Pairing: Paige Bueckers X Azzi Fudd
A/N: Guys, I wrote this chapter last year so the WNBA team rosters are from last year.
I never really let myself think about endings.
Not because I was fearless. God knows I've never been that. But because if you stare too long at the finish line, you trip before you even hit the first step.
I'd read hundreds of devotional books that eventually blurred into one. Examined every scripture of the bible to orchestrate every facet of my psyche and let my therapist dissect my head like it was scripture too.
Every verse of doubt highlighted. Every negative thought jotted down on a notepad. Every shadow of fear underlined in red ink.
I'd been living by concrete principles for the past half decade.
Efficiency is better than fleeting wins.
Expectations are just self imposed limitations.
Consistency beats talent.
The one gift I never deserve but got anyways.
The kind of miracle no scripture could ever prepare you for.
Those are all the things that encompass the way my mind functions.
When I watched games, halftime always felt like a fucking eternity. A break too long. But when you lived it, it zoomed right past you only leaving panic in its wake.
Halftime smelled like desperation and relaxant spray.
Halftime also sounded like the sharp zip of tape roll being unrolled echoing as the trainer taped up Maddy's knee and a whole lotta awkward fidgeting.
Talking of knees, a bag of ice pressed down against the swollen cap of my knee, taped by the my trainer Norm who muttered something about "precautionary." Precautionary my ass. I knew what that precautionary meant all too well to mistake it for anything else.
Chris was at the whiteboard, spitting half-thoughts like gum stuck to the sole of a shoe. Even after four years the man had yet to learn how to listen to his players. It was purely God's grace that kept him from being out of a job... and keeping Curt's dick happy but I'd rather not think about that.
"We need to ice the corners on the 2-3. Stop chasing, stop biting on fakes. Shrink the floor, make Collier shoot over length." His marker squealed in intelligible arrows against the board which was streaked with black ink from the mistakes he didn't bother to properly erase. Kinda like his whole career.
He was half-right, but it was noise, all noise, because we weren't losing on coverage. We were getting fucking punked on pace. The Lynx had managed to get to the free throw line eleven times in the first half.
The only thing that grounded me was Azzi, who sat beside me, towel slung around her shoulders, jersey damp and clinging. Her chest rose heavy but sated, rhythm of someone who hadn't missed a shot in twenty minutes. She looked beautiful as ever.
She already had twenty-one points, and you could smell it, perfection embedded into the scent of her pheromones. I glanced sideways: baby hairs stuck damp against her cheekbone, two dutch braids falling to her mid back, her jaw flexing as she murmured prayers under her breathe.
Her thigh bounced restlessly. She had my cross necklace wound tight around her wrist, chain links strangled by her pulse, thumb worrying over the metal like it's a rosary.
JJ, still half-out her warmup jacket, muttered, "they be slippin' out of them hedges. Thas why Juhasz keeps findin' ways to get to the paint."
"'Xactly," Azizah chimed in, fingers squeezing her dreads tight into the ponytail at the top of her head. "We keep showin' two and we're late on the closing. You be handin' them easy ass rhythm looks by shrinkin' the floor. They always manage to get their smalls out on the wing."
Chris spun on her like she'd spat on the floor. "If you execute harder, maybe it will work."
"We don't need a maybe, Coach.
This is the fucking semi final. We need a definite." Haley shot back, frustration coiling her shoulders.
Silence. Except for the ice pack crackling on my knee and Li tearing open another Gatorade bottle with her teeth.
That's when Nola, our assistant coach who might as well be playing head, stepped in. She'd been quiet all half, letting Chris puff his chest. Now she clicked her pen against the board. The metallic click commanding more attention than Chris ever could.
"Or," she said, voice slicing through the air, "we flip it. Switch on the perimeter. Force their guards into mismatches against our length. Make Collier dance one-on-one instead of feedin' her. Li dominates the paint. We got the rebounding margin. Do not waste it."
Heads started nodding like she'd poured water on a brushfire. JJ snapped her fingers. "Yeah~ Thas it! They can't guard me downhill if we drag their five out on the switch."
Azzi leaned back, that towel ghosting across her collarbone, and gave the smallest hum of agreement. But her wrist twisted again, the cross digging into her skin, and her gaze slid back to my knee. Always back to my knee.
I wanted to reach out, still her leg, feel the vibration of her. But the bag of ice locked me down, so I settled for my palm on her thigh.
