched in months—one filled with her own photos. Images of porches sagging with stories. Paint chipped to just the right imperfection. Her grandmother’s old armchair, deep gold with frayed piping.
She let herself wander.
A deep green backsplash like bottle glass caught in sunlight. A wallpaper print that reminded her of her aunt’s front room in New Roads—faded magnolias on soft cream. Copper light fixtures. Mismatched bar stools. A vintage print of Irma Thomas framed beside a sleek modular shelf.
She lost track of time.
When she finally clicked save, the screen glowed with something new. A layered warmth. A voice that hadn’t been speaking before.
Her boss, Renee, paused behind her. “That it?”
Alix nodded, hesitant.
Renee leaned closer, arms crossed, eyes narrowing slightly as she took it in. Then she nodded once, her expression softening. “You’re starting to let yourself speak.”
Alix blinked. The compliment settled somewhere beneath her ribs—foreign, but not unwelcome.
“Thanks,” she said, voice quiet.
Renee clapped her shoulder gently and moved on.
The office began to empty as the day wound down. Alix closed her laptop and gathered her things slowly, as if not to disturb whatever fragile momentum she’d built. She stepped outside into the warmth of a Baton Rouge evening that smelled faintly of cut grass and car exhaust.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from Co:
How’s your day been?
Alix paused, thumb hovering.
Then typed:
Better than yesterday.
She hit send.
No emoji. No extra words. Just the truth, in the cleanest way she knew how to say it.
And somehow, that was enough.
~~~~~~~~~~
Mike had done the math three different ways on the bus ride over. Even took out his notes app and scribbled numbers in the margins of a text thread he never planned to send. Didn’t matter how he spun it—he was short. And this time, not just by a couple hundred. The hold on his account felt heavier than usual, like a lock he couldn’t jimmy with a favor or finesse with another late-night phone call to the bursar’s office.
The fluorescent lights in Northwestern State’s financial aid office were bright enough to burn. Made the cheap chairs look cheaper. A woman behind the plexiglass partition looked up as he stepped forward, tired hoodie hanging off one shoulder, backpack tugging at the other.
“Hi, I’m—uh, I’m here about a hold on my tuition?” he asked, keeping his voice even. “Michael Broussard.”
She clicked a few keys. “Student ID?”
He recited it from memory. Had it etched into the back of his eyelids by now.
More clicking.
Then a pause.
Her brows furrowed just enough to make his stomach tighten. “It looks like... the hold’s been cleared.”
Mike blinked. “What?”
“There was a payment posted to your account last night. Covers tuition and fees through graduation.”
He leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing. “From who?”
She shook her head. “Just says third-party scholarship fund. That’s all I’ve got.”
Mike stepped back, mouth slightly open. “A scholarship?”
“That’s what the system says.”
She handed him a printed confirmation, and he stared at it like it was in another language. Through graduation. The words bled together. One less thing to fight for. One more reason to feel like he was slipping behind.
He muttered a thank-you, backed away from the window, and drifted toward the exit without feeling the door hit him. Outside, the air hit different—humid and warm, like most days in Natchitoches, but now it felt thick with some emotion he didn’t have a name for.
It wasn’t relief. Not exactly.
He sat on a bench just off the quad, staring down at the screen.
That you?
Sent to: Ro
The read receipt popped up almost immediately.
No reply.
Mike sighed, thumb still hovering over the screen. “Ain’t nobody ask you to do all that,” he muttered. The sentence came out heavier than intended, somewhere between accusation and awe.
He leaned back on the bench, letting his head tilt toward the sky. Trees swayed. Voices drifted by in the distance. And for the first time in weeks, he didn’t feel like his world was going to crack in half.
The gratitude stayed quiet in his chest, beating slow but steady. Maybe that was the point. Royce wouldn’t say it out loud. Wouldn’t ask for thanks. He never did.
Mike pulled a napkin from his backpack and a half-broken pen from his pocket. Scribbled the amount on it without thinking.
Then folded it and slid it next to the worn photo of his mom tucked in his wallet—right where it belonged.
~~~~~~~~~~
The sun bled gold across campus, draping the quad in that soft hush of late afternoon light. It was the kind of hour that made everything look better than it was—statues more noble, grass more vibrant, even cracked sidewalks took on a kind of grace.
Royce walked through it like a shadow with no place to fall. His LSU hoodie hung loose off one shoulder, a lanyard swinging low from his pocket. His cleats had long been swapped for slides, and he moved slower now, not because he was tired—but because he didn’t feel like speeding up for anybody.
He should’ve gone home. Should’ve let the NIL team gas him up some more, maybe hit the group chat with a quick flex—we up, or bag season—like he usually did after those sit-downs. But this one sat different. The “Roots and Rise” spot played back in his head in loops: little boys tossing footballs in sugarcane fields, slow-motion cuts of battered cleats on church steps, Royce staring into a cracked mirror as narration played overtop.
“From struggle came strength…”
From somebody else’s script.
They'd made it beautiful. But it wasn’t his.
Across the quad, a tripod stood planted like a watchtower. Behind it, Effie knelt with a quiet kind of urgency, adjusting the legs, camera bag open, sun flaring off her earrings. She was barefoot in the grass—shoes kicked off like she trusted the world not to break her feet for once.
Royce almost kept walking. But something about the steadiness of her made him slow. She looked up before he said anything.
“You okay?”
He rubbed at his jaw. “They showing the movie. Just forgot to ask me who I was playing.”
Effie studied him for a moment, then nodded once—like that made all the sense in the world. She didn’t ask who “they” were. Didn’t ask what role.
She just moved her bag aside and motioned toward the ground.
He sat.
For a while, neither of them said anything. The sky shifted toward apricot. Somewhere behind the a building, a saxophone wheezed faintly. A practice room cracked open. Wind rustled.
Effie raised her camera, took a few shots of the fountain catching light like it had something to say. Royce watched her. The way her fingers moved—delicate, but with control. The way she squinted one eye, tilting just slightly to frame the world how she wanted it.
She caught him watching.
“You wanna try?”
Royce blinked. “Try what?”
She held the camera out. “Forced perspective. Make things look bigger, smaller, farther than they are. It’s about angle.”
He hesitated, then took it—hands awkward at first, like he was holding something that might go off. She scooted closer, reaching to guide his thumb.
“See that bench?” she asked. “Tilt the camera so it looks like it’s sitting on top of that light pole.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because right now, it’s not about what’s real. It’s about what you choose to see.”
He adjusted, brows furrowed. The pole and the bench started to align. It didn’t make sense at first—then it did.
“Oh,” he said.
Effie smiled faintly. “Yeah. Oh.”
He snapped the picture.
Then another.
They kept going—books floating on clouds, trees dancing behind statues, a water bottle looming like a skyscraper.
It wasn’t deep. Wasn’t meant to be.
But for the first time all day, Royce forgot about the script they wrote for him. Forgot about LeBron comparisons and captions they hadn’t let him write.
He was just a boy with a lens, bending the world back into his own shape.
Dying to Live
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16799
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16799
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Championship or Bust
The LSU locker room buzzed like a beehive, the scent of sweat and detergent clinging to the air. Cleats clacked against tile, and towels snapped against bare backs. Phones lit up around the space—one by one, then in clusters—until the whole room was swallowed by the same glow.
“Yo, it dropped!” someone shouted. “Check the Twitter!”
Royce didn’t have to ask what it was. The fall hype video had been teased for weeks. Coach Lanning had mentioned it in passing after the scrimmage, nodding to the media team like it was a done deal.
Gio held out his phone to Royce with a grin. “They made you the damn narrator, bruh. That ‘Show me you tough’ line? Iconic now.”
Royce gave a small smirk, but didn’t take the phone. He dug his own out of his locker and opened Twtter.
There it was—bright purple thumbnail, golden letters stamped across the center:
“BLOOD. SWEAT. SATURDAYS.”
He tapped play.
The video opened with the tunnel—purple and gold cleats pounding cement, white jerseys shining under flickering lights. The bass hit first, then the beat dropped in sync with a helmet cracking shoulder pads.
A close-up of Royce’s face filled the screen, eyes narrowed beneath his visor.
“Ain’t no shortcuts in this.”
His voice, raw from that day’s scrimmage, overlaid images of wind sprints, power cleans, full-pads collisions. The camera didn’t just highlight him—it orbited him. Hits. Recoveries. Hand claps. Helmet taps.
“You wanna lead, you better run when everybody else walking.”
The clip from the Big Cat drill rolled next—Royce driving Doug into the turf, followed by chaos, cheers, players pouring into the frame.
Then came the line that stopped the room cold.
“Don’t run from it. Show me you tough.”
The room roared. Even guys who barely talked to him clapped his shoulder or barked his name. Dorian mimicked the phrase with a stiff upper lip, laughing like a kid. Jay yelled, “Put that on a t-shirt!”
Royce didn’t smile.
