Dying to Live
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 13036
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Full Sprint
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Captain Canada
- Posts: 5790
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Dying to Live
Let's get to undefeared 
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 13036
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Run With Me
Royce had kissed her—and then pulled back.
Not in that exact moment. No, he’d kissed her like it mattered. Like something had settled between them, warm and real. But afterward? That was when the distance crept in. Not with slammed doors or harsh words. Just silence. Fewer texts. Late replies. No invitations to come over. No check-ins after long practices or sleepy early mornings.
And still, Effie didn’t press.
She didn’t call him out. Didn’t corner him with questions. She just… let the silence expand. Not as punishment. Just as truth.
At first, that made it easier.
If she wasn’t asking, he didn’t have to explain.
But the stillness didn’t give him peace. It just echoed. Especially at night, when he lay on his back staring at the ceiling fan, wondering why the hell he could chase down quarterbacks and crowd noise like it was oxygen, but one real moment of closeness made him bolt.
He told himself he was protecting her. That he was sorting things out. That it wasn’t fair to pull her into the mess he was still trying to name.
But the truth was simpler.
He was scared.
Scared that the version of him she’d seen—open, soft, stripped down—wasn’t built to last.
Like the last time.
So he ran.
And the longer he stayed away, the more it felt like something in him was calcifying again. Like the old armor was creeping back on, piece by piece. Cold. Familiar.
Until Friday night.
He sat in his car outside her building for twelve minutes. No music. Just the low tick of the hazard light he never turned on. Then he got out. Climbed the stairs.
Knocked once.
Effie opened the door in a hoodie and socks, her curls loose around her shoulders, eyes calm.
Not cold.
Just ready—for whatever this was going to be.
“I thought I was protecting something by staying away,” he said.
His voice sounded smaller than he meant it to.
Effie said nothing. Just watched him from the doorway.
He swallowed, jaw flexing.
“But I was just running from it.”
She leaned against the frame, arms crossed, waiting.
Royce met her eyes, forcing himself to stand in the moment instead of looking for the nearest exit.
“I didn’t know what to do with the way you saw me,” he said. “Like I was more than the damage.”
Still, she said nothing.
But after a long beat, she stepped aside.
He walked in slowly. The place looked the same—low light, a couple photos taped up on the fridge, one of them a hallway burned to the beams, shadows curling like smoke.
He sat on the couch, elbows on his knees. Hands clasped.
Effie sat beside him—not too close.
“I wasn’t trying to ghost you,” he said.
She nodded. “I know.”
“I just… didn’t know how to hold it. What we doing.”
“You don’t have to hold all of it at once,” she said. “Just don’t pretend like it doesn’t matter.”
That hit.
He glanced at her. She wasn’t looking at him. She was staring at the floor like she didn’t need to look to be present. Like she’d already made her peace with waiting—but not forever.
Royce leaned back, rubbed a hand down his face.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted. “I ain’t got a good track record with this shit.”
“You don’t have to,” she said.
And that—that—was what undid him a little. The permission in it. The grace.
He turned his head, looked at her.
“I want to try.”
Effie met his gaze. “Then stay.”
So he did.
He didn’t touch her. Didn’t kiss her again.
He just stayed.
~~~~~~~~~~
The door to Roux clicked shut behind Alix, the quiet kind of click you only hear when the city’s finally settled. It was just after 2 a.m., and the night was thick with stillness. Even the neon buzz from the corner store down the block had dulled to a low hum.
She stepped onto the sidewalk with her tote bag slung over one shoulder, blazer folded over her arm. Her curls were starting to fall out of their pins, and there was a faint streak of graphite smudged along the side of her hand—evidence of too many hours spent making last-minute adjustments to the boutique hotel layouts. Her back ached. Her eyelids were heavy.
But she smiled when she saw him.
Co was leaning against the side of his car across the street, arms folded, hoodie zipped halfway, scrubs peeking out beneath. His badge was gone, but the imprint still tugged at his collar. He looked tired, but he looked there.
Alix crossed without saying a word.
“You been waiting long?” she asked as she reached him.
“Nah,” he said. “I figured you’d come out smelling like paper and deadlines.”
She bumped his shoulder. “You’re not wrong.”
“Wanna walk?” he asked.
She nodded.
They fell into step easily, heading east down North Street, streetlights washing everything in that familiar wash of orange and shadow. Her shoulder brushed his arm. Neither moved away.
It wasn’t one of those nights where they had to fill the air. The silence between them wasn’t heavy. It just held space.
“You ever think about how far we’ve come?” Co asked, his voice quiet.
Alix didn’t look over right away. She just kept walking.
“No,” she said. “I think about how close we are.”
He stopped. Just for a moment.
Alix slowed too, turning toward him, her expression unreadable in the low light—until it wasn’t.
Then he smiled. Not wide. Just enough.
They didn’t say anything else.
They didn’t have to.
By the time they reached his apartment, he didn’t offer. She didn’t ask.
He unlocked the door, held it open for her, and she stepped inside like it was second nature. Like they’d done this before. Like maybe it didn’t need defining anymore.
Her bag landed in the usual spot beside the couch. His keys hit the dish on the entry table. The lights stayed dim.
She toed off her shoes.
He turned on the kettle even though neither of them was really in the mood for tea.
It wasn’t about ritual.
It was about rhythm.
And tonight, like most nights lately, their rhythm moved in tandem.
They didn’t go home separately.
They already were.
~~~~~~~~~~
The space wasn’t fancy. Just a narrow bookstore off Jefferson Street, tucked between a used vinyl shop and a Mediterranean café that always smelled like rosemary and oil. The windows were steamed from the bodies packed inside, and a makeshift stage—two stacked pallets, draped in a faded rug—sat under the spotlight of a floor lamp with no shade.
Arianna stood just behind it, notebook in hand, waiting for her turn.
The literary showcase was small, local, and quietly prestigious. The kind of event you got invited to by someone who saw something in your work that you hadn’t said out loud yet. She’d gotten the message two weeks ago from a grad student she’d met at an open mic—“We’re putting together a lineup in Lafayette. You should come.”
This time, her poem wasn’t just personal. It wasn’t just about survival. It braided fiction and memory, metaphor and muscle. There were moments in it that weren’t real—but the ache behind them was.
When the host finally called her name, Arianna stepped up, her boots hollow on the wood, her voice clear.
“Some girls bury their grief like bone beneath floorboards.
Mine learned how to dance on top of it.”
“I tried on silence like a dress I never wanted,
hemmed it with apology, cinched it with retreat—
but it never quite fit.”
“They say soil remembers everything.
So I planted myself anyway.”
She didn’t look up often. Just once or twice—to steady herself, to catch the edges of nodding heads, closed eyes. Not validation. Just connection.
“I was not born fearless.
But I learned to speak through the dirt.”
When she finished, the room didn’t explode. It settled. Like something had landed.
Applause came softly at first. Then fuller. Real.
Arianna stepped off the stage, pulse still fluttering in her throat.
She was sipping from a paper cup of lemon water when a woman approached her, tall and warm-skinned, dressed in a black blazer and sensible heels. She looked like she belonged behind a podium—voice trained, eyes alert.
“I’m Dr. Callahan,” the woman said, offering her hand. “I’m visiting from Emory.”
Arianna shook it. “Arianna.”
“I know,” Dr. Callahan said. “I heard you read.”
She didn’t flatter. Didn’t gush.
Instead, she said: “Your work reads like it knows it’s been buried before.”
Arianna paused. Let the words settle.
Then she nodded, eyes meeting the professor’s without flinching.
“It was,” she said quietly. “But it still grew.”
Dr. Callahan smiled, slow and knowing. “Keep watering it.”
And with that, she moved on.
Arianna stood there for a long moment, cup still in hand, poem still echoing behind her ribs.
She wasn’t chasing the version of herself who had survived.
She was building the version who could thrive.
