Sunday morning, the apartment was a slow machine—heater clicking, fridge humming, water pipes knocking whenever someone in the building decided to take a shower. Asher lay there watching the ceiling line turn from gray to pale gold. His shoulders felt heavy in a not-awful way, like the weight meant he'd actually done something yesterday.
He scrolled his phone long enough to feel gross about it and finally got up. A note on the counter waited by the fruit bowl.
Grocery list on the table. Wake me at ten. — Mom
Her handwriting had softened on the ten, like she wished it could be later. He checked the clock. 9:12.
He made toast and ate it leaning on the counter, then added "milk (2%), cereal, pasta sauce, trash bags" to the list. He almost wrote "new net for the hoop" and stopped himself; the apartment didn't come with a hoop and they didn't have a driveway anyway.
At 10:01 he knocked on her door. "Mom?"
The answer was a muffled "mm-hmm," then the squeak of her shoes on the floor. She opened the door in an oversized T-shirt, hair coiled on top of her head, eyes puffy in that way that's less sleep and more life.
"Hey, baby." She yawned. "Give me ten minutes to find my face."
"You don't need—"
"I need," she said, smiling, and shut the door.
They hit the grocery store by 10:40—fluorescent light, soft rock, and produce that all looked slightly suspicious. Mom pushed the cart like it had done something to her in a past life. Asher grabbed cans and boxes and tried to remember the route his brain had mapped in their old neighborhood store.
They had the same conversation they always did about brand names versus store brand, fresh versus frozen, "It's all vegetables, Mom," and she said, "I know, but the frozen ones never taste right," and then she bought them anyway because they were cheaper.
"How's school?" she asked in the cereal aisle, like she'd been saving the question and it had finally slipped out.
"It's school."
"Any… issues?"
"No."
"Good." She pretended to compare prices on granola bars. "You, uh, meet any kids you like?"
He thought of Jordan's grin, the way Leah balanced on the curb like she'd decided the street was a tightrope only she could see. "I'm figuring it out."
"That's an answer."
"It's the one I have," he said, not unkindly.
She squeezed his wrist once and dropped a box in the cart. "Good enough."
At the register, she tried to make conversation with the cashier and the cashier decided to treat it like a game where each answer cost a second of life. On the way out, Mom handed Asher a bag and said, "I'm proud of you." Like she tossed the words into his hands to see if he'd drop them.
"For what?" he asked.
"For coming with me. For… being here. For not disappearing on me."
"I'm here," he said, because it was true.
Back home, he helped carry the bags up the stairs because the elevator was a liar. They put the groceries away like people who had done it together a thousand times. He took out the trash and when he came back she was already in her room, door half-closed, setting her alarm for the evening shift.
He sat at the table with the list and a pen and added nothing to it. It felt good to write nothing down.
His phone buzzed. Unknown number, which meant not a bill and not a spam promise of a free cruise.
Leah: hey. library later? i have to pretend to advise an art club flyer wall. you could… stare at a book near me or something
He stared at her punctuation—a chaos of lowercase and no period at the end—and smiled.
Asher: i can stare at books professionally
Leah: perfect. 3?
Asher: see you there
He put his phone face down, then flipped it back over like he didn't trust gravity not to steal the plan.
The library's air always felt two degrees too cold and somehow that made it perfect. Leah was already there at a table by the windows with a pile of flyers, scissors, and the kind of tape that tries to stick to itself and nothing else. Her sketchbook sat open like a pet that wandered everywhere with her.
"Hey," she said, like she'd been expecting him to appear from the air. "You like glue sticks or are you normal?"
"I can be either if there's a grade," he said.
"No grades for this. Just the illusion of organization." She handed him a stack. "Cut around the edges so they look intentional."
He took the scissors and started trimming, the thin sound of metal on paper filling the spaces between their breaths.
"You disappeared fast yesterday," she said after a minute.
"From the gym or from the planet?"
"Gym."