He watched the rest of the clip in silence. More highlights. More close-ups. The final frame: LSU’s logo seared in fire across the screen, his voice fading into a whisper:
“Every rep, every hit, every Saturday… show me you tough.”
He shut off the phone.
“You straight, bro?” Caden asked, stepping past him to grab his bag.
Royce nodded. “Yeah.”
But something stuck in his chest like swallowed gravel.
It wasn’t that the video wasn’t cold. It was. It just didn’t feel like his. Not entirely.
It felt like a trailer for a version of himself someone else had written. Like the world had picked the loudest clip and looped it until people forgot everything that came before it.
He looked around the room. Everybody else saw a leader. A symbol. A star.
Royce just saw a kid still figuring out how to hold weight that never really got lighter.
He shoved his phone in his pocket and reached for his slides.
“Where you headed?” Gio asked.
“Nowhere,” Royce said, tossing his duffel over his shoulder. “Just out.”
~~~~~~~~~~
The soft hum of the bedroom lamp cast a warm circle across Alix’s closet floor. Clothes hung in neat rows—soft creams, structured blacks, the occasional bold pop of color she let herself wear when she was in the mood to be seen.
Tonight should’ve been one of those nights.
The Roux Interiors alumni dinner was one of the few company events where everyone dressed to impress. Clients past and present would float through with Champagne, talking color palettes and generational wealth. Her boss had already teased, “Alix, make sure you bring that understated Baton Rouge elegance.”
And yet, she stood frozen.
Her fingers brushed against silk.
The gold slip dress was tucked toward the back, as if hiding from memory. She hadn’t worn it since a wedding the summer before last, back when things with Royce still had edges that caught the light. He’d surprised her with it the morning of a dinner—no note, just a soft, “Try this one.”
It fit like warm honey.
Still did.
She pulled it off the hanger and stepped into it slowly, careful not to catch the fabric on the delicate bracelet at her wrist. The material hugged her like it remembered her shape. When she looked in the mirror, it shimmered just like it had that night—when she caught her own reflection dancing under string lights and for a second thought, I could be that girl.
But now… something felt off.
It wasn’t the dress. The dress was perfect.
It was her.
She twisted slightly. Her hips still curved where they used to. Her shoulders still held that poised tilt she’d been practicing since her younger days. But the woman in the mirror wasn’t the one who had once spun in this dress with her arms around a boy who didn’t know how to stay.
This version of Alix didn’t need shimmer. She needed armor.
She stepped out of the dress.
Back in the closet, her hand hovered over a structured black pantsuit with subtle pinstripes and a soft silk cami tucked inside. It was sharp, clean. Unapologetic.
She dressed quickly, ran her fingers through her hair, then stepped back to check the mirror.
She didn’t smile.
But she did nod.
Her phone buzzed on the dresser. A text from Marcy:
“On my way. You ready?”
Alix grabbed her purse and typed back:
“Almost.”
Then, as if on impulse, she looked back at the gold dress, now draped over the foot of the bed. She didn’t put it away. Just let it rest there.
Some things didn’t need to be folded up neatly yet. Some memories deserved to breathe before they were boxed.
She grabbed her keys and walked out. The click of her heels on the hardwood echoed through the quiet apartment—measured, certain, like punctuation at the end of a sentence she was finally rewriting.
~~~~~~~~~~
The text came just after dark.
Royce: That shit don’t even feel like me.
Effie had been editing photos in the student media lab, hunched over a monitor that had started to burn her eyes. When her phone buzzed, she almost didn’t check it. But she saw his name and opened it.
The LSU fall hype video had dropped that afternoon. It was everywhere—on screens in the union, in every reposted story on campus, every account that tracked SEC rankings and preseason predictions. She’d seen it. Everyone had.
There he was: Number 5. Royce Lafitte. Shoulder-popping, eyes locked, barking into the camera. They used the line from scrimmage—"Show me you tough." They slowed it down, layered it over orchestral horns and a thudding beat, made him mythic.
Effie stared at his text for a moment before replying.
It’s the version they needed. Doesn’t mean it’s not real.
The typing bubble blinked, stopped, blinked again.
You wanna take a walk walk?
She didn’t ask where. She just said yes.
…
The levee behind campus was mostly quiet now, the dusk crowd thinned out, the city stretching across the water like something half-asleep. Effie climbed the slope and spotted him sitting already, legs stretched out, hoodie loose over his shoulders, phone face-down beside him.
He didn’t stand when she approached. Just nodded.
She sat beside him, leaving a little space.
“I figured they’d use that clip,” he said after a while. “It hit. I felt it when I said it.”
“You meant it?”
Royce nodded, his jaw flexing like he wasn’t sure he liked admitting that.
“I meant it on the field,” he muttered. “I just… that ain’t how I always feel. Like, I know I’m supposed to be that dude—captain, voice, image, all that. But sometimes it feel like they picked a version of me and now I gotta be him all the time.”
Effie rested her hands on her knees, watching the lights across the river blink like code she couldn’t read.
“You think that’s fake?” she asked.
He hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe not fake. Just ain’t me.”
He leaned back on his elbows, head tilted toward the sky. “There’s shit I can’t even say in the locker room. Like if I say I’m tired or if I say I don’t feel like I earned this… they look at me like I’m broken. Or worse, like I’m soft.”
“They don’t know you,” Effie said softly. “You you.”
“They think they do. I play the part good.”
She looked over at him then—at the way the streetlights traced shadows across his face, at the way his hands twitched like he was trying to hold something invisible.
Royce shook his head, eyes on the river. “This young dude, Payton, asked me the other day why I always stay after and do extra sets. I said it’s ‘cause I want to win. But really it’s ‘cause I don’t know what to do if I stop. If I stop, I gotta think about everything else.”
Effie didn’t fill the silence. She waited.
He glanced at her.
“You ever feel like… you just carry shit that ain’t even yours? Like people put weight on you and you don’t even get a name for it, you just… haul it?”
Effie didn’t flinch. Her voice was calm when she answered.
“You don’t need a label to have weight,” she said. “Some of us are just outlines that carry everything.”
Royce didn’t speak again right away. He just looked at her—like he was seeing something he couldn’t name either. Then he looked back at the water.
They sat like that for a long while, two outlines drawn side by side against the fading sky, the hum of the city around them, and the quiet between them full of everything they hadn’t said.
The LSU locker room buzzed like a beehive, the scent of sweat and detergent clinging to the air. Cleats clacked against tile, and towels snapped against bare backs. Phones lit up around the space—one by one, then in clusters—until the whole room was swallowed by the same glow.
“Yo, it dropped!” someone shouted. “Check the Twitter!”
Royce didn’t have to ask what it was. The fall hype video had been teased for weeks. Coach Lanning had mentioned it in passing after the scrimmage, nodding to the media team like it was a done deal.
Gio held out his phone to Royce with a grin. “They made you the damn narrator, bruh. That ‘Show me you tough’ line? Iconic now.”
Royce gave a small smirk, but didn’t take the phone. He dug his own out of his locker and opened Twtter.
There it was—bright purple thumbnail, golden letters stamped across the center:
“BLOOD. SWEAT. SATURDAYS.”
He tapped play.
The video opened with the tunnel—purple and gold cleats pounding cement, white jerseys shining under flickering lights. The bass hit first, then the beat dropped in sync with a helmet cracking shoulder pads.
A close-up of Royce’s face filled the screen, eyes narrowed beneath his visor.
“Ain’t no shortcuts in this.”
His voice, raw from that day’s scrimmage, overlaid images of wind sprints, power cleans, full-pads collisions. The camera didn’t just highlight him—it orbited him. Hits. Recoveries. Hand claps. Helmet taps.
“You wanna lead, you better run when everybody else walking.”
The clip from the Big Cat drill rolled next—Royce driving Doug into the turf, followed by chaos, cheers, players pouring into the frame.
Then came the line that stopped the room cold.
“Don’t run from it. Show me you tough.”
The room roared. Even guys who barely talked to him clapped his shoulder or barked his name. Dorian mimicked the phrase with a stiff upper lip, laughing like a kid. Jay yelled, “Put that on a t-shirt!”
Royce didn’t smile.
He watched the rest of the clip in silence. More highlights. More close-ups. The final frame: LSU’s logo seared in fire across the screen, his voice fading into a whisper:
“Every rep, every hit, every Saturday… show me you tough.”
He shut off the phone.
“You straight, bro?” Caden asked, stepping past him to grab his bag.
Royce nodded. “Yeah.”
But something stuck in his chest like swallowed gravel.
It wasn’t that the video wasn’t cold. It was. It just didn’t feel like his. Not entirely.
It felt like a trailer for a version of himself someone else had written. Like the world had picked the loudest clip and looped it until people forgot everything that came before it.
He looked around the room. Everybody else saw a leader. A symbol. A star.
Royce just saw a kid still figuring out how to hold weight that never really got lighter.
He shoved his phone in his pocket and reached for his slides.
“Where you headed?” Gio asked.
“Nowhere,” Royce said, tossing his duffel over his shoulder. “Just out.”