And this—this little room in Lafayette with too many people and not enough air—this was where she bloomed.
Royce had kissed her—and then pulled back.
Not in that exact moment. No, he’d kissed her like it mattered. Like something had settled between them, warm and real. But afterward? That was when the distance crept in. Not with slammed doors or harsh words. Just silence. Fewer texts. Late replies. No invitations to come over. No check-ins after long practices or sleepy early mornings.
And still, Effie didn’t press.
She didn’t call him out. Didn’t corner him with questions. She just… let the silence expand. Not as punishment. Just as truth.
At first, that made it easier.
If she wasn’t asking, he didn’t have to explain.
But the stillness didn’t give him peace. It just echoed. Especially at night, when he lay on his back staring at the ceiling fan, wondering why the hell he could chase down quarterbacks and crowd noise like it was oxygen, but one real moment of closeness made him bolt.
He told himself he was protecting her. That he was sorting things out. That it wasn’t fair to pull her into the mess he was still trying to name.
But the truth was simpler.
He was scared.
Scared that the version of him she’d seen—open, soft, stripped down—wasn’t built to last.
Like the last time.
So he ran.
And the longer he stayed away, the more it felt like something in him was calcifying again. Like the old armor was creeping back on, piece by piece. Cold. Familiar.
Until Friday night.
He sat in his car outside her building for twelve minutes. No music. Just the low tick of the hazard light he never turned on. Then he got out. Climbed the stairs.
Knocked once.
Effie opened the door in a hoodie and socks, her curls loose around her shoulders, eyes calm.
Not cold.
Just ready—for whatever this was going to be.
“I thought I was protecting something by staying away,” he said.
His voice sounded smaller than he meant it to.
Effie said nothing. Just watched him from the doorway.
He swallowed, jaw flexing.
“But I was just running from it.”
She leaned against the frame, arms crossed, waiting.
Royce met her eyes, forcing himself to stand in the moment instead of looking for the nearest exit.
“I didn’t know what to do with the way you saw me,” he said. “Like I was more than the damage.”
Still, she said nothing.
But after a long beat, she stepped aside.
He walked in slowly. The place looked the same—low light, a couple photos taped up on the fridge, one of them a hallway burned to the beams, shadows curling like smoke.
He sat on the couch, elbows on his knees. Hands clasped.
Effie sat beside him—not too close.
“I wasn’t trying to ghost you,” he said.
She nodded. “I know.”
“I just… didn’t know how to hold it. What we doing.”
“You don’t have to hold all of it at once,” she said. “Just don’t pretend like it doesn’t matter.”
That hit.
He glanced at her. She wasn’t looking at him. She was staring at the floor like she didn’t need to look to be present. Like she’d already made her peace with waiting—but not forever.
Royce leaned back, rubbed a hand down his face.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted. “I ain’t got a good track record with this shit.”
“You don’t have to,” she said.
And that—that—was what undid him a little. The permission in it. The grace.
He turned his head, looked at her.
“I want to try.”
Effie met his gaze. “Then stay.”
So he did.
He didn’t touch her. Didn’t kiss her again.
He just stayed.
~~~~~~~~~~
The door to Roux clicked shut behind Alix, the quiet kind of click you only hear when the city’s finally settled. It was just after 2 a.m., and the night was thick with stillness. Even the neon buzz from the corner store down the block had dulled to a low hum.
She stepped onto the sidewalk with her tote bag slung over one shoulder, blazer folded over her arm. Her curls were starting to fall out of their pins, and there was a faint streak of graphite smudged along the side of her hand—evidence of too many hours spent making last-minute adjustments to the boutique hotel layouts. Her back ached. Her eyelids were heavy.
But she smiled when she saw him.
Co was leaning against the side of his car across the street, arms folded, hoodie zipped halfway, scrubs peeking out beneath. His badge was gone, but the imprint still tugged at his collar. He looked tired, but he looked there.
Alix crossed without saying a word.
“You been waiting long?” she asked as she reached him.
“Nah,” he said. “I figured you’d come out smelling like paper and deadlines.”
She bumped his shoulder. “You’re not wrong.”
“Wanna walk?” he asked.
She nodded.
They fell into step easily, heading east down North Street, streetlights washing everything in that familiar wash of orange and shadow. Her shoulder brushed his arm. Neither moved away.
It wasn’t one of those nights where they had to fill the air. The silence between them wasn’t heavy. It just held space.
“You ever think about how far we’ve come?” Co asked, his voice quiet.
Alix didn’t look over right away. She just kept walking.
“No,” she said. “I think about how close we are.”
He stopped. Just for a moment.
Alix slowed too, turning toward him, her expression unreadable in the low light—until it wasn’t.
Then he smiled. Not wide. Just enough.
They didn’t say anything else.
They didn’t have to.
By the time they reached his apartment, he didn’t offer. She didn’t ask.
He unlocked the door, held it open for her, and she stepped inside like it was second nature. Like they’d done this before. Like maybe it didn’t need defining anymore.
Her bag landed in the usual spot beside the couch. His keys hit the dish on the entry table. The lights stayed dim.
She toed off her shoes.
He turned on the kettle even though neither of them was really in the mood for tea.
It wasn’t about ritual.
It was about rhythm.
And tonight, like most nights lately, their rhythm moved in tandem.
They didn’t go home separately.
They already were.
~~~~~~~~~~
The space wasn’t fancy. Just a narrow bookstore off Jefferson Street, tucked between a used vinyl shop and a Mediterranean café that always smelled like rosemary and oil. The windows were steamed from the bodies packed inside, and a makeshift stage—two stacked pallets, draped in a faded rug—sat under the spotlight of a floor lamp with no shade.
Arianna stood just behind it, notebook in hand, waiting for her turn.
The literary showcase was small, local, and quietly prestigious. The kind of event you got invited to by someone who saw something in your work that you hadn’t said out loud yet. She’d gotten the message two weeks ago from a grad student she’d met at an open mic—“We’re putting together a lineup in Lafayette. You should come.”
This time, her poem wasn’t just personal. It wasn’t just about survival. It braided fiction and memory, metaphor and muscle. There were moments in it that weren’t real—but the ache behind them was.
When the host finally called her name, Arianna stepped up, her boots hollow on the wood, her voice clear.
“Some girls bury their grief like bone beneath floorboards.
Mine learned how to dance on top of it.”
“I tried on silence like a dress I never wanted,
hemmed it with apology, cinched it with retreat—
but it never quite fit.”
“They say soil remembers everything.
So I planted myself anyway.”
She didn’t look up often. Just once or twice—to steady herself, to catch the edges of nodding heads, closed eyes. Not validation. Just connection.
“I was not born fearless.
But I learned to speak through the dirt.”
When she finished, the room didn’t explode. It settled. Like something had landed.
Applause came softly at first. Then fuller. Real.
Arianna stepped off the stage, pulse still fluttering in her throat.
She was sipping from a paper cup of lemon water when a woman approached her, tall and warm-skinned, dressed in a black blazer and sensible heels. She looked like she belonged behind a podium—voice trained, eyes alert.
“I’m Dr. Callahan,” the woman said, offering her hand. “I’m visiting from Emory.”
Arianna shook it. “Arianna.”
“I know,” Dr. Callahan said. “I heard you read.”
She didn’t flatter. Didn’t gush.
Instead, she said: “Your work reads like it knows it’s been buried before.”
Arianna paused. Let the words settle.
Then she nodded, eyes meeting the professor’s without flinching.
“It was,” she said quietly. “But it still grew.”
Dr. Callahan smiled, slow and knowing. “Keep watering it.”
And with that, she moved on.
Arianna stood there for a long moment, cup still in hand, poem still echoing behind her ribs.
She wasn’t chasing the version of herself who had survived.
She was building the version who could thrive.
And this—this little room in Lafayette with too many people and not enough air—this was where she bloomed.