"Yeah," he said. "I was trying not to make it a whole thing."
"It was a small thing," she said. "It looked big on your face, but that's your business."
He glanced up. "You always say stuff like that?"
"Only when I'm right."
"Jordan said that to me already."
"He thinks he invented honesty." She grinned. "He didn't."
They taped the flyers to a blank rectangle of corkboard. It came together in a lopsided grid that looked like it wanted to be neat and then lost interest. Leah stepped back, hands on hips.
"It's ugly," she said. "Which means teenagers will like it."
"Art club meet-ups on Thursdays?"
"And Saturdays if the budget survives. Which is hilarious because we don't have a budget." She turned, grabbed her sketchbook, and tugged a pencil from behind her ear. "You mind?"
"Mind what?"
"Existing while I draw you. You can keep cutting so it looks like you're doing something heroic."
He stilled for a second out of muscle memory—camera flash, magazine photo, smiling so wide his cheeks hurt—and then let it out. "Sure," he said, and went back to trimming a rounded edge.
She drew quietly, graphite whispering across the page. After a few minutes he said, "You always draw people without telling them?"
"Only when I like their posture."
"What's my posture?"
"Like you're trying to hold in a breath and you're not sure if you should."
He didn't answer. He didn't need to. They worked like that for a while—her pencil moving, his scissors snipping, the library's small noises making a soft net around them.
"You ever show your stuff?" he asked finally.
"Sometimes. My aunt runs a café on Elm that lets kids hang work on the back wall. It's mostly lattes, power outlets, and people writing their 'screenplays,' but the wall is ours."
"You call them screenplays with quotes?"
"If you saw the drafts, you would too." She smirked, then closed the sketchbook and slid it across the table. "You can look. No one else gets to unless they earn it."
He studied the page. She'd drawn him from slightly above, catching the slope of his shoulders, the way his hair fell forward when he tilted his head. It wasn't pretty and that's what made it good—she'd put in the shadow under his eyes, the small tightness around his mouth, and somehow it didn't make him look broken; it made him look like someone who hadn't decided yet.
"It's… good," he said, hating the understatement and not knowing how to fix it.
"I know," she said, not as arrogance but as a fact. "You can keep it if you want."
He looked up. "For real?"
"I'll send you a photo. The original goes in the book. I'm sentimental."
"Same," he said, thinking of the stack of notes in the drawer.
"Want coffee?" she asked. "Or hot chocolate if you're pretending coffee is a personality."
"Hot chocolate sounds like it won't make me shake."
"Sold," she said, and they left the library with their shoulders almost touching and their steps not quite in sync.
Her aunt's café was two blocks over, wedged between a dry cleaner and a store that sold phone cases and incense. The café smelled like cinnamon and milk and the inside of a book. The back wall held a collage of drawings, prints, and photos clipped to thin wires. Leah pointed out three with a quick flick of her wrist—"not mine, mine, mine"—and they claimed a tiny table by an outlet with their steaming cups.
"It's not bad," Asher said after a sip. "It tastes like childhood."
"It tastes like sugar," Leah said, pleased.
He watched the door for a minute, an old habit that never told him anything useful. "You live with your aunt?"
"My mom," she said. "Aunt owns this place, though, so I'm basically feral in here. What about you?"
"Just me and my mom." He rolled the cup between his palms, grounding in the heat. "She works nights a lot."
"Healthcare?"
"Restaurant," he said. "Sometimes feels like triage."
Leah smiled at that. Then, softer: "Is it hard?"
"What?"
"The quiet."
He thought of last year: a room that felt like it wanted to swallow him, the way the door felt heavier every time he tried to leave; coaches' texts he didn't answer; friends' calls he let ring out until the sound made him feel like he'd swallowed electricity. He thought of last night: the ball in his hand, the part of his brain that finally exhaled.
"Yeah," he said. "Sometimes it's loud, though. Just not… outside."