~~~~~~~~~~
The soft hum of the bedroom lamp cast a warm circle across Alix’s closet floor. Clothes hung in neat rows—soft creams, structured blacks, the occasional bold pop of color she let herself wear when she was in the mood to be seen.
Tonight should’ve been one of those nights.
The Roux Interiors alumni dinner was one of the few company events where everyone dressed to impress. Clients past and present would float through with Champagne, talking color palettes and generational wealth. Her boss had already teased, “Alix, make sure you bring that understated Baton Rouge elegance.”
And yet, she stood frozen.
Her fingers brushed against silk.
The gold slip dress was tucked toward the back, as if hiding from memory. She hadn’t worn it since a wedding the summer before last, back when things with Royce still had edges that caught the light. He’d surprised her with it the morning of a dinner—no note, just a soft, “Try this one.”
It fit like warm honey.
Still did.
She pulled it off the hanger and stepped into it slowly, careful not to catch the fabric on the delicate bracelet at her wrist. The material hugged her like it remembered her shape. When she looked in the mirror, it shimmered just like it had that night—when she caught her own reflection dancing under string lights and for a second thought, I could be that girl.
But now… something felt off.
It wasn’t the dress. The dress was perfect.
It was her.
She twisted slightly. Her hips still curved where they used to. Her shoulders still held that poised tilt she’d been practicing since her younger days. But the woman in the mirror wasn’t the one who had once spun in this dress with her arms around a boy who didn’t know how to stay.
This version of Alix didn’t need shimmer. She needed armor.
She stepped out of the dress.
Back in the closet, her hand hovered over a structured black pantsuit with subtle pinstripes and a soft silk cami tucked inside. It was sharp, clean. Unapologetic.
She dressed quickly, ran her fingers through her hair, then stepped back to check the mirror.
She didn’t smile.
But she did nod.
Her phone buzzed on the dresser. A text from Marcy:
“On my way. You ready?”
Alix grabbed her purse and typed back:
“Almost.”
Then, as if on impulse, she looked back at the gold dress, now draped over the foot of the bed. She didn’t put it away. Just let it rest there.
Some things didn’t need to be folded up neatly yet. Some memories deserved to breathe before they were boxed.
She grabbed her keys and walked out. The click of her heels on the hardwood echoed through the quiet apartment—measured, certain, like punctuation at the end of a sentence she was finally rewriting.
~~~~~~~~~~
The text came just after dark.
Royce: That shit don’t even feel like me.
Effie had been editing photos in the student media lab, hunched over a monitor that had started to burn her eyes. When her phone buzzed, she almost didn’t check it. But she saw his name and opened it.
The LSU fall hype video had dropped that afternoon. It was everywhere—on screens in the union, in every reposted story on campus, every account that tracked SEC rankings and preseason predictions. She’d seen it. Everyone had.
There he was: Number 5. Royce Lafitte. Shoulder-popping, eyes locked, barking into the camera. They used the line from scrimmage—"Show me you tough." They slowed it down, layered it over orchestral horns and a thudding beat, made him mythic.
Effie stared at his text for a moment before replying.
It’s the version they needed. Doesn’t mean it’s not real.
The typing bubble blinked, stopped, blinked again.
You wanna take a walk walk?
She didn’t ask where. She just said yes.
…
The levee behind campus was mostly quiet now, the dusk crowd thinned out, the city stretching across the water like something half-asleep. Effie climbed the slope and spotted him sitting already, legs stretched out, hoodie loose over his shoulders, phone face-down beside him.
He didn’t stand when she approached. Just nodded.
She sat beside him, leaving a little space.
“I figured they’d use that clip,” he said after a while. “It hit. I felt it when I said it.”
“You meant it?”
Royce nodded, his jaw flexing like he wasn’t sure he liked admitting that.
“I meant it on the field,” he muttered. “I just… that ain’t how I always feel. Like, I know I’m supposed to be that dude—captain, voice, image, all that. But sometimes it feel like they picked a version of me and now I gotta be him all the time.”
Effie rested her hands on her knees, watching the lights across the river blink like code she couldn’t read.
“You think that’s fake?” she asked.
He hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe not fake. Just ain’t me.”
He leaned back on his elbows, head tilted toward the sky. “There’s shit I can’t even say in the locker room. Like if I say I’m tired or if I say I don’t feel like I earned this… they look at me like I’m broken. Or worse, like I’m soft.”
“They don’t know you,” Effie said softly. “You you.”
“They think they do. I play the part good.”
She looked over at him then—at the way the streetlights traced shadows across his face, at the way his hands twitched like he was trying to hold something invisible.
Royce shook his head, eyes on the river. “This young dude, Payton, asked me the other day why I always stay after and do extra sets. I said it’s ‘cause I want to win. But really it’s ‘cause I don’t know what to do if I stop. If I stop, I gotta think about everything else.”
Effie didn’t fill the silence. She waited.
He glanced at her.
“You ever feel like… you just carry shit that ain’t even yours? Like people put weight on you and you don’t even get a name for it, you just… haul it?”
Effie didn’t flinch. Her voice was calm when she answered.
“You don’t need a label to have weight,” she said. “Some of us are just outlines that carry everything.”
Royce didn’t speak again right away. He just looked at her—like he was seeing something he couldn’t name either. Then he looked back at the water.
They sat like that for a long while, two outlines drawn side by side against the fading sky, the hum of the city around them, and the quiet between them full of everything they hadn’t said.
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16799
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Easy Does It
-
Captain Canada
- Posts: 7822
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Dying to Live
Will this finally be the season?
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16799
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
If the offense can match the defense, we'll be there
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16799
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Emergency Contact
The call came from a Houma number.
Royce stared at it, the digits unfamiliar but unmistakable. That area code always hit the same way. Heavy. Like the air right before a storm rolls in. He let it ring once more before answering, his voice clipped.
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Lafitte?” A woman’s voice, steady but gentle. Southern in the way that said she knew how to soften hard things.
“Speaking.”
“This is Camille. I’m a nurse with St. Landry Hospice down in Houma. We’re caring for Reginald Lafitte.”
Royce leaned against the kitchen counter. The tile was cool under his bare feet. “Okay.”
“I’m calling to update you on his condition.”
He didn’t respond. The woman continued, filling in the silence like she’d done this before.
“He’s declining quickly. The pain management team’s already made adjustments, but… he’s unresponsive most of the time now. Breathing’s changed. We expect—” she hesitated, like she was trying to find the cleanest way to say something messy—“we expect it’ll be soon.”
Royce’s jaw tightened. “Why y’all calling me?”
“You’re listed as his emergency contact.”
He let out a low breath. Not quite a sigh—more like something escaping.
“I didn’t put myself down for that.”
“Well, someone did,” she said, with a hint of grace that sounded rehearsed. “There’s no one else on file.”
He ran a hand over his face. “Take me off.”
“I understand. But we do need someone. Especially if he passes. We need someone to… authorize next steps.”
Royce turned his face toward the kitchen window. Outside, the branches of the trees lining the street barely stirred in the breeze. Still summer. Still humid. Still Louisiana.
“Just leave me on then,” he muttered.
There was a pause, then a quiet, “Okay. I’ll note that.”
She didn’t linger. “If anything changes, we’ll reach out. Thank you, Mr. Lafitte.”
He didn’t say goodbye before ending the call.
The phone hung heavy in his hand. He stood there a long time, the hum of the refrigerator ticking louder than it should have, until the screen dimmed and went black. His reflection barely showed—just a dark shape in a darker room.
He tapped into his contacts. Found Rana. Hit call.
Tyrell answered instead.
“Yo,” Tyrell said, voice low like he’d stepped into another room to take it.
“It’s me.”
“I figured.”
“They called.”
Tyrell didn’t ask who. He didn’t have to.
“Said Reg about to go.”
Royce heard Tyrell exhale through his nose. “Rana’s giving Julian a bath.”
Royce nodded like Tyrell could see it. His throat felt tight. “They got me down for everything.”
“You surprised?”
Royce hesitated. “Yeah. A little.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Reg and your mama ain’t got nobody else, Ro.”
“I ain’t his keeper. Hers either.”
Tyrell didn’t say anything at first. Then: “Maybe not. But you still the last one left.”
Royce looked down. A chip in the linoleum near his sock caught his eye—how had that gotten there?
“You still think you got time,” Tyrell said, softer now. “Time to figure out how you feel, how you want to remember him. But one day, man… you wake up and the choice’s gone. All that’s left is what you did or didn’t say.”
Royce didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
“You want peace?” Tyrell’s voice was calm, but steady now. “You better make it before you gotta carry it.”
The line stayed open for a breath. Then Tyrell hung up.
Royce stayed still. The light in the kitchen had shifted—sun leaning westward, casting a golden stretch across the floor.
The apartment felt too quiet, like a place between echoes.