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 13036
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
What You Saw
The flower bed was a mess.
Dried weeds coiled at the base like brittle memories. The old mulch had gone soft and sour in spots, and the marigolds—once loud with orange and gold—were wilted, their stems bent and dry as if they’d given up mid-bloom. Arianna stood over it for a moment before kneeling down, pressing her palms into the cool dirt like she needed to be sure it would still take something new.
Toni crouched beside her, gloved hands already working loose the first cluster of weeds. “You really let this bed go.”
Arianna scoffed softly. “I didn’t let it go. I just… let it be.”
Toni shot her a side glance. “That’s such a you answer.”
They both laughed, and the sound settled low into the warm hush of an November afternoon. It was quiet on Arianna’s block—just the hum of cicadas in the distance, a neighbor’s window fan clanking somewhere two doors down, and the rhythmic scrape of their trowels carving up soil.
They worked in silence for a while. Not the awkward kind, not tense. Just easy. Grounded. Arianna’s curls were tied back in a loose puff, baby hairs curling along her forehead. Her knees were stained with dirt. Sweat dotted the small of her back, but she didn’t complain. Didn’t need to.
Toni was methodical—clearing the bed in neat sections, pulling old roots like she was untangling her own thoughts. She wore a pair of black leggings and a tank top that read Love Loudly across the chest in faded pink font. Her braids were pulled into a bun, a pencil stuck through them like a makeshift hair stick.
Arianna glanced at her—at the curve of her brow, the set of her mouth, the strength in her shoulders.
“You remember who you were before him?” she asked, the words coming out quiet but steady.
Toni didn’t answer right away.
She rocked back on her heels, eyes on the soil, as if it might hold the answer better than she could.
“I think so,” she said finally. Her voice was low, thoughtful. “She was there. Somewhere. I just… I don’t think I believed in her.”
Arianna didn’t speak.
Toni turned to her then, gaze open and direct.
“Not until you kept showing up.”
The wind stirred just then, lifting the edge of a trash bag half-filled with weeds and brittle stems. Arianna reached out and pressed it down gently.
“I wasn’t trying to fix you,” she said, still not quite looking at Toni. “Just hold a mirror.”
Toni didn’t say anything for a beat. Then she leaned forward again and started clearing the last of the flower bed, hands steady in the dirt. Her motions weren’t rushed anymore.
“Funny thing about mirrors,” she murmured. “They don’t change you. But sometimes, they make it so you can’t unsee what’s real.”
Arianna looked at her now—fully.
And there it was: not resolution, not healing wrapped in a bow. Just recognition. The kind that happens when you realize the person sitting across from you has held pieces of you when you couldn’t.
They sat back, shoulder to shoulder now, resting for a moment. Their breaths slowed. The light shifted, casting long shadows across the bare flower bed.
Toni nudged her gently with an elbow. “We’re gonna need something new to plant here.”
Arianna nodded. “Something that blooms messy.”
“Messy?”
“Yeah. Resilient. Unbothered by bad dirt or late starts.”
Toni smiled softly. “You mean like us.”
Arianna raised an eyebrow. “I mean exactly like us.”
They stood together, brushing dirt from their legs, the flower bed cleared, dark soil turned and waiting. The trash bags rustled behind them. Somewhere nearby, a car door slammed and a bird called out into the heat, sharp and defiant.
Toni looked at the open earth. “We should get lavender. Or sage. Something that keeps coming back.”
Arianna reached down and turned the last bit of soil with her hand. “Something that grows even when it’s been stepped on.”
They didn’t move for a long while. Just stood there, looking at the space they’d cleared. What they’d made room for.
What could come next.
Neither of them turned away.
~~~~~~~~~~
The LSU Mental Health Services building didn’t look like much from the outside—just another red-brick rectangle along the edge of campus, shaded by oaks that had been there long before students started lining up for wellness fairs and exam-week snack bags. Effie stood outside for a minute, her hand hovering near the strap of her tote, watching the doors slide open every few minutes for someone else.
She could still walk away.
She wasn’t in crisis. Not in the traditional sense. No panic attack. No breakdown. Just the slow, dull ache of something she hadn’t learned how to carry yet.
Inside, the lights were soft and the air cold. A beige couch sagged slightly in the corner of the waiting area. The walls were covered in posters about burnout, imposter syndrome, and breathing techniques. A shelf of fidget toys and laminated coping strategies sat next to a tray of herbal teas.
Effie stepped up to the front desk.
The student worker looked up—a girl about her age, glasses slipping down her nose, a half-eaten granola bar tucked behind a stack of intake forms.
“Hey,” the girl said, offering a professional-enough smile. “Is this your first appointment?”
Effie adjusted her strap and gave a small nod. “Here? Yes.”
The girl tapped a few keys on the keyboard. “Okay. I’ll get you started with the intake then. What brings you in today?”
Effie’s mouth opened slightly, then closed. She looked past the desk for a second, as if the answer might be written somewhere on the wall. A poster nearby read Healing isn’t linear in blue letters over a spiral drawn in soft watercolor.
Effie blinked once.
Then said, softly: “A memory that won’t stop moving.”
The student paused, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. Her face changed—something gentler settling in, less process and more presence.
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll start there.”
Effie filled out the form in silence, clicking through screens on the waiting room tablet. Family history. Medications. Preferred therapist demographics. She skipped a few questions, answered others twice in her head before writing anything down. When it asked What do you want to get out of therapy?, she stared at the blinking cursor for a long time.
Then typed: To stop blaming myself for something I didn’t catch in time.
She didn’t read it back.
The therapist—a woman named Dr. Barré with cropped hair and eyes that didn’t flinch—called her back after fifteen minutes. The hallway was lined with soft carpet and quiet doors. They passed one with a sign taped to it in handwritten marker: You are not broken. You are becoming.
Effie sat on the couch in the corner of the small office, legs folded under her, back straight. She didn’t touch the tissue box on the table. Didn’t need to. Not yet.
She spoke slowly at first. About school. About work. About how busy she kept herself. About how sleep had stopped feeling like rest and more like a reboot she hadn’t asked for.
Dr. Barré didn’t interrupt.
Then, when the silence opened wide enough, Effie let the memory spill out.
Not all of it.
Just the part that looped—the party, the lights, Paz saying she was going to the bathroom, Effie losing track of how long she’d been gone. The scream. The floor. The foam.
“She was already hurting,” Effie said at one point, voice low. “But I thought we had time.”
She stared down at her hands.
“I thought I had more time.”
Dr. Barré said nothing. Just nodded once, slow. And stayed with her in that pause.
Effie didn’t cry.
But her shoulders fell in that particular way that only happens when someone lets go of a weight they’ve been holding too long without realizing it.
When the session ended, she stepped back out into the sun. It was bright but not blinding. Warm but not suffocating.
The memory hadn’t stopped moving.
But now it wasn’t moving alone.
~~~~~~~~~~
The locker room felt colder than usual.
Not physically—just quieter, heavier. The kind of quiet that settled beneath the hum of vents and the squeak of cleats on tile. Mike stood in front of his locker, hoodie pulled over his head, bag already zipped. Everything else—his gloves, his cleats, the playbook half-marked with notes—he’d left behind. He didn’t need them anymore.
Coach Fields’ office had been still too. No shouting, no guilt trip. Just a slow exhale when Mike sat down and said what he came to say.
“I’m done.”
The coach had looked at him for a long moment. Not confused. Not surprised, either.
“You sure?”
Mike had nodded. “Yeah.”
They’d talked about timing. Eligibility. Logistics. The door still being open if he changed his mind.
But Mike knew he wouldn’t. The decision hadn’t come from one bad week or one hard game. It had come from the slow, steady unraveling of something he couldn’t name until now—the realization that every time he put on that jersey, he felt like he was stepping into someone else’s life.