She nodded like she knew that song. "You don't have to tell me anything," she said. "But if you ever want to say something where it won't bounce back, I'm good at absorbing."
"Like those wall pads under the hoop," he said.
"Exactly like those," she said, grinning. "I'll even squeak if you run into me."
He laughed into his cup, hot chocolate almost coming out his nose. "Please don't."
They sat there for a while, letting the caffeine people cycle around them. Leah told him about the art teacher who wore bow ties and cried during critiques in a way that made everyone feel like they were winning. He told her about an elementary-school coach who taught him how to hold a ball with his fingertips and then ruined Oreos for him by saying they were "defense fuel." It didn't matter what they talked about—what mattered was the easy, low tide of it.
His phone buzzed against the table. Jordan.
Jordan: open gym again tomorrow. coach'll be there. not tryouts. slow stuff
Jordan: if you come i'll stop spamming you for 24 hrs. incredible deal
Leah leaned in like the text had released a smell. "Let me guess."
"You don't even know him and you know it's him?"
"I know that tone," she said. "It's 'I'm annoying on purpose because I care.'"
He stared at the blue bubble, the offer tucked inside the joke. The part of him that counted bounces started counting again.
"I don't know," he said.
"You don't have to," she said. "But if you do go, you don't have to prove anything. You can just be there."
"As opposed to what?"
"As opposed to the version where you think everyone's already watching you." She said it like she'd read the thought directly off his skin.
He looked down at the table's chipped edge. "That's a hard version to shut off."
"I know," she said. "You can borrow my headphones. They don't play anything. I just like the weight."
He smiled. "I have a pair like that."
"Of course you do," she said.
They finished their drinks and walked back into the cold afternoon. She tucked her hands into her hoodie and said, "You ever want to see something stupid?"
"Always."
She led him two blocks farther to a tiny park wedged between buildings. The court there had no lines—just a hoop with a bent rim and only a few strands of net left to remember what it was for. Someone had chalked a crooked three-point line months ago; the rain had tried to erase it and failed.
"It's where I come when I want to draw motion," she said. "People miss more here. Missing's interesting."
"Missing's honest," he said, before he knew he believed it.
They stood there looking at the nothing court. He didn't want to shoot. He didn't want to leave either. He wanted to memorize the angle of the rim against the sky in case the feeling of today didn't happen again.
Leah fished a stub of white chalk from her pocket. "Here," she said, handing it to him.
He crouched, drew a line at the top of the key where he thought it should be, based on where everything else was wrong. It looked silly in the chalk dust, but the circle it implied calmed something in him.
"Better," she said.
They stayed until the light went soft and their breath turned visible. On the walk home, Leah peeled off toward Elm with a small wave, and he kept going toward the apartment and the humming heater and the note that would be waiting later telling him not to forget.
The note was on the counter when he got back, folded once like a secret.
Leftover soup on the stove. Don't forget your meds. Love you. — Mom
He smiled and put it under the magnet with the others, then took his meds and ate the soup standing up, spoon clinking the side of the pot.
His phone buzzed again. Jordan, relentless.
Jordan: last chance to take the incredible deal
Jordan: tomorrow 4–6. coach is decent. not a yeller. you'd like him
Asher stared at the messages, thumb hovering. He thought of the empty court in the park and the way Leah had said remember differently. He thought of the ball in his hand yesterday and the part of him that had gone quiet for the first time in a year.
He typed:
Asher: i might stop by
Dots. Then:
Jordan: i accept this legally binding contract
Asher put the phone face down and laughed, just a breath. The room felt less like an empty container and more like a place that held him.
Outside, somewhere down the block, somebody tried a shot and hit the rim.
Clang.
Then the bounce, then another, then the soft roll of leather on concrete.
He listened without flinching.
Tomorrow could be whatever it was. Tonight he was okay with small things: soup, a note, a chalk line no rain could fully erase.
He turned off the kitchen light and the apartment settled around him, not heavy—just there.