He set his phone down on the counter, the sound of it soft against the tile. Then he pulled out a stool and sat, not because he needed to do anything, but because there was nowhere else to go in that moment. Nowhere to hide from the weight settling into his chest.
There would be no dramatic decision. No declaration.
Just this: him sitting still, listening to a silence he used to be afraid of.
A silence that was starting to feel like the truth.
~~~~~~~~~~
The door creaked open louder than she expected. Toni stepped into the rehearsal space and let it shut behind her with a muffled thud. The click of the latch was swallowed by the quiet.
It was a tall, rectangular room with black-painted floors scuffed smooth by sneakers and soft shoes. The walls were lined with mirrors on one side, faded cork boards on the other—pinned with old audition flyers, rehearsal schedules, and half-peeled headshots from shows long past. The place smelled faintly of dust and dry wood, like stage curtains and old script pages. It was always cool in here, the AC humming just enough to remind you it was there.
No one was inside. No warmups echoing off the walls, no laughter spilling from the corners. Just her.
Toni stepped forward slowly, her sneakers soft against the floor. The light from the high windows filtered in golden and stretched long across the room, catching particles in the air and casting a gentle glow that touched nothing in particular—just existed.
She hadn’t meant to come here. Not really. She’d been walking back from class, her phone buzzing in her pocket again and again—Deshawn calling, texting, circling her with words that only half made sense anymore. She’d silenced it and kept walking, feet moving without direction until they landed her here.
And now she stood in the middle of the room, eyes trailing up to the high beams above her, hands at her sides. No music. No cues. No audience. Just space.
She looked down at her shoes. Scuffed white Converse with one lace nearly torn. She hadn’t danced in years, not really—not since middle school, when things still felt like they were moving forward instead of constantly breaking and restarting.
She turned once in a slow circle, the weight of the silence growing not louder, but heavier.
Then, quietly, she said it.
“I want to leave.”
The words were small. Not a performance. Not a whisper. Just real.
She didn’t say where. Didn’t say who from. The sentence didn’t need more.
The words didn’t echo.
They just hung there, suspended for a moment in the stillness of the room.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t sink to the floor in a heap of drama like she sometimes imagined she might. Her breath came out long and low, soft through her nose, and she stood a little straighter afterward.
For a second, she just looked at herself in the mirrors. Not to adjust anything. Not to fix her hair or check her expression. Just to see. The girl standing there was thinner than she remembered. More tired, maybe. But still standing.
She turned without a sound and walked back to the door.
The latch clicked again behind her. This time, quieter.
And just like that, Toni stepped out of the room.
But left something behind.
~~~~~~~~~~
The burger joint was the kind of place that smelled like fry oil and floor cleaner—two steps up from fast food, but still proudly grimy. Vinyl booths with peeling corners. A TV mounted in the corner playing SportsCenter on mute. Mike sat wedged into the corner of a booth, elbows on the table, paper-wrapped burger half-unwrapped in front of him. A couple of teammates crowded the space—Juwan across from him, Tee on the end, and Alvin trying to angle the last squeeze of ketchup out of a crusty bottle.
“You really gon’ act like you not buying the next round of fries?” Alvin asked, nudging Mike with his elbow. “C’mon, scholarship boy.”
Mike shook his head, half-laughing. “Man, I’m just tryna finish this semester without overdrawing my account.”
“Didn’t you just get that surprise blessing, though?” Tee grinned, tapping on his phone. “Some anonymous Good Samaritan shit?”
Mike didn’t respond. Just pulled out his phone and opened his banking app under the table. It wasn’t a big number staring back at him—nothing flashy—but it was whole. Rent was handled. Books were covered. And that one fee from financial aid that had been hanging over him like a noose? Gone.
He stared at it for a second longer than necessary. Not with disbelief—he’d already cycled through that—but with something quieter. Like relief he didn’t want to name.
“You got money now, right?” Juwan joked, biting into his burger with a grin.
Mike smiled back, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Y’all wild.”
Alvin tossed the empty ketchup bottle toward the trash can and missed. “What you gon’ do with it though? Like, fr—for real? If you didn’t have to worry about nothing for once.”
Mike considered that. He took a slow sip of his drink, eyes drifting toward the street outside, where traffic moved lazy through the haze of late afternoon.
If you didn’t have to worry about nothing…
Maybe he’d actually get new cleats before the season. Or fix his car’s busted taillight. Or take a girl out without counting his pockets first.
Or maybe he’d just breathe.
Later that night, back in his dorm, he sat at his desk, the room quiet except for the soft clack of his laptop keys. A few articles open. Some notes jotted. A playlist humming under it all.
He reached into the back of his binder and pulled out a folded napkin—the one he’d written on the night the aid office told him his balance had been cleared.
He unfolded it again. Smoothed it with his palm. The ink was a little faded now.
He slid the napkin back into the binder, next to a photo of him and Arianna from when they were kids. She had her arm around his neck. He was mid-laugh. That version of him didn’t know how much it cost to keep going.
This version? He was starting to believe maybe it was worth it.
~~~~~~~~~~
Effie stared at the email on her cracked phone screen, thumb hovering over the “delete” button.
Subject line: Call for Student Work – Exhibit Theme: Resilience
Deadline: 5:00 PM.
The word made her teeth clench.
She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her apartment, laptop open but ignored. Around her were piles of unsorted photo prints, film rolls in Ziploc bags, and a half-drunk glass of corner-store wine. The air was thick with late afternoon humidity, the kind that made the ceiling fan feel decorative.
Resilience.
She hated that word. Not because it wasn’t accurate, but because it always came from the outside looking in. From professors and therapists and strangers who applauded survival like it was a talent show ribbon. But they didn’t see the cost. Didn’t feel what it took to stay standing.
She closed her eyes.
Then opened the editing software.
The time-lapse had started as an accident. She’d been filming light shifts for a class assignment when she realized how much Baton Rouge changed depending on the hour. How soft the city looked in morning fog, and how harsh it got under the fluorescent yellow of streetlights. She began filming more. A boy chasing a soda can down the sidewalk. A woman in scrubs lighting a cigarette outside the ER. Buses. Stray dogs. Bent playground fences.
Every scene stitched together like a heartbeat that didn’t quite skip, but wasn’t steady either.
She edited in silence, letting the city tell its own story.
No narration. Just layered ambient sound and a slow, drifting piano score she found in a royalty-free folder labeled “melancholy 03.”
The final cut was under three minutes.
She uploaded it at 4:51 PM.
Her artist’s statement was short.
“Cities never pretended to be gentle. But it’s still here. So am I.”
She almost didn’t sign it. Not because she was unsure—but because part of her didn’t want anyone to look at it and see her. Not the way she looked on Instagram or in class critiques. But the version of herself who stopped by her sister’s grave before midterms. Who kept unopened letters in a drawer, unread and unthrown away.
That version deserved to speak, too.
She hit send.
Then she sat back on the floor, back against the wall, and let the last of the sunset smear through the blinds. Outside, kids screamed laughter over a pickup football game. Someone’s car alarm hiccuped in the distance. Baton Rouge didn’t slow down just because you felt heavy. That was part of the lesson.
She wasn’t waiting to be applauded.
She just needed to say it out loud.
She was still here.
The call came from a Houma number.
Royce stared at it, the digits unfamiliar but unmistakable. That area code always hit the same way. Heavy. Like the air right before a storm rolls in. He let it ring once more before answering, his voice clipped.
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Lafitte?” A woman’s voice, steady but gentle. Southern in the way that said she knew how to soften hard things.
“Speaking.”
“This is Camille. I’m a nurse with St. Landry Hospice down in Houma. We’re caring for Reginald Lafitte.”
Royce leaned against the kitchen counter. The tile was cool under his bare feet. “Okay.”
“I’m calling to update you on his condition.”
He didn’t respond. The woman continued, filling in the silence like she’d done this before.
“He’s declining quickly. The pain management team’s already made adjustments, but… he’s unresponsive most of the time now. Breathing’s changed. We expect—” she hesitated, like she was trying to find the cleanest way to say something messy—“we expect it’ll be soon.”
Royce’s jaw tightened. “Why y’all calling me?”
“You’re listed as his emergency contact.”
He let out a low breath. Not quite a sigh—more like something escaping.
“I didn’t put myself down for that.”
“Well, someone did,” she said, with a hint of grace that sounded rehearsed. “There’s no one else on file.”
He ran a hand over his face. “Take me off.”
“I understand. But we do need someone. Especially if he passes. We need someone to… authorize next steps.”
Royce turned his face toward the kitchen window. Outside, the branches of the trees lining the street barely stirred in the breeze. Still summer. Still humid. Still Louisiana.
“Just leave me on then,” he muttered.
There was a pause, then a quiet, “Okay. I’ll note that.”
She didn’t linger. “If anything changes, we’ll reach out. Thank you, Mr. Lafitte.”
He didn’t say goodbye before ending the call.
The phone hung heavy in his hand. He stood there a long time, the hum of the refrigerator ticking louder than it should have, until the screen dimmed and went black. His reflection barely showed—just a dark shape in a darker room.
