Dale Denton | The Legacy | Rookie Year

[djp73]

Let’s put a ball cap on

[The JZA]

Well I know he’s not a wildcat

Agent, Shooting your School in the foot

Let’s put a ball cap on

djp73, Nearly there

[The JZA]

Chapter XII: The Path To A New Road To Glory Pt. II

Winter crept up on Clarendon County like a snake in tall grass. One day the leaves was falling, the next the trees were bare and the mornings cold enough to slap breath right out your chest. Football was over, the crowd cheers replaced by the school bell and the soft tap of pen to paper.

Dale was trying to lock back in. Grades weren’t bad, but they weren’t where he wanted ‘em either.

C+ in Economics? Nah. That had to come up. B- in Calculus? Slipping.

With winter break creeping in fast, he had a small window to try to finish strong with the semester's exam. After that, there two and a half weeks of wind down, recharge and get back to it for the school year. It wasn’t just about the diploma anymore—it was about stepping into the next stage of life with no regrets, no doubts. Still... School wasn’t the only thing on his mind.

In his room, the sticky note that once held his top college picks had grown legs and evolved into a full-blown spreadsheet taped to the wall. He had rankings, stats, maps, campus diversity breakdowns... Even pros and cons for weather conditions.

Notre Dame. Michigan. Texas A&M. Kentucky. Washington, just to name a few.

The list looked more like war plans than college options. But no matter how many times he flipped the schools around like puzzle pieces, none of it clicked. No real peace. The deeper Dale got into this commitment process, the more detached he felt from all of it. It was like trying to fall in love with a face you couldn’t see.

With a sigh heavy as wet clothes, Dale let his pen fall and slid back onto the bed, headphones in, hoodie up. He scrolled through his music until he landed on "Smile More" by Syd. That mellow, haunting groove hit instantly, washing over him like a slow tide. Her voice was syrupy, but bittersweet. It massaged the edges of his brain and cracked open something he'd been burying.

Keisha...

Damn, he hadn’t really spoken to her in weeks—not since the championship. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but football, school, life... it swallowed him whole. He told himself she understood. She had to. But still… silence got loud.

Feeling bold—or maybe nostalgic—he pulled up their old message thread and dropped a simple red heart emoji. Quick and harmless.

Ping. Read. No reply.

Dale waited. Five minutes... Ten...

He told himself maybe she saw it but was busy. Maybe she’d hit him later. An hour passed. Still nothing.

Piqued by her unusual lack of response timing, he typed again,

"You busy?"

Another read...

Now he was tight. That ugly little knot twisted in his chest and turned hot. Dale ain’t one to beg for attention—but he also ain't built to be ignored, especially not by her.

"What’s up with you? Why are you reading my messages and ignoring me?"

This time, it took a few minutes. Then his phone lit up with a reply that landed like a sucker punch: "Lose this number bro, she moved on."

Dale blinked. Thought maybe he misread it. He stared at the screen, fingers frozen.

Again: "Lose this number bro, she moved on."

His chest tightened.

"Quit playing around, Jerrod. This you? Where’s your sister?"

"This ain't Jerrod. Move on, big dawg."

Now it felt real. Too real. The blood in Dale’s face drained like someone yanked the plug on his heart. "WTF is this???"

His thumbs were trembling. The music in his headphones was long gone, just static silence behind the chaos inside his head. He slid forward on the bed, phone clenched tight, praying this was all a joke.

Then came the final message. A video.

No caption. Just a blurry thumbnail that looked like nothing—until it wasn’t.

Dale hit play.

His soul left his body before the thirty-second mark.

It was Keisha. His Keisha.

In someone else’s passenger seat of a BMW. Face in his lap. Head bobbing like she was going for a damn world record. And the dude? One hand on the back of her neck. Wrist blinged out. Recording like it was just another Tuesday.

Dale couldn't believe what he saw, his heart sunk and slipped off the deep end just as his phone did in his hands as it crashed to the floor. Just as the thud sounded off, Mark knocks on the door, entering with his head only.