The locker room was half-empty by the time he walked through for the last time. A few guys were watching film on their phones. A couple of receivers were arguing about routes like they always did. No one noticed him at first. He didn’t make a scene. That wasn’t who he was.
But one of the linebackers—Cam, who he’d lifted with, ran gassers next to, sweated through three summers alongside—looked up and paused.
“You serious?” Cam asked, frowning. “You really leaving?”
Mike nodded once.
Cam shook his head. “You’ll regret this, man.”
Mike adjusted the strap on his bag and met his eyes. “Not if I finally feel like me.”
Cam didn’t reply. Just stared like he didn’t understand, and maybe he didn’t.
Mike walked out without looking back.
Outside, the sky was soft and overcast. The kind of gray that doesn’t threaten rain but still quiets everything underneath it. He let the door close behind him, the click louder than it should’ve been.
There was no headline. No farewell speech. No camera waiting to catch the moment.
Just him.
Breathing easier than he had in weeks.
No helmet. No pads.
Just himself.
And the road ahead, wide open.
The flower bed was a mess.
Dried weeds coiled at the base like brittle memories. The old mulch had gone soft and sour in spots, and the marigolds—once loud with orange and gold—were wilted, their stems bent and dry as if they’d given up mid-bloom. Arianna stood over it for a moment before kneeling down, pressing her palms into the cool dirt like she needed to be sure it would still take something new.
Toni crouched beside her, gloved hands already working loose the first cluster of weeds. “You really let this bed go.”
Arianna scoffed softly. “I didn’t let it go. I just… let it be.”
Toni shot her a side glance. “That’s such a you answer.”
They both laughed, and the sound settled low into the warm hush of an November afternoon. It was quiet on Arianna’s block—just the hum of cicadas in the distance, a neighbor’s window fan clanking somewhere two doors down, and the rhythmic scrape of their trowels carving up soil.
They worked in silence for a while. Not the awkward kind, not tense. Just easy. Grounded. Arianna’s curls were tied back in a loose puff, baby hairs curling along her forehead. Her knees were stained with dirt. Sweat dotted the small of her back, but she didn’t complain. Didn’t need to.
Toni was methodical—clearing the bed in neat sections, pulling old roots like she was untangling her own thoughts. She wore a pair of black leggings and a tank top that read Love Loudly across the chest in faded pink font. Her braids were pulled into a bun, a pencil stuck through them like a makeshift hair stick.
Arianna glanced at her—at the curve of her brow, the set of her mouth, the strength in her shoulders.
“You remember who you were before him?” she asked, the words coming out quiet but steady.
Toni didn’t answer right away.
She rocked back on her heels, eyes on the soil, as if it might hold the answer better than she could.
“I think so,” she said finally. Her voice was low, thoughtful. “She was there. Somewhere. I just… I don’t think I believed in her.”
Arianna didn’t speak.
Toni turned to her then, gaze open and direct.
“Not until you kept showing up.”
The wind stirred just then, lifting the edge of a trash bag half-filled with weeds and brittle stems. Arianna reached out and pressed it down gently.
“I wasn’t trying to fix you,” she said, still not quite looking at Toni. “Just hold a mirror.”
Toni didn’t say anything for a beat. Then she leaned forward again and started clearing the last of the flower bed, hands steady in the dirt. Her motions weren’t rushed anymore.
“Funny thing about mirrors,” she murmured. “They don’t change you. But sometimes, they make it so you can’t unsee what’s real.”
Arianna looked at her now—fully.
And there it was: not resolution, not healing wrapped in a bow. Just recognition. The kind that happens when you realize the person sitting across from you has held pieces of you when you couldn’t.
They sat back, shoulder to shoulder now, resting for a moment. Their breaths slowed. The light shifted, casting long shadows across the bare flower bed.
Toni nudged her gently with an elbow. “We’re gonna need something new to plant here.”
Arianna nodded. “Something that blooms messy.”
“Messy?”
“Yeah. Resilient. Unbothered by bad dirt or late starts.”
Toni smiled softly. “You mean like us.”
Arianna raised an eyebrow. “I mean exactly like us.”
They stood together, brushing dirt from their legs, the flower bed cleared, dark soil turned and waiting. The trash bags rustled behind them. Somewhere nearby, a car door slammed and a bird called out into the heat, sharp and defiant.
Toni looked at the open earth. “We should get lavender. Or sage. Something that keeps coming back.”
Arianna reached down and turned the last bit of soil with her hand. “Something that grows even when it’s been stepped on.”
They didn’t move for a long while. Just stood there, looking at the space they’d cleared. What they’d made room for.
What could come next.
Neither of them turned away.
~~~~~~~~~~
The LSU Mental Health Services building didn’t look like much from the outside—just another red-brick rectangle along the edge of campus, shaded by oaks that had been there long before students started lining up for wellness fairs and exam-week snack bags. Effie stood outside for a minute, her hand hovering near the strap of her tote, watching the doors slide open every few minutes for someone else.
She could still walk away.
She wasn’t in crisis. Not in the traditional sense. No panic attack. No breakdown. Just the slow, dull ache of something she hadn’t learned how to carry yet.
Inside, the lights were soft and the air cold. A beige couch sagged slightly in the corner of the waiting area. The walls were covered in posters about burnout, imposter syndrome, and breathing techniques. A shelf of fidget toys and laminated coping strategies sat next to a tray of herbal teas.
Effie stepped up to the front desk.
The student worker looked up—a girl about her age, glasses slipping down her nose, a half-eaten granola bar tucked behind a stack of intake forms.
“Hey,” the girl said, offering a professional-enough smile. “Is this your first appointment?”
Effie adjusted her strap and gave a small nod. “Here? Yes.”
The girl tapped a few keys on the keyboard. “Okay. I’ll get you started with the intake then. What brings you in today?”
Effie’s mouth opened slightly, then closed. She looked past the desk for a second, as if the answer might be written somewhere on the wall. A poster nearby read Healing isn’t linear in blue letters over a spiral drawn in soft watercolor.
Effie blinked once.
Then said, softly: “A memory that won’t stop moving.”
The student paused, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. Her face changed—something gentler settling in, less process and more presence.
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll start there.”
Effie filled out the form in silence, clicking through screens on the waiting room tablet. Family history. Medications. Preferred therapist demographics. She skipped a few questions, answered others twice in her head before writing anything down. When it asked What do you want to get out of therapy?, she stared at the blinking cursor for a long time.
Then typed: To stop blaming myself for something I didn’t catch in time.
She didn’t read it back.
The therapist—a woman named Dr. Barré with cropped hair and eyes that didn’t flinch—called her back after fifteen minutes. The hallway was lined with soft carpet and quiet doors. They passed one with a sign taped to it in handwritten marker: You are not broken. You are becoming.
Effie sat on the couch in the corner of the small office, legs folded under her, back straight. She didn’t touch the tissue box on the table. Didn’t need to. Not yet.
She spoke slowly at first. About school. About work. About how busy she kept herself. About how sleep had stopped feeling like rest and more like a reboot she hadn’t asked for.
Dr. Barré didn’t interrupt.
Then, when the silence opened wide enough, Effie let the memory spill out.
Not all of it.
Just the part that looped—the party, the lights, Paz saying she was going to the bathroom, Effie losing track of how long she’d been gone. The scream. The floor. The foam.
“She was already hurting,” Effie said at one point, voice low. “But I thought we had time.”
She stared down at her hands.
“I thought I had more time.”
Dr. Barré said nothing. Just nodded once, slow. And stayed with her in that pause.
Effie didn’t cry.
But her shoulders fell in that particular way that only happens when someone lets go of a weight they’ve been holding too long without realizing it.
When the session ended, she stepped back out into the sun. It was bright but not blinding. Warm but not suffocating.
The memory hadn’t stopped moving.
But now it wasn’t moving alone.
~~~~~~~~~~
The locker room felt colder than usual.