He tapped into his contacts. Found Rana. Hit call.
Tyrell answered instead.
“Yo,” Tyrell said, voice low like he’d stepped into another room to take it.
“It’s me.”
“I figured.”
“They called.”
Tyrell didn’t ask who. He didn’t have to.
“Said Reg about to go.”
Royce heard Tyrell exhale through his nose. “Rana’s giving Julian a bath.”
Royce nodded like Tyrell could see it. His throat felt tight. “They got me down for everything.”
“You surprised?”
Royce hesitated. “Yeah. A little.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Reg and your mama ain’t got nobody else, Ro.”
“I ain’t his keeper. Hers either.”
Tyrell didn’t say anything at first. Then: “Maybe not. But you still the last one left.”
Royce looked down. A chip in the linoleum near his sock caught his eye—how had that gotten there?
“You still think you got time,” Tyrell said, softer now. “Time to figure out how you feel, how you want to remember him. But one day, man… you wake up and the choice’s gone. All that’s left is what you did or didn’t say.”
Royce didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
“You want peace?” Tyrell’s voice was calm, but steady now. “You better make it before you gotta carry it.”
The line stayed open for a breath. Then Tyrell hung up.
Royce stayed still. The light in the kitchen had shifted—sun leaning westward, casting a golden stretch across the floor.
The apartment felt too quiet, like a place between echoes.
He set his phone down on the counter, the sound of it soft against the tile. Then he pulled out a stool and sat, not because he needed to do anything, but because there was nowhere else to go in that moment. Nowhere to hide from the weight settling into his chest.
There would be no dramatic decision. No declaration.
Just this: him sitting still, listening to a silence he used to be afraid of.
A silence that was starting to feel like the truth.
~~~~~~~~~~
The door creaked open louder than she expected. Toni stepped into the rehearsal space and let it shut behind her with a muffled thud. The click of the latch was swallowed by the quiet.
It was a tall, rectangular room with black-painted floors scuffed smooth by sneakers and soft shoes. The walls were lined with mirrors on one side, faded cork boards on the other—pinned with old audition flyers, rehearsal schedules, and half-peeled headshots from shows long past. The place smelled faintly of dust and dry wood, like stage curtains and old script pages. It was always cool in here, the AC humming just enough to remind you it was there.
No one was inside. No warmups echoing off the walls, no laughter spilling from the corners. Just her.
Toni stepped forward slowly, her sneakers soft against the floor. The light from the high windows filtered in golden and stretched long across the room, catching particles in the air and casting a gentle glow that touched nothing in particular—just existed.
She hadn’t meant to come here. Not really. She’d been walking back from class, her phone buzzing in her pocket again and again—Deshawn calling, texting, circling her with words that only half made sense anymore. She’d silenced it and kept walking, feet moving without direction until they landed her here.
And now she stood in the middle of the room, eyes trailing up to the high beams above her, hands at her sides. No music. No cues. No audience. Just space.
She looked down at her shoes. Scuffed white Converse with one lace nearly torn. She hadn’t danced in years, not really—not since middle school, when things still felt like they were moving forward instead of constantly breaking and restarting.
She turned once in a slow circle, the weight of the silence growing not louder, but heavier.
Then, quietly, she said it.
“I want to leave.”
The words were small. Not a performance. Not a whisper. Just real.
She didn’t say where. Didn’t say who from. The sentence didn’t need more.
The words didn’t echo.
They just hung there, suspended for a moment in the stillness of the room.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t sink to the floor in a heap of drama like she sometimes imagined she might. Her breath came out long and low, soft through her nose, and she stood a little straighter afterward.
For a second, she just looked at herself in the mirrors. Not to adjust anything. Not to fix her hair or check her expression. Just to see. The girl standing there was thinner than she remembered. More tired, maybe. But still standing.
She turned without a sound and walked back to the door.
The latch clicked again behind her. This time, quieter.
And just like that, Toni stepped out of the room.
But left something behind.
~~~~~~~~~~
The burger joint was the kind of place that smelled like fry oil and floor cleaner—two steps up from fast food, but still proudly grimy. Vinyl booths with peeling corners. A TV mounted in the corner playing SportsCenter on mute. Mike sat wedged into the corner of a booth, elbows on the table, paper-wrapped burger half-unwrapped in front of him. A couple of teammates crowded the space—Juwan across from him, Tee on the end, and Alvin trying to angle the last squeeze of ketchup out of a crusty bottle.
“You really gon’ act like you not buying the next round of fries?” Alvin asked, nudging Mike with his elbow. “C’mon, scholarship boy.”
Mike shook his head, half-laughing. “Man, I’m just tryna finish this semester without overdrawing my account.”
“Didn’t you just get that surprise blessing, though?” Tee grinned, tapping on his phone. “Some anonymous Good Samaritan shit?”
Mike didn’t respond. Just pulled out his phone and opened his banking app under the table. It wasn’t a big number staring back at him—nothing flashy—but it was whole. Rent was handled. Books were covered. And that one fee from financial aid that had been hanging over him like a noose? Gone.
He stared at it for a second longer than necessary. Not with disbelief—he’d already cycled through that—but with something quieter. Like relief he didn’t want to name.
“You got money now, right?” Juwan joked, biting into his burger with a grin.
Mike smiled back, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Y’all wild.”
Alvin tossed the empty ketchup bottle toward the trash can and missed. “What you gon’ do with it though? Like, fr—for real? If you didn’t have to worry about nothing for once.”
Mike considered that. He took a slow sip of his drink, eyes drifting toward the street outside, where traffic moved lazy through the haze of late afternoon.
If you didn’t have to worry about nothing…
Maybe he’d actually get new cleats before the season. Or fix his car’s busted taillight. Or take a girl out without counting his pockets first.
Or maybe he’d just breathe.
Later that night, back in his dorm, he sat at his desk, the room quiet except for the soft clack of his laptop keys. A few articles open. Some notes jotted. A playlist humming under it all.
He reached into the back of his binder and pulled out a folded napkin—the one he’d written on the night the aid office told him his balance had been cleared.
He unfolded it again. Smoothed it with his palm. The ink was a little faded now.
He slid the napkin back into the binder, next to a photo of him and Arianna from when they were kids. She had her arm around his neck. He was mid-laugh. That version of him didn’t know how much it cost to keep going.
This version? He was starting to believe maybe it was worth it.
~~~~~~~~~~
Effie stared at the email on her cracked phone screen, thumb hovering over the “delete” button.
Subject line: Call for Student Work – Exhibit Theme: Resilience
Deadline: 5:00 PM.
The word made her teeth clench.
She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her apartment, laptop open but ignored. Around her were piles of unsorted photo prints, film rolls in Ziploc bags, and a half-drunk glass of corner-store wine. The air was thick with late afternoon humidity, the kind that made the ceiling fan feel decorative.
Resilience.
She hated that word. Not because it wasn’t accurate, but because it always came from the outside looking in. From professors and therapists and strangers who applauded survival like it was a talent show ribbon. But they didn’t see the cost. Didn’t feel what it took to stay standing.
She closed her eyes.
Then opened the editing software.
The time-lapse had started as an accident. She’d been filming light shifts for a class assignment when she realized how much Baton Rouge changed depending on the hour. How soft the city looked in morning fog, and how harsh it got under the fluorescent yellow of streetlights. She began filming more. A boy chasing a soda can down the sidewalk. A woman in scrubs lighting a cigarette outside the ER. Buses. Stray dogs. Bent playground fences.
Every scene stitched together like a heartbeat that didn’t quite skip, but wasn’t steady either.
She edited in silence, letting the city tell its own story.
No narration. Just layered ambient sound and a slow, drifting piano score she found in a royalty-free folder labeled “melancholy 03.”
The final cut was under three minutes.
She uploaded it at 4:51 PM.
Her artist’s statement was short.
“Cities never pretended to be gentle. But it’s still here. So am I.”
She almost didn’t sign it. Not because she was unsure—but because part of her didn’t want anyone to look at it and see her. Not the way she looked on Instagram or in class critiques. But the version of herself who stopped by her sister’s grave before midterms. Who kept unopened letters in a drawer, unread and unthrown away.
That version deserved to speak, too.
She hit send.
Then she sat back on the floor, back against the wall, and let the last of the sunset smear through the blinds. Outside, kids screamed laughter over a pickup football game. Someone’s car alarm hiccuped in the distance. Baton Rouge didn’t slow down just because you felt heavy. That was part of the lesson.
She wasn’t waiting to be applauded.
She just needed to say it out loud.
She was still here.
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16799
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Effie walked with her head down, camera bag slung across one shoulder, earbuds in but nothing playing. It had become a habit—one more shield between her and the noise. The hallway buzzed with the usual hum of Tuesday afternoon foot traffic, flyers clinging to corkboards and glass cases like molting skin. Most she'd seen a dozen times. Event invites. Missing cat. Poetry slam.
But the one on the door of the student media lab stopped her cold.