"We gotta double McBride on pin-downs," I croaked, voice raw from calling switches. My throat felt lined with sand. "She's killin' us curlin' off the stagger. Either we chase tighter, or we blitz the pass. No in-between and we don't got room to choose now."
Chris shot me a look, half annoyance, half consideration but didn't say shit. He went back to drawing shapes nobody believed in.
Azzi leaned in, her voice low enough only I caught it. "If they switch high on me again, fake the flare, slip it. I'll cut to the baseline. If you see me and I know you will, don't think, just throw it."
Her eyes were steel, wet steel. I nodded. That was the only language we spoke when everything burned and the smell of ashes was becoming more and more pungent: I see you. You see me.
"Ain't gotta tell me twice, princess." I flash her a small smirk but even that wobbles at the edges. So I busy my lips by dropping a kiss on her temple, feeling the soft bronze skin ease my jitters.
The trainer yanked the ice tighter around my knee, and I hissed through my teeth. Azzi's hand landed on my bicep, squeezing. "Jesus, P." Then her gaze flicked towards Norm. "Norm go easy on her, please."
"I don't know what to tell you, Azzi. You girl's gotta go easy on herself."
"Dude, thought you were supposed to have my back." I flailed my hands.
"And let you ruin your knee?" He squinted. "No, thank you."
"JJ," Chris barks again, stabbing at the board, "you're gonna curl off Li's screen here, catch on the elbow, and then Azaiah, you backdoor flash from the dunker—"
"Coach," our assistant named Williams cuts in. And he never cuts in. Williams never talks over Chris. "We've been running stagger curls for six minutes straight. They're sitting on it. Collapsing the paint every single time."
Azaiah head snaps up, a grin breaking over her sweat-slicked face. "Thank you, Williams." She snaps, sarcasm lacing her tone. "They cloggin' the fuck outta the lane. Ain't no room to cut to the paint."
JJ bobs her head fast, braids swinging. "And I'm wide open in the corner. Every time."
Chris bristles, his jaw locking, but Williams doesn't flinch. He taps the board. "They're doubling Azzi on the wing, right? Okay. So we use her gravity. Slip her baseline, drag two with her, reverse to Paige up top. Li seals our weak side. That's a bucket, every time. Simple. Clean."
Silence. Then Li slaps her thigh hard enough to echo. "Yes! I can try to pin them there."
I can feel Azzi tense beside me, her breath snagging for a second, she knows it's the right call, even if she won't say it out loud.
Chris just stares, marker trembling in his hand, and finally mutters, "Fine. Try it once."
It's not much, but it's oxygen in the room. The shift, the belief. I peel the ice pack off my knee, the cold burn racing up my thigh, and lean forward on my stool
Finally a play we can believe in.
"Cap, you got any words for us?" Nola glanced at me expectantly.
I don't give long monologues. I don't do emotional theatrics. But my team's looking at me, waiting.
I reach sideways and grab Azzi's hand, unwinding the necklace from her wrist with my fingers. She resists for half a second, then lets it go, our hands intertwine, palms knotting together. My bigger paler hand slotting against her slightly smaller but just as strong one.
"Listen," I start, voice low but hard enough to cut through the hum of the A/C. "We're down two. That's nothing. That's a missed box-out. That's a lazy pass. We clean it up."
I glance around, meeting eyes. JJ bouncing on her toes, Azizah rolling her shoulders, Li smiling with hope. Then Azzi, who looks like all her beliefs are rooted in me.
"They ain't better than us. They just louder right now. So we shut 'em up." I squeeze Azzi's hand once, tight. "We're the second best in the whole league...today we prove why we deserve to be number one."
"Alright, huddle up." Chris pushed to the centre of the locker room.
We formed a circle, pressing our wrists together in the air. "LET'S GO WINGS!"
The huddle cracked apart in a rush of sneakers and "Go Wings" still ringing off the cinderblock walls, clipped by the sound of bottles being dropped into bins and the slap of towels against bare skin. Some girls jogged for the bathroom, others collapsed back into their stalls, phones glowing pale blue in their hands. A few simply tipped their heads back and shut their eyes, burning through three minutes of silence.
I stayed seated, leg still stiff, the ice pack dripping a cold, numbing trail down my calf. I bent to peel it off, to prove to myself I could still plant on it, but before I could lower my foot, Azzi was already there, hunched low, hands braced on either side of my shin like she was grounding me. Her palm settled over my bare knee, thumb grazing the edge