Not physically—just quieter, heavier. The kind of quiet that settled beneath the hum of vents and the squeak of cleats on tile. Mike stood in front of his locker, hoodie pulled over his head, bag already zipped. Everything else—his gloves, his cleats, the playbook half-marked with notes—he’d left behind. He didn’t need them anymore.
Coach Fields’ office had been still too. No shouting, no guilt trip. Just a slow exhale when Mike sat down and said what he came to say.
“I’m done.”
The coach had looked at him for a long moment. Not confused. Not surprised, either.
“You sure?”
Mike had nodded. “Yeah.”
They’d talked about timing. Eligibility. Logistics. The door still being open if he changed his mind.
But Mike knew he wouldn’t. The decision hadn’t come from one bad week or one hard game. It had come from the slow, steady unraveling of something he couldn’t name until now—the realization that every time he put on that jersey, he felt like he was stepping into someone else’s life.
The locker room was half-empty by the time he walked through for the last time. A few guys were watching film on their phones. A couple of receivers were arguing about routes like they always did. No one noticed him at first. He didn’t make a scene. That wasn’t who he was.
But one of the linebackers—Cam, who he’d lifted with, ran gassers next to, sweated through three summers alongside—looked up and paused.
“You serious?” Cam asked, frowning. “You really leaving?”
Mike nodded once.
Cam shook his head. “You’ll regret this, man.”
Mike adjusted the strap on his bag and met his eyes. “Not if I finally feel like me.”
Cam didn’t reply. Just stared like he didn’t understand, and maybe he didn’t.
Mike walked out without looking back.
Outside, the sky was soft and overcast. The kind of gray that doesn’t threaten rain but still quiets everything underneath it. He let the door close behind him, the click louder than it should’ve been.
There was no headline. No farewell speech. No camera waiting to catch the moment.
Just him.
Breathing easier than he had in weeks.
No helmet. No pads.
Just himself.
And the road ahead, wide open.
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 13036
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Bulldog Appetizer
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djp73
- Posts: 10764
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 13:42
Dying to Live
a bit sad to see Mike Mike walk away but good to see some of the fam starting to flourish.
big win over Mississippi State, who is left on the schedule?
big win over Mississippi State, who is left on the schedule?
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 13036
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 13036
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
No Return Address
The letter was plain.
No return address. No markings except his name, written in sharp block print on the front. Just Royce Lafitte in black ink, centered like it had been printed by someone who wanted it to look clean, impersonal.
He found it in the small silver mailbox outside his apartment, wedged between a credit card offer and a flyer for a nearby gym. For a second, he didn’t register it—just tucked it under his arm like everything else.
It wasn’t until he got inside and dropped his keys into the ceramic bowl by the door that the name—his name—staring up from that envelope made his hands stop moving.
He sat down at the kitchen table and opened it slowly. No rush. Just quiet curiosity. He already knew, somehow. The handwriting was too familiar in its caution. Too careful not to be emotional.
His mother.
The paper inside was folded once, clean and narrow. It wasn’t long. Not even half a page.
I heard you’re playing good this year. Hope it works out. Be safe.
No greeting. No closing. No mention of Romeo. No mention of the last time they’d seen each other, standing too far apart at a vigil they hadn’t planned.
Royce read it again.
The ink was smudged slightly in one spot, like it had rubbed against a thumb mid-fold. The paper was cheap. A scrap from a notepad, maybe. Written fast. Maybe at a kitchen table after a shift. Maybe in a car, in between two places she didn’t want to be.
It wasn’t warm.
But it wasn’t cruel, either.
It felt like someone trying to say something without letting it open all the way. Like a door cracked just enough to show there was still a hallway on the other side.
Royce sat with it for a while, his thumb brushing the edge of the paper.
He didn’t cry.
Didn’t smile.
Just folded the letter again—precisely, evenly—and walked it over to the drawer beside his bed, the one where he kept the things that didn’t belong anywhere else: his high school ID, a program from Romeo’s funeral, a silver chain he never wore, and now—this.
He slid the letter in and shut the drawer.
No text. No call. No reaching back.
Sometimes, the most honest response is silence.
Sometimes, you just let people be wherever they are.
Even if that’s far away. Even if that’s barely hanging on.
He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing in particular.
Be safe.
He would be.
He already knew how to survive.
But this?
This reminded him what it felt like to be seen—even just barely.
~~~~~~~~~~
Effie found the card on a Tuesday.
Tucked between a bank statement and a flyer for half-off smoothie bowls, it stood out—plain ivory, no return address, no postmark. Just her name on the front in block letters, ink so faint it looked like it might disappear if she stared too hard.
She walked it inside without opening it. Set her keys down. Dropped the other mail onto the counter.
Then sat at the edge of the couch, the card still resting in her palm.
It wasn’t fear. Not exactly. But her body remembered the weight of unexpected kindness. The kind that felt more like intrusion. The kind that showed up late and tried to call itself care.
She opened it.
Inside was only a sentence, handwritten in a careful, slanted scrawl:
Hope you’re well. We miss you.
No name. No return address. Just that.
Effie stared at the words for a long moment, thumb brushing over the paper like she could smudge away the weight behind them.
We.
She knew who it was. Not one person. A house. A shape. A mother who only reached out after silence had made things easier. A room that smelled like bleach and breathlessness. A memory she’d stopped curating for others a long time ago.
She stood slowly and walked into the kitchen.
Lit the tea candle in the dish on the counter—lavender wax, almost spent. She held the card over the flame until the corner caught, black curling into orange, curling into nothing.
She didn’t flinch when the flame crawled across the sentence.
Didn’t drop it.
Just watched.
Watched the fire eat away the space where false tenderness tried to root itself. Watched the smoke twist and vanish toward the ceiling.
When the paper was gone, she leaned against the counter and whispered—not for anyone else to hear, not for performance.
Just to name it.
“Missing me is easy,” she said. “Knowing me was work.”
The room didn’t answer.
It didn’t need to.
She rinsed the dish, pinched the candle out, and opened the windows to let the smoke drift away.
No guilt.
No looking back.
Just flame.
And the knowing that she’d never be small enough again to fit in someone else’s version of care.
~~~~~~~~~~
The café was different this time.
Same chalkboard sign out front—Open Mic Tonight, 7PM—but the room felt heavier than the last time Toni had been here. Not sad. Just full. Like the space had learned how to hold pain without spilling it.
She arrived early and chose a seat near the back, a clear view of the stage but far enough to keep her hands in her lap without feeling watched. She wasn’t here to perform. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. But she came back anyway. Something about the place pulled at her in a way she didn’t quite have words for yet.
The lights were low, golden. The stage no bigger than a dorm bed. The crowd hummed soft—snapping fingers, hushed conversations, the occasional clink of a mug against wood. No one asked her name. No one asked why she wasn’t signing up. She liked that about open mics. They didn’t force you into visibility. They let you arrive how you needed.
A few readers in, a girl stepped up to the mic with her hood pulled low. Small, slight. Eyes down. When she looked up, Toni saw it—a shadowed bruise blooming across her left cheekbone, just under the skin. Not fresh, but not faded. The kind of mark that told a story without needing a title.
Her voice was clear. Not loud. Just deliberate.
“They told me I was lucky.
That I’d made it out.
That it could’ve been worse.
But survival isn’t a trophy.
It’s a threshold.”
She spoke like she was coaxing the words out from underneath her own breath, like she’d written them not to impress anyone, but to keep herself from disappearing.
Toni didn’t blink.
“I counted the exits.
Learned the shape of silence.
Wore fear like a second skin,
but still—I stood.”
The final line came softer than the rest, but somehow sharper too:
“Survival isn’t the same as surrender.
One ends.
The other rewrites.”
Toni’s lips parted, and without meaning to, she mouthed those last four words to herself.
One ends. The other rewrites.
The girl stepped offstage. No bow. No performance. Just return. A few people snapped. A few murmured “damn.”