A glossy flyer for Tiger Points. Right there, center and bold: Royce Lafitte. His face, caught midstride, square jaw, LSU gear, spotlight glow. And scrawled in thick black Sharpie across his chest, one word.
Thug.
Effie blinked. The hallway sound warped in that way it sometimes did, like her brain needed a beat to catch up. A guy walked past her, didn’t even notice. Another laughed down the hall, probably at something unrelated.
She reached up, peeled the flyer down in one smooth motion, and folded it neatly into quarters before tucking it into the side pocket of her bag. No dramatic crumpling. No confrontation. Just silence—efficient and exact.
Back in the photography lab, she worked quickly, fingers adjusting dials, exposure shifts. The photo she’d printed for critique was already mounted on the blackboard, but now she looked at it with a new sense of certainty. The blurred figure of Royce, walking past the fence near the track stadium at the far edge of campus, sunlight lacing through chain-link in fractured ribbons across his back and shoulders. One foot lifted. Motion without destination.
Her professor stepped back. “Next up—Effie.”
She stepped forward, adjusting her posture, palms against each other like she might squeeze words out of them.
The photo filled the projector screen behind her. Stark. Raw. Undefined edges. She titled it with a dry-erase marker on the board: "Misread."
Someone in the back coughed. Another girl tilted her head slightly.
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward—it was waiting.
A guy in a beanie leaned forward. “Is it about movement?”
Effie shook her head. “No.”
Another hand. A girl with smudged eyeliner and a copy of The Fire Next Time poking out of her bag. “Is it about redemption?”
Effie paused.
Then: “It’s about context.”
She didn’t explain. Didn’t have to.
The class remained quiet. Not dismissive—just… thinking.
Later, as they filed out, a few muttered soft words: “Good piece,” “Powerful,” “Made me stop.”
Effie stayed behind to clean up, carefully removing the photo from the projector and rolling it with slow fingers. Before slipping it into its tube, she glanced at it one more time. Not to second-guess—just to remember.
Because some things, when seen clearly, didn’t need defense.
They just needed to be seen.
~~~~~~~~~~
The rooftop of the gallery was humid with August sweat and full of men in linen suits and polished sneakers who shook hands like it meant something. The Black Wealth & Futures Symposium was Delpit’s idea—a schmooze-and-shine event in downtown Baton Rouge where alumni, investors, and “new money” could mingle beneath twinkling string lights and vague promises of legacy.
Royce hated the word legacy.
He stood near the bar, a half-full glass of club soda in one hand and his other thumb tapping absently at his phone screen. The chain around his neck caught the light sometimes when he turned, glinting briefly before disappearing under the collar of his white camp shirt.
Delpit had told him: “Just show up, nod, don’t get drunk, and say something halfway smart if someone sticks a mic in your face.”
So far, Royce had managed all three.
He hadn’t said much. A few thank yous. A “preciate that” here and there. Smiled with his lips but not his eyes.
A woman from Atlanta had introduced him to her husband as “the linebacker who turned down the draft for a million dollars and a purpose.” Whatever that meant. Someone else asked if he had a sneaker deal yet. Another man, older, leaned in to say his son wore Royce’s number and thought he was the coldest to ever do it. That part he didn’t mind. Kids were different. Kids didn’t want anything from him but the idea of being something more than what they were.
But then—
“Yo, yo, let me say this real quick.”
Royce had just taken a sip when the voice cut across the small circle of men around him. It was loud and confident, from a guy in his late 30s wearing a burgundy blazer and too many rings. He was smiling, but it was the kind of smile that wanted a reaction.
“For real, man,” he said, clapping Royce’s shoulder like they’d grown up together, “it’s good to see a young brother from Louisiana with money and fame not out here just chasing white women and baby mamas.”
There was a pause.
The kind that happens just before a fire catches.
Royce’s grip on the glass shifted.
He could feel every eye on him now—waiting. Wondering if he’d laugh. Or nod. Or say something to let them off the hook.
His jaw twitched once.
He started to speak—then didn’t.
His eyes slid sideways. Someone nearby coughed. Another man raised his glass and said, “To growth,” breaking the silence like glass clinking in a quiet church. A few others laughed. The kind of laugh that says nothing’s wrong as long as no one makes it wrong.
Royce looked back at the man. Still smiling. Still expecting a dap or a punchline.
Instead, Royce set his glass down on the table.
“Excuse me,” he said.
He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t flex. Just turned and walked toward the edge of the rooftop where it was quieter.
From a distance, the lights of Baton Rouge looked like gold dust caught on the air. Not fake. Just fragile.
He stood there, both hands on the railing, letting the breeze stick to his skin. Behind him, the noise resumed—networking, laughing, the distant churn of status being bartered.
Delpit appeared beside him after a while.
“Went left?”
Royce didn’t answer.
Delpit nodded, like he understood.
“They don’t mean harm,” he said eventually. “They just don’t know how to speak past the systems they grew up in.”
Royce’s voice was quiet. “I grew up in the same shit.”
Delpit didn’t respond. Just reached into his pocket and handed Royce a folded slip of paper. On it, the name of a real estate broker and a property he’d told Royce to consider.
Royce didn’t look at it. He slid it into his shirt pocket.
“Legacy ain’t about who praises you,” Delpit said, softer now. “It’s about who feels safe around you when the room starts looking like that.”
Royce nodded once.
Didn’t say thank you.
Didn’t say anything at all.
But he stayed a few more minutes after Delpit left, just watching the lights. Because for once, he wanted to remember what it looked like when the room turned quiet.
~~~~~~~~~~
The scent of fresh paint still clung to the inside of Alix’s car as she backed out of the Roux Interiors lot. Late summer haze hung low over Baton Rouge, the kind of thick heat that blurred brake lights and slowed down thoughts. Her hands rested lightly on the steering wheel, her mind already cycling through tomorrow’s site check and fabric swatches when her phone buzzed in the passenger seat.
Incoming Call: Stacey—Client: Dubois Project
She exhaled and picked it up.
“Hey, Stacey.”
“Alix, I hate to do this,” came the client’s hurried voice. “Would you be able to do the walk-through tomorrow morning instead of afternoon? Something came up with our sitter.”
Alix glanced at the digital clock glowing on her dashboard—6:47 p.m.
“Tomorrow morning… what time were you thinking?”
“Say, 9:30?”
Alix did the math in her head. That meant moving the vendor visit at 10:00, flipping her Zoom call to the afternoon, and calling Marcy to check in on the Courthouse job.
“Yeah,” she said, steady. “That works. I’ll see you then.”
She hung up, voice still calm as she pulled into her apartment complex. The tension didn’t hit until she stepped inside, where her to-do list sprawled across her whiteboard and three empty coffee mugs sat on the kitchen counter like mute judges. Her eyes skimmed over everything—appointments, half-finished layouts, her own name scribbled in red where she'd meant to pencil in “self.”
She didn’t sigh. Just grabbed a pen and started shifting things. One square at a time. A new color for tomorrow. An arrow instead of an eraser.
By the time she sat down again, her planner had morphed into something just barely manageable.
Marcy texted not long after.
Just saw the updated calendar. You don’t even stress anymore, huh?
Alix smiled faintly. She was still in her work blouse, sleeves rolled to her elbows, hair pinned up with one of the binder clips she’d grabbed out of necessity that morning.
Oh, I stress. I just don’t collapse.
She didn’t wait for a response. Just got up and microwaved the last of the Thai leftovers she’d meant to eat two days ago. It was cold in the middle but good enough.
She was rinsing out her bowl when her phone buzzed again.
How’d the day go?
She hesitated a moment before replying, thumb hovering.
Moved everything around. Still standing.
A few seconds passed.
That’s your superpower.
She didn’t respond right away. Just leaned against the counter and looked out the window where the streetlamps were flickering on. Across the lot, a kid in a Spider-Man backpack was chasing a stray cat, laughter echoing off the concrete.
She finally typed back:
Trying to be someone who doesn’t need saving.
A minute later, the dots appeared again.
Maybe. But even Spider-Man needed someone to come home to.
She didn’t reply.
Just pressed the phone to her chest for a moment, eyes closed, and let herself feel it—this odd little exhale of a life that wasn’t collapsing anymore. Only rearranging.
~~~~~~~~~~
The mic was warm in Arianna’s hand, not from electricity but from the nervous grip of the girl who’d gone before her. The little coffeehouse off campus was packed wall to wall—plastic chairs pulled from every closet, people sitting on the floor near the footlights. The spotlight wasn’t a real one, just a clamp lamp on a music stand tilted up, but it still made her blink as she stepped forward.
There was no paper in her hands tonight. Just breath.
She took one.
Then began.
“They tell you your blood is your history—
but what if your blood ran scared before you ever had a name?”
A stillness rippled through the crowd, the way it always did when her tone shifted from rhythm to meaning. Her voice wasn’t loud. It was low, steady, built from the hollow of ribs and the edge of tongue that had cut itself too many times learning to stay quiet.