"Hey son, I was just—", Mark stopped him-self mid-sentence. He could see Dale was out of tune and something was wrong. Mark enters the room, seeing Dale's phone open, playing a video. Mark picks up the phone, seeing the short film closely. Getting the gist of it and was confused why his son was watching it.

"Dale, what's going on? You watching porn in my house!? The fuck is wrong with you?

No answer.

“Dale? … Dale!”

Mark grew frustrated not seeing his son was removed. Everything stopped. There was no struggle. There was no tears. There was no pain, just death and emptiness.

Mark finger accidentally taps the video feed out of picture, show the thread of text between Dale and the recipient. Mark wasn't one for intrusion, but he was already a foot in reprimanding.

He reads the bit of the recent responses, twice. Then once more for the full sting of it to settle in.

Mark’s face went from confusion to understanding in one slow motion. He sat next to his son, placing a firm, fatherly hand on his back.

“I’m sorry, son,” he said quietly, voice softer than Dale had ever heard it. “You don’t need that shit.”

Dale didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His body was here, but his heart was somewhere in East Harlem—crushed beneath the tire treads of a Beamer.

Mark gave him a little squeeze, the only words he could muster still sitting heavy on his tongue.

“I'm assuming this girl was special to you?... Well... I'm the last person you need to hear this from but, some people ain’t meant to go with you into the next chapter,” he said. “She wasn’t ready for where you’re headed. She chose her own path in life.”

Still nothing from Dale.

So Mark stood up, left the room quietly, but not before turning off the lights and closing the door halfway—just enough to give Dale space, but not leave him in the dark alone.

And there Dale sat. In silence. In disbelief. Part of him dying in the shadow of a love that betrayed him.

Whatever was left of his heart... he’d just buried it.

[djp73]

[James]

What kind of mickey mouse shit does a team with the worse record get to host the state championship game? Not at a neutral site?

Also emotions gonna be this guy's undoing. Gotta be a robot!

[The JZA]

djp73,

What kind of mickey mouse shit does a team with the worse record get to host the state championship game? Not at a neutral site?

Also emotions gonna be this guy's undoing. Gotta be a robot!

James, Hostile James! The audacity!

Nah, story wise, I'm using what I know, or what I used to know. I don't know if SC today changed the state championship game to a neutral fielding, it wasn't like that back in the day. SC ain't never been keen on catching up with times.

The pre-game panel was meant for neutral. I had left the crib, came back & started the game. When I realized I was supposed to flip it, game was too good to waste.

So I left the chapter as is and said fuck it, we gone find a way to sauce this botch & move on

[James]

Haha that’s fair. I wasn’t too plugged into the scene when I lived there. In Oklahoma it has always been at a neutral site. College stadiums for the larger schools and larger schools for the smaller schools. We were in the largest classification and my school hosted the championship for the smallest classifications which played 8 man football. It was always fun to go watch those games.

[The JZA]

Haha that’s fair. I wasn’t too plugged into the scene when I lived there. In Oklahoma it has always been at a neutral site. College stadiums for the larger schools and larger schools for the smaller schools. We were in the largest classification and my school hosted the championship for the smallest classifications which played 8 man football. It was always fun to go watch those games.

James, You was in SC too? What county?

Shit, I just recently learned that the district board back in the day was petty asf. There was a court-order on Manning High for race integration and they went out and built a all-white private school in spite, which still stands today .

[James]

Haha that’s fair. I wasn’t too plugged into the scene when I lived there. In Oklahoma it has always been at a neutral site. College stadiums for the larger schools and larger schools for the smaller schools. We were in the largest classification and my school hosted the championship for the smallest classifications which played 8 man football. It was always fun to go watch those games.

James, You was in SC too? What county?

Shit, I just recently learned that the district board back in the day was petty asf. There was a court-order on Manning High for race integration and they went out and built a all-white private school in spite, which still stands today .

I lived in Goose Creek / Summerville from 2009-2013. So Berkeley County.

[The JZA]

I lived in Goose Creek / Summerville from 2009-2013. So Berkeley County.

James, Look at you southern boy lol I was just a county over in Clarendon from '97-'10. Car accident and bad assumptions kept me there