Toni sat still.
The words looped in her head like a quiet heartbeat. Like breath.
The other rewrites.
She didn’t speak to anyone as the event wound down. Just sipped her water and let the conversations float past her like music she didn’t need to dance to.
When the lights came up, and the chairs began scraping backward across the floor, Toni rose and slipped out the door without drawing attention.
Outside, the air was thick with late-fall humidity. She stood on the sidewalk, arms crossed loosely, staring up at the sky—not searching for stars, just letting herself be held by the stillness.
There was nothing theatrical about it.
But something in her shifted.
Not because she had something to say.
But because, finally, she understood:
She didn’t have to go back to who she was before.
She could write someone new.
The letter was plain.
No return address. No markings except his name, written in sharp block print on the front. Just Royce Lafitte in black ink, centered like it had been printed by someone who wanted it to look clean, impersonal.
He found it in the small silver mailbox outside his apartment, wedged between a credit card offer and a flyer for a nearby gym. For a second, he didn’t register it—just tucked it under his arm like everything else.
It wasn’t until he got inside and dropped his keys into the ceramic bowl by the door that the name—his name—staring up from that envelope made his hands stop moving.
He sat down at the kitchen table and opened it slowly. No rush. Just quiet curiosity. He already knew, somehow. The handwriting was too familiar in its caution. Too careful not to be emotional.
His mother.
The paper inside was folded once, clean and narrow. It wasn’t long. Not even half a page.
I heard you’re playing good this year. Hope it works out. Be safe.
No greeting. No closing. No mention of Romeo. No mention of the last time they’d seen each other, standing too far apart at a vigil they hadn’t planned.
Royce read it again.
The ink was smudged slightly in one spot, like it had rubbed against a thumb mid-fold. The paper was cheap. A scrap from a notepad, maybe. Written fast. Maybe at a kitchen table after a shift. Maybe in a car, in between two places she didn’t want to be.
It wasn’t warm.
But it wasn’t cruel, either.
It felt like someone trying to say something without letting it open all the way. Like a door cracked just enough to show there was still a hallway on the other side.
Royce sat with it for a while, his thumb brushing the edge of the paper.
He didn’t cry.
Didn’t smile.
Just folded the letter again—precisely, evenly—and walked it over to the drawer beside his bed, the one where he kept the things that didn’t belong anywhere else: his high school ID, a program from Romeo’s funeral, a silver chain he never wore, and now—this.
He slid the letter in and shut the drawer.
No text. No call. No reaching back.
Sometimes, the most honest response is silence.
Sometimes, you just let people be wherever they are.
Even if that’s far away. Even if that’s barely hanging on.
He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing in particular.
Be safe.
He would be.
He already knew how to survive.
But this?
This reminded him what it felt like to be seen—even just barely.
~~~~~~~~~~
Effie found the card on a Tuesday.
Tucked between a bank statement and a flyer for half-off smoothie bowls, it stood out—plain ivory, no return address, no postmark. Just her name on the front in block letters, ink so faint it looked like it might disappear if she stared too hard.
She walked it inside without opening it. Set her keys down. Dropped the other mail onto the counter.
Then sat at the edge of the couch, the card still resting in her palm.
It wasn’t fear. Not exactly. But her body remembered the weight of unexpected kindness. The kind that felt more like intrusion. The kind that showed up late and tried to call itself care.
She opened it.
Inside was only a sentence, handwritten in a careful, slanted scrawl:
Hope you’re well. We miss you.
No name. No return address. Just that.
Effie stared at the words for a long moment, thumb brushing over the paper like she could smudge away the weight behind them.
We.
She knew who it was. Not one person. A house. A shape. A mother who only reached out after silence had made things easier. A room that smelled like bleach and breathlessness. A memory she’d stopped curating for others a long time ago.
She stood slowly and walked into the kitchen.
Lit the tea candle in the dish on the counter—lavender wax, almost spent. She held the card over the flame until the corner caught, black curling into orange, curling into nothing.
She didn’t flinch when the flame crawled across the sentence.
Didn’t drop it.
Just watched.
Watched the fire eat away the space where false tenderness tried to root itself. Watched the smoke twist and vanish toward the ceiling.
When the paper was gone, she leaned against the counter and whispered—not for anyone else to hear, not for performance.
Just to name it.
“Missing me is easy,” she said. “Knowing me was work.”
The room didn’t answer.
It didn’t need to.
She rinsed the dish, pinched the candle out, and opened the windows to let the smoke drift away.
No guilt.
No looking back.
Just flame.
And the knowing that she’d never be small enough again to fit in someone else’s version of care.
~~~~~~~~~~
The café was different this time.
Same chalkboard sign out front—Open Mic Tonight, 7PM—but the room felt heavier than the last time Toni had been here. Not sad. Just full. Like the space had learned how to hold pain without spilling it.
She arrived early and chose a seat near the back, a clear view of the stage but far enough to keep her hands in her lap without feeling watched. She wasn’t here to perform. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. But she came back anyway. Something about the place pulled at her in a way she didn’t quite have words for yet.
The lights were low, golden. The stage no bigger than a dorm bed. The crowd hummed soft—snapping fingers, hushed conversations, the occasional clink of a mug against wood. No one asked her name. No one asked why she wasn’t signing up. She liked that about open mics. They didn’t force you into visibility. They let you arrive how you needed.
A few readers in, a girl stepped up to the mic with her hood pulled low. Small, slight. Eyes down. When she looked up, Toni saw it—a shadowed bruise blooming across her left cheekbone, just under the skin. Not fresh, but not faded. The kind of mark that told a story without needing a title.
Her voice was clear. Not loud. Just deliberate.
“They told me I was lucky.
That I’d made it out.
That it could’ve been worse.
But survival isn’t a trophy.
It’s a threshold.”
She spoke like she was coaxing the words out from underneath her own breath, like she’d written them not to impress anyone, but to keep herself from disappearing.
Toni didn’t blink.
“I counted the exits.
Learned the shape of silence.
Wore fear like a second skin,
but still—I stood.”
The final line came softer than the rest, but somehow sharper too:
“Survival isn’t the same as surrender.
One ends.
The other rewrites.”
Toni’s lips parted, and without meaning to, she mouthed those last four words to herself.
One ends. The other rewrites.
The girl stepped offstage. No bow. No performance. Just return. A few people snapped. A few murmured “damn.”
Toni sat still.
The words looped in her head like a quiet heartbeat. Like breath.
The other rewrites.
She didn’t speak to anyone as the event wound down. Just sipped her water and let the conversations float past her like music she didn’t need to dance to.
When the lights came up, and the chairs began scraping backward across the floor, Toni rose and slipped out the door without drawing attention.
Outside, the air was thick with late-fall humidity. She stood on the sidewalk, arms crossed loosely, staring up at the sky—not searching for stars, just letting herself be held by the stillness.
There was nothing theatrical about it.
But something in her shifted.
Not because she had something to say.
But because, finally, she understood:
She didn’t have to go back to who she was before.
She could write someone new.
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 13036
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Off the Record
The room wasn’t what Royce expected.
It was a conference space inside a boutique hotel downtown—nothing flashy, just clean lines and dark wood, modern art hung with just enough edge to feel intentional. The table stretched long, ten leather chairs around it, and low amber light overhead. No microphones. No suits. Just presence.
Royce had walked in behind Delpit, quiet and observant, wearing a hoodie and fresh sneakers. Billy was already there, a bottle of water half-drained beside his phone, scrolling something but not really looking at it. Around the table sat five men—two former NFL players whose names Royce recognized from Sunday nights as a kid, and three others in jeans, hoodies, and Rolexes that didn’t need introductions.
“Royce,” Delpit said, patting his shoulder, “you good?”
Royce nodded, sat down. His shoulders rolled back instinctively, a posture learned from years of film rooms and game weeks. But this wasn’t that kind of room.