“My family don’t speak in past tense—
we speak in echoes.
In things we don’t say but still hold.
In names we don’t mention but still carry.”
She glanced up, like she always did on that line. The crowd blurred into soft shadows.
And there—back by the far wall, near the stack of unused chairs—stood Toni.
Her arms were crossed. Her face unreadable. She wasn’t clapping. Wasn’t swaying. Just watching.
Arianna’s throat tightened mid-breath. She looked down again. Focused.
“Survival is not the absence of pain—
it’s the decision to keep your name on the lease
after the roof leaks.
After the doors crack.
After the silence moves in with all its luggage.”
One line left.
Just one.
But her voice caught.
Not a full stumble—just a pause, a flicker where there shouldn’t have been one. She closed her eyes, took a beat longer than usual, then pushed through.
“And I decided—
legacy ain’t what you leave behind.
It’s what you walk away from… still standing.”
Polite claps. A few snaps. A couple of mmm-hmms from the first row. She nodded and stepped offstage, throat dry.
She didn’t look toward the back again. Didn’t need to.
But when she slipped past the crowd and ducked out the side door into the warm Lafayette night, her hands were still shaking.
Not from fear.
From something older. Deeper. Something like a heartbeat that remembered what it once felt like to trust someone who might still be worth it.
~~~~~~~~~~
The parking lot outside Allegiant Stadium shimmered under the Vegas sun, asphalt hot enough to blister soles if you stood still too long. The scent of charcoal smoke and barbecue rubbed shoulders with spilled beer and car radios pumping old school Bay slaps. Malik flipped a burger with the confidence of someone who had learned to time things by rhythm, not thermometers.
Nevada had the week off. For the first time since August, he wasn’t thinking about coverages, or watching tape, or feeling that slow dread of knowing he might hear his name in the injury tent.
Today was just… today.
Jazlyn sat nearby on a faded cooler, sunglasses perched in her curls, holding a paper plate in one hand and a plastic cup in the other. She was laughing at something some Raiders fan had said, probably about how trash their secondary looked last year. Her voice rose over the hum of the tailgate, bright and full. Malik felt it in his chest more than his ears.
He turned the last burger and grabbed a bun, stacking it messily and handing it off to a freshman walk-on who’d made the trip with them. The kid looked starstruck.
“Appreciate it, Malik.”
“Don’t burn your tongue, man,” Malik said with a grin, already back to wiping his hands.
From a few cars down, someone shouted, “Aye! Ain’t that number 7 from Nevada?”
Malik lifted a hand in acknowledgement but didn’t get up.
“Damn,” the guy said, walking over with a can of Modelo. “Didn’t know the Wolf Pack made time for tailgates. What, y’all too good now?”
Malik laughed, fist-bumped him. “Bye week. Gotta pretend I’m normal sometimes.”
“Respect. You miss it yet?”
Malik paused, watching the man’s face—one of his old teammates from a season or two ago, now with a tattoo that wasn’t there before and a limp that didn’t look like it was healing right.
“The hits?” Malik said. “Nah. But I miss the quiet right before kickoff. That part? I’ll always miss that.”
The man nodded slowly. “Yeah… yeah, I feel that.”
They talked a few more minutes—caught up on people they both knew, swapped the kind of stories that sound less like bragging and more like remembering.
As the sky turned dusty pink and the parking lot thinned toward the first whistle, Jazlyn slid closer to Malik on the tailgate of the truck. Music played low—some Lauryn Hill track bleeding out of someone’s speaker down the row.
She didn’t say anything. Just leaned her head on his shoulder.
Malik didn’t move.
He watched the sun sink behind the stadium, trailing shadows like long sighs across the ground. For the first time in a while, he wasn’t bracing for what came next.
He just… was.
And that was enough.
“Football ain’t gonna be forever,” he said, quiet enough that she might’ve missed it if she hadn’t been listening just for him.
But Jazlyn heard. And smiled.
Malik looked down at her, then back at the skyline cutting into the dusk.
“But this?” he said, resting his chin lightly against her hair. “This could be.”
Effie walked with her head down, camera bag slung across one shoulder, earbuds in but nothing playing. It had become a habit—one more shield between her and the noise. The hallway buzzed with the usual hum of Tuesday afternoon foot traffic, flyers clinging to corkboards and glass cases like molting skin. Most she'd seen a dozen times. Event invites. Missing cat. Poetry slam.
But the one on the door of the student media lab stopped her cold.
A glossy flyer for Tiger Points. Right there, center and bold: Royce Lafitte. His face, caught midstride, square jaw, LSU gear, spotlight glow. And scrawled in thick black Sharpie across his chest, one word.
Thug.
Effie blinked. The hallway sound warped in that way it sometimes did, like her brain needed a beat to catch up. A guy walked past her, didn’t even notice. Another laughed down the hall, probably at something unrelated.
She reached up, peeled the flyer down in one smooth motion, and folded it neatly into quarters before tucking it into the side pocket of her bag. No dramatic crumpling. No confrontation. Just silence—efficient and exact.
Back in the photography lab, she worked quickly, fingers adjusting dials, exposure shifts. The photo she’d printed for critique was already mounted on the blackboard, but now she looked at it with a new sense of certainty. The blurred figure of Royce, walking past the fence near the track stadium at the far edge of campus, sunlight lacing through chain-link in fractured ribbons across his back and shoulders. One foot lifted. Motion without destination.
Her professor stepped back. “Next up—Effie.”
She stepped forward, adjusting her posture, palms against each other like she might squeeze words out of them.
The photo filled the projector screen behind her. Stark. Raw. Undefined edges. She titled it with a dry-erase marker on the board: "Misread."
Someone in the back coughed. Another girl tilted her head slightly.
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward—it was waiting.
A guy in a beanie leaned forward. “Is it about movement?”
Effie shook her head. “No.”
Another hand. A girl with smudged eyeliner and a copy of The Fire Next Time poking out of her bag. “Is it about redemption?”
Effie paused.
Then: “It’s about context.”
She didn’t explain. Didn’t have to.
The class remained quiet. Not dismissive—just… thinking.
Later, as they filed out, a few muttered soft words: “Good piece,” “Powerful,” “Made me stop.”
Effie stayed behind to clean up, carefully removing the photo from the projector and rolling it with slow fingers. Before slipping it into its tube, she glanced at it one more time. Not to second-guess—just to remember.
Because some things, when seen clearly, didn’t need defense.
They just needed to be seen.
~~~~~~~~~~
The rooftop of the gallery was humid with August sweat and full of men in linen suits and polished sneakers who shook hands like it meant something. The Black Wealth & Futures Symposium was Delpit’s idea—a schmooze-and-shine event in downtown Baton Rouge where alumni, investors, and “new money” could mingle beneath twinkling string lights and vague promises of legacy.
Royce hated the word legacy.
He stood near the bar, a half-full glass of club soda in one hand and his other thumb tapping absently at his phone screen. The chain around his neck caught the light sometimes when he turned, glinting briefly before disappearing under the collar of his white camp shirt.
Delpit had told him: “Just show up, nod, don’t get drunk, and say something halfway smart if someone sticks a mic in your face.”
So far, Royce had managed all three.
He hadn’t said much. A few thank yous. A “preciate that” here and there. Smiled with his lips but not his eyes.
A woman from Atlanta had introduced him to her husband as “the linebacker who turned down the draft for a million dollars and a purpose.” Whatever that meant. Someone else asked if he had a sneaker deal yet. Another man, older, leaned in to say his son wore Royce’s number and thought he was the coldest to ever do it. That part he didn’t mind. Kids were different. Kids didn’t want anything from him but the idea of being something more than what they were.
But then—
“Yo, yo, let me say this real quick.”
Royce had just taken a sip when the voice cut across the small circle of men around him. It was loud and confident, from a guy in his late 30s wearing a burgundy blazer and too many rings. He was smiling, but it was the kind of smile that wanted a reaction.
“For real, man,” he said, clapping Royce’s shoulder like they’d grown up together, “it’s good to see a young brother from Louisiana with money and fame not out here just chasing white women and baby mamas.”
There was a pause.
The kind that happens just before a fire catches.
Royce’s grip on the glass shifted.
He could feel every eye on him now—waiting. Wondering if he’d laugh. Or nod. Or say something to let them off the hook.
His jaw twitched once.
He started to speak—then didn’t.
His eyes slid sideways. Someone nearby coughed. Another man raised his glass and said, “To growth,” breaking the silence like glass clinking in a quiet church. A few others laughed. The kind of laugh that says nothing’s wrong as long as no one makes it wrong.
Royce looked back at the man. Still smiling. Still expecting a dap or a punchline.
Instead, Royce set his glass down on the table.
“Excuse me,” he said.
He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t flex. Just turned and walked toward the edge of the rooftop where it was quieter.
From a distance, the lights of Baton Rouge looked like gold dust caught on the air. Not fake. Just fragile.
He stood there, both hands on the railing, letting the breeze stick to his skin. Behind him, the noise resumed—networking, laughing, the distant churn of status being bartered.
Delpit appeared beside him after a while.
“Went left?”
Royce didn’t answer.
Delpit nodded, like he understood.
“They don’t mean harm,” he said eventually. “They just don’t know how to speak past the systems they grew up in.”
Royce’s voice was quiet. “I grew up in the same shit.”
Delpit didn’t respond. Just reached into his pocket and handed Royce a folded slip of paper. On it, the name of a real estate broker and a property he’d told Royce to consider.
Royce didn’t look at it. He slid it into his shirt pocket.
“Legacy ain’t about who praises you,” Delpit said, softer now. “It’s about who feels safe around you when the room starts looking like that.”
Royce nodded once.
Didn’t say thank you.
Didn’t say anything at all.
But he stayed a few more minutes after Delpit left, just watching the lights. Because for once, he wanted to remember what it looked like when the room turned quiet.
~~~~~~~~~~
The scent of fresh paint still clung to the inside of Alix’s car as she backed out of the Roux Interiors lot. Late summer haze hung low over Baton Rouge, the kind of thick heat that blurred brake lights and slowed down thoughts. Her hands rested lightly on the steering wheel, her mind already cycling through tomorrow’s site check and fabric swatches when her phone buzzed in the passenger seat.
Incoming Call: Stacey—Client: Dubois Project
She exhaled and picked it up.
“Hey, Stacey.”
“Alix, I hate to do this,” came the client’s hurried voice. “Would you be able to do the walk-through tomorrow morning instead of afternoon? Something came up with our sitter.”
Alix glanced at the digital clock glowing on her dashboard—6:47 p.m.
“Tomorrow morning… what time were you thinking?”
“Say, 9:30?”
Alix did the math in her head. That meant moving the vendor visit at 10:00, flipping her Zoom call to the afternoon, and calling Marcy to check in on the Courthouse job.
“Yeah,” she said, steady. “That works. I’ll see you then.”
She hung up, voice still calm as she pulled into her apartment complex. The tension didn’t hit until she stepped inside, where her to-do list sprawled across her whiteboard and three empty coffee mugs sat on the kitchen counter like mute judges. Her eyes skimmed over everything—appointments, half-finished layouts, her own name scribbled in red where she'd meant to pencil in “self.”
She didn’t sigh. Just grabbed a pen and started shifting things. One square at a time. A new color for tomorrow. An arrow instead of an eraser.
By the time she sat down again, her planner had morphed into something just barely manageable.
Marcy texted not long after.
Just saw the updated calendar. You don’t even stress anymore, huh?
Alix smiled faintly. She was still in her work blouse, sleeves rolled to her elbows, hair pinned up with one of the binder clips she’d grabbed out of necessity that morning.
Oh, I stress. I just don’t collapse.
She didn’t wait for a response. Just got up and microwaved the last of the Thai leftovers she’d meant to eat two days ago. It was cold in the middle but good enough.
She was rinsing out her bowl when her phone buzzed again.
How’d the day go?
She hesitated a moment before replying, thumb hovering.
Moved everything around. Still standing.
A few seconds passed.
That’s your superpower.
She didn’t respond right away. Just leaned against the counter and looked out the window where the streetlamps were flickering on. Across the lot, a kid in a Spider-Man backpack was chasing a stray cat, laughter echoing off the concrete.
She finally typed back:
Trying to be someone who doesn’t need saving.
A minute later, the dots appeared again.
Maybe. But even Spider-Man needed someone to come home to.
She didn’t reply.
Just pressed the phone to her chest for a moment, eyes closed, and let herself feel it—this odd little exhale of a life that wasn’t collapsing anymore. Only rearranging.
~~~~~~~~~~
The mic was warm in Arianna’s hand, not from electricity but from the nervous grip of the girl who’d gone before her. The little coffeehouse off campus was packed wall to wall—plastic chairs pulled from every closet, people sitting on the floor near the footlights. The spotlight wasn’t a real one, just a clamp lamp on a music stand tilted up, but it still made her blink as she stepped forward.
There was no paper in her hands tonight. Just breath.
She took one.
Then began.
“They tell you your blood is your history—
but what if your blood ran scared before you ever had a name?”
A stillness rippled through the crowd, the way it always did when her tone shifted from rhythm to meaning. Her voice wasn’t loud. It was low, steady, built from the hollow of ribs and the edge of tongue that had cut itself too many times learning to stay quiet.
“My family don’t speak in past tense—
we speak in echoes.
In things we don’t say but still hold.
In names we don’t mention but still carry.”
She glanced up, like she always did on that line. The crowd blurred into soft shadows.
And there—back by the far wall, near the stack of unused chairs—stood Toni.
Her arms were crossed. Her face unreadable. She wasn’t clapping. Wasn’t swaying. Just watching.
Arianna’s throat tightened mid-breath. She looked down again. Focused.
“Survival is not the absence of pain—
it’s the decision to keep your name on the lease
after the roof leaks.
After the doors crack.
After the silence moves in with all its luggage.”
One line left.
Just one.
But her voice caught.
Not a full stumble—just a pause, a flicker where there shouldn’t have been one. She closed her eyes, took a beat longer than usual, then pushed through.
“And I decided—
legacy ain’t what you leave behind.
It’s what you walk away from… still standing.”
Polite claps. A few snaps. A couple of mmm-hmms from the first row. She nodded and stepped offstage, throat dry.
She didn’t look toward the back again. Didn’t need to.
But when she slipped past the crowd and ducked out the side door into the warm Lafayette night, her hands were still shaking.
Not from fear.
From something older. Deeper. Something like a heartbeat that remembered what it once felt like to trust someone who might still be worth it.
~~~~~~~~~~
The parking lot outside Allegiant Stadium shimmered under the Vegas sun, asphalt hot enough to blister soles if you stood still too long. The scent of charcoal smoke and barbecue rubbed shoulders with spilled beer and car radios pumping old school Bay slaps. Malik flipped a burger with the confidence of someone who had learned to time things by rhythm, not thermometers.
Nevada had the week off. For the first time since August, he wasn’t thinking about coverages, or watching tape, or feeling that slow dread of knowing he might hear his name in the injury tent.
Today was just… today.
Jazlyn sat nearby on a faded cooler, sunglasses perched in her curls, holding a paper plate in one hand and a plastic cup in the other. She was laughing at something some Raiders fan had said, probably about how trash their secondary looked last year. Her voice rose over the hum of the tailgate, bright and full. Malik felt it in his chest more than his ears.
He turned the last burger and grabbed a bun, stacking it messily and handing it off to a freshman walk-on who’d made the trip with them. The kid looked starstruck.
“Appreciate it, Malik.”
“Don’t burn your tongue, man,” Malik said with a grin, already back to wiping his hands.
From a few cars down, someone shouted, “Aye! Ain’t that number 7 from Nevada?”
Malik lifted a hand in acknowledgement but didn’t get up.
“Damn,” the guy said, walking over with a can of Modelo. “Didn’t know the Wolf Pack made time for tailgates. What, y’all too good now?”
Malik laughed, fist-bumped him. “Bye week. Gotta pretend I’m normal sometimes.”
“Respect. You miss it yet?”
Malik paused, watching the man’s face—one of his old teammates from a season or two ago, now with a tattoo that wasn’t there before and a limp that didn’t look like it was healing right.
“The hits?” Malik said. “Nah. But I miss the quiet right before kickoff. That part? I’ll always miss that.”
The man nodded slowly. “Yeah… yeah, I feel that.”
They talked a few more minutes—caught up on people they both knew, swapped the kind of stories that sound less like bragging and more like remembering.
As the sky turned dusty pink and the parking lot thinned toward the first whistle, Jazlyn slid closer to Malik on the tailgate of the truck. Music played low—some Lauryn Hill track bleeding out of someone’s speaker down the row.
She didn’t say anything. Just leaned her head on his shoulder.
Malik didn’t move.
He watched the sun sink behind the stadium, trailing shadows like long sighs across the ground. For the first time in a while, he wasn’t bracing for what came next.
He just… was.
And that was enough.
“Football ain’t gonna be forever,” he said, quiet enough that she might’ve missed it if she hadn’t been listening just for him.
But Jazlyn heard. And smiled.
Malik looked down at her, then back at the skyline cutting into the dusk.
“But this?” he said, resting his chin lightly against her hair. “This could be.”
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djp73
- Posts: 13178
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 13:42
Dying to Live
Soapy wrote on the poster
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Captain Canada
- Posts: 7822
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Dying to Live
Glad Malik is adjusting to his normal so well. At least one character has seemed to turn the corner now
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redsox907
- Posts: 6123
- Joined: 01 Jun 2025, 12:40
Dying to Live
finding THE chise goat still at it? 
I don't know if I'll ever have time to read through 97 pages, but I'm here now lol
I don't know if I'll ever have time to read through 97 pages, but I'm here now lol