“This ain’t press,” Billy said. “This ain’t branding. This is straight talk.”
They got into it fast.
One of the former players—Derrick, a corner who’d retired after seven seasons and two surgeries—talked about endorsement deals that dried up the moment he missed a Pro Bowl. “I got used to being told I was worth something,” he said, “but they were only talking about my body. Not my brain. Not my vision.”
Another spoke about LLCs and family members, businesses that failed before they even had a website. “Everybody thinks they got a plan ‘til the checks stop clearing,” he said. “Long money ain’t just cash. It’s structure.”
Royce listened. Didn’t interrupt. Took notes in his head. Watched how each man spoke—less like they were giving advice and more like they were offering warnings.
Delpit sat with a leg crossed, nodding here and there but mostly letting the others speak. Billy dropped in questions about IP ownership, brand equity, short-term flips versus long-term equity.
Royce kept his hands folded on the table. Eyes focused. But inside, he was buzzing.
When the stories started to slow, he finally spoke.
“What if…” he paused, glancing around, “what if I don’t want to be the product?”
The room stilled—not because they were surprised, but because they were listening. Really listening.
Delpit leaned forward, elbows on the table, and looked Royce square in the eye.
“Then build the platform. That’s what I’ve been telling you.”
The words hit with weight, not flash. Not metaphor. Blueprint.
Royce didn’t respond right away. Just nodded slowly.
It sounded obvious, maybe.
But it felt new.
Not because he hadn’t thought about ownership. He had. But always in theory. In passing. In the “maybe one day” way you think about building something that doesn’t just use your name—but honors it.
Delpit leaned back again, eyes still on him. “Don’t let your legacy be what you gave to other people’s dreams.”
Billy added, “You got more leverage than most. Use it before they tell you what you could’ve been.”
Royce didn’t smile.
But something in his chest settled. Focused.
They didn’t talk contracts that night. Didn’t go over agents or NIL clauses or brands.
They talked about value.
And for the first time in a long time, Royce wasn’t thinking about highlight reels or draft boards.
He was thinking about vision.
He was thinking about building.
~~~~~~~~~~
The offer came late in the day.
Alix had been reviewing new renderings for the lobby’s secondary seating zone—cleaning up material layering, smoothing light behavior in corner vignettes—when Renee appeared beside her desk. No warning. Just a calm, familiar presence.
“You got a second?” Renee asked.
Alix followed her into the small glass-walled conference room at the back of Roux, her pen still tucked behind her ear. She thought maybe Renee had questions about the timeline. Or maybe feedback from the client.
But when the door clicked shut, Renee turned to her with a small smile and said:
“We want to bring you on full-time.”
Alix blinked. “Like—”
“Permanent,” Renee said. “Title, benefits, ownership. You’ve been contracting with us since spring. Interning before that. You’ve earned your seat.”
The words landed fast. Clear. No big build-up. No PowerPoint. Just truth.
Alix felt something flutter in her chest—like recognition more than surprise.
“I was going to give you the weekend to think about it,” Renee added, tilting her head.
“Yes,” Alix said.
Renee raised an eyebrow, amused. “Didn’t finish the sentence.”
“I know,” Alix said, voice catching just slightly. “But it’s still yes.”
…
That night, Co cooked.
Not because it was a big occasion. But because he knew how to hold space for something quiet and proud. He’d pulled on his Southern hoodie after a shift, rolled his sleeves, and filled the apartment with warmth—garlic in olive oil, seared salmon, roasted sweet potatoes with paprika and cracked pepper.
When Alix walked in, barefoot, blazer folded over her arm, her face still held that flushed look of someone who’d just said yes to herself.
Co glanced up from the skillet. “Hey.”
She dropped her keys into the bowl by the door and stepped out of her shoes, padding into the kitchen like muscle memory.
“They asked me to stay,” she said.
Co didn’t need to ask what she meant.
He smiled, steady. “So did I.”
Alix leaned against the counter beside him, arms crossed, blouse still creased from the long day. “You didn’t have to.”
“Didn’t want to risk not saying it,” he said.
She didn’t answer at first. Just looked at him, that tired, deep kind of look—the one that said I’ve been holding this weight for months, and I finally get to put it down.
Co brushed a loose curl behind her ear, then kissed her forehead, light and certain.
“I’m proud of you,” he said.
“I think I’m proud of me too,” she replied.
And for the first time since that summer—when she’d signed the internship contract and told herself don’t expect permanence—she allowed herself to feel something new.
Rooted.
Not just in her work. In this.
In staying.
~~~~~~~~~~
The apartment smelled like cinnamon and butter, garlic and something slightly burnt—but in a comforting, human way. Arianna stood barefoot in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, spoon in one hand, forehead damp with just enough sweat to prove she’d done the work herself.
Toni had brought a sweet potato casserole. Mike had driven in from Natchitoches that morning, arriving with a grocery bag full of Hawaiian rolls and a box of sparkling cider. Jonah brought wine, and Arianna's two classmates from her writing workshop—Ruth and Miles—carried a pie and a container of roasted Brussels sprouts like offerings to a low-key creative altar.
The table was mismatched—an extension leaf on one end, two folding chairs borrowed from the neighbor across the hall, one seat made up with a pillow on a crate. Arianna had covered it with a linen cloth her aunt gave her years ago, the edges slightly frayed. A string of paper leaves dangled across the front window. Candles flickered low in mismatched jars.
It wasn’t curated.
It was held.
Jonah was mid-story about being mistaken for a server at an industry mixer—“I had on a blazer, not an apron”—when laughter filled the room, and someone passed the cornbread down the line. Arianna watched the moment stretch open, her hands resting on her lap, eyes scanning the faces around her: Mike, visibly lighter since stepping away from football; Toni, dressed in soft colors again, her smile loose and real; Ruth and Miles, arguing gently about poetic form; Jonah topping off someone’s wine without being asked.
There was a moment where she almost said it.
Almost told them that she hadn’t felt like this in a long time.
Instead, she reached for another roll.
The conversation drifted to writing, as it always did in rooms like this. Miles had just had a piece picked up in a regional journal, and Ruth was debating whether to submit something confessional or metaphorical to a fellowship.
“So, Arianna,” Ruth asked, leaning her elbow on the table, “you ever think about putting together a collection?”
The question was light, casual—like asking someone if they’d thought about visiting a new coffee shop.
Arianna didn’t blink.
She wiped her hands on her napkin, then said, without hesitation: “I already started.”
The room quieted—not completely, but just enough for the weight of her words to settle.
She didn’t elaborate. Didn’t pull out pages or list titles or say what it was about.
She didn’t need to.
It wasn’t bravado.
It was certainty. A quiet kind. The kind that grows not from applause, but from survival.
From knowing the voice you write with now is one you earned.
Mike raised his glass of cider. “To starting.”
“To starting,” Toni echoed, clinking her glass against his.
They drank, laughed, passed the pie.
Arianna didn’t say much for the rest of the meal. She didn’t need to. Her work was already underway—stitched between poems and silences, between bruises that had faded and truths that hadn’t.
The night wore down, coats gathered, leftovers packed into mismatched containers.
As the last guest left and the door closed behind them, Arianna stood in the soft quiet of her apartment, the scent of sweet potato and cinnamon still thick in the air.
She walked over to her desk, where a folder sat open beneath a paperweight.
Inside: thirteen poems.
Already started. Still becoming.
She smiled.
And let the quiet hold her.
The room wasn’t what Royce expected.
It was a conference space inside a boutique hotel downtown—nothing flashy, just clean lines and dark wood, modern art hung with just enough edge to feel intentional. The table stretched long, ten leather chairs around it, and low amber light overhead. No microphones. No suits. Just presence.
Royce had walked in behind Delpit, quiet and observant, wearing a hoodie and fresh sneakers. Billy was already there, a bottle of water half-drained beside his phone, scrolling something but not really looking at it. Around the table sat five men—two former NFL players whose names Royce recognized from Sunday nights as a kid, and three others in jeans, hoodies, and Rolexes that didn’t need introductions.
“Royce,” Delpit said, patting his shoulder, “you good?”
Royce nodded, sat down. His shoulders rolled back instinctively, a posture learned from years of film rooms and game weeks. But this wasn’t that kind of room.
“This ain’t press,” Billy said. “This ain’t branding. This is straight talk.”
They got into it fast.
One of the former players—Derrick, a corner who’d retired after seven seasons and two surgeries—talked about endorsement deals that dried up the moment he missed a Pro Bowl. “I got used to being told I was worth something,” he said, “but they were only talking about my body. Not my brain. Not my vision.”
Another spoke about LLCs and family members, businesses that failed before they even had a website. “Everybody thinks they got a plan ‘til the checks stop clearing,” he said. “Long money ain’t just cash. It’s structure.”
Royce listened. Didn’t interrupt. Took notes in his head. Watched how each man spoke—less like they were giving advice and more like they were offering warnings.
Delpit sat with a leg crossed, nodding here and there but mostly letting the others speak. Billy dropped in questions about IP ownership, brand equity, short-term flips versus long-term equity.
Royce kept his hands folded on the table. Eyes focused. But inside, he was buzzing.
When the stories started to slow, he finally spoke.
“What if…” he paused, glancing around, “what if I don’t want to be the product?”
The room stilled—not because they were surprised, but because they were listening. Really listening.
Delpit leaned forward, elbows on the table, and looked Royce square in the eye.
“Then build the platform. That’s what I’ve been telling you.”
The words hit with weight, not flash. Not metaphor. Blueprint.
Royce didn’t respond right away. Just nodded slowly.
It sounded obvious, maybe.
But it felt new.
Not because he hadn’t thought about ownership. He had. But always in theory. In passing. In the “maybe one day” way you think about building something that doesn’t just use your name—but honors it.
Delpit leaned back again, eyes still on him. “Don’t let your legacy be what you gave to other people’s dreams.”
Billy added, “You got more leverage than most. Use it before they tell you what you could’ve been.”
Royce didn’t smile.
But something in his chest settled. Focused.
They didn’t talk contracts that night. Didn’t go over agents or NIL clauses or brands.
They talked about value.
And for the first time in a long time, Royce wasn’t thinking about highlight reels or draft boards.
He was thinking about vision.
He was thinking about building.
~~~~~~~~~~
The offer came late in the day.
Alix had been reviewing new renderings for the lobby’s secondary seating zone—cleaning up material layering, smoothing light behavior in corner vignettes—when Renee appeared beside her desk. No warning. Just a calm, familiar presence.
“You got a second?” Renee asked.
Alix followed her into the small glass-walled conference room at the back of Roux, her pen still tucked behind her ear. She thought maybe Renee had questions about the timeline. Or maybe feedback from the client.
But when the door clicked shut, Renee turned to her with a small smile and said:
“We want to bring you on full-time.”
Alix blinked. “Like—”
“Permanent,” Renee said. “Title, benefits, ownership. You’ve been contracting with us since spring. Interning before that. You’ve earned your seat.”
The words landed fast. Clear. No big build-up. No PowerPoint. Just truth.
Alix felt something flutter in her chest—like recognition more than surprise.
“I was going to give you the weekend to think about it,” Renee added, tilting her head.
“Yes,” Alix said.
Renee raised an eyebrow, amused. “Didn’t finish the sentence.”
“I know,” Alix said, voice catching just slightly. “But it’s still yes.”
…
That night, Co cooked.
Not because it was a big occasion. But because he knew how to hold space for something quiet and proud. He’d pulled on his Southern hoodie after a shift, rolled his sleeves, and filled the apartment with warmth—garlic in olive oil, seared salmon, roasted sweet potatoes with paprika and cracked pepper.
When Alix walked in, barefoot, blazer folded over her arm, her face still held that flushed look of someone who’d just said yes to herself.
Co glanced up from the skillet. “Hey.”
She dropped her keys into the bowl by the door and stepped out of her shoes, padding into the kitchen like muscle memory.
“They asked me to stay,” she said.
Co didn’t need to ask what she meant.
He smiled, steady. “So did I.”
Alix leaned against the counter beside him, arms crossed, blouse still creased from the long day. “You didn’t have to.”
“Didn’t want to risk not saying it,” he said.
She didn’t answer at first. Just looked at him, that tired, deep kind of look—the one that said I’ve been holding this weight for months, and I finally get to put it down.
Co brushed a loose curl behind her ear, then kissed her forehead, light and certain.
“I’m proud of you,” he said.
“I think I’m proud of me too,” she replied.
And for the first time since that summer—when she’d signed the internship contract and told herself don’t expect permanence—she allowed herself to feel something new.
Rooted.
Not just in her work. In this.
In staying.
~~~~~~~~~~
The apartment smelled like cinnamon and butter, garlic and something slightly burnt—but in a comforting, human way. Arianna stood barefoot in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, spoon in one hand, forehead damp with just enough sweat to prove she’d done the work herself.
Toni had brought a sweet potato casserole. Mike had driven in from Natchitoches that morning, arriving with a grocery bag full of Hawaiian rolls and a box of sparkling cider. Jonah brought wine, and Arianna's two classmates from her writing workshop—Ruth and Miles—carried a pie and a container of roasted Brussels sprouts like offerings to a low-key creative altar.
The table was mismatched—an extension leaf on one end, two folding chairs borrowed from the neighbor across the hall, one seat made up with a pillow on a crate. Arianna had covered it with a linen cloth her aunt gave her years ago, the edges slightly frayed. A string of paper leaves dangled across the front window. Candles flickered low in mismatched jars.
It wasn’t curated.
It was held.
Jonah was mid-story about being mistaken for a server at an industry mixer—“I had on a blazer, not an apron”—when laughter filled the room, and someone passed the cornbread down the line. Arianna watched the moment stretch open, her hands resting on her lap, eyes scanning the faces around her: Mike, visibly lighter since stepping away from football; Toni, dressed in soft colors again, her smile loose and real; Ruth and Miles, arguing gently about poetic form; Jonah topping off someone’s wine without being asked.
There was a moment where she almost said it.
Almost told them that she hadn’t felt like this in a long time.
Instead, she reached for another roll.
The conversation drifted to writing, as it always did in rooms like this. Miles had just had a piece picked up in a regional journal, and Ruth was debating whether to submit something confessional or metaphorical to a fellowship.
“So, Arianna,” Ruth asked, leaning her elbow on the table, “you ever think about putting together a collection?”
The question was light, casual—like asking someone if they’d thought about visiting a new coffee shop.
Arianna didn’t blink.
She wiped her hands on her napkin, then said, without hesitation: “I already started.”
The room quieted—not completely, but just enough for the weight of her words to settle.
She didn’t elaborate. Didn’t pull out pages or list titles or say what it was about.
She didn’t need to.
It wasn’t bravado.
It was certainty. A quiet kind. The kind that grows not from applause, but from survival.
From knowing the voice you write with now is one you earned.
Mike raised his glass of cider. “To starting.”
“To starting,” Toni echoed, clinking her glass against his.
They drank, laughed, passed the pie.
Arianna didn’t say much for the rest of the meal. She didn’t need to. Her work was already underway—stitched between poems and silences, between bruises that had faded and truths that hadn’t.
The night wore down, coats gathered, leftovers packed into mismatched containers.
As the last guest left and the door closed behind them, Arianna stood in the soft quiet of her apartment, the scent of sweet potato and cinnamon still thick in the air.
She walked over to her desk, where a folder sat open beneath a paperweight.
Inside: thirteen poems.
Already started. Still becoming.
She smiled.
And let the quiet hold her.
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 13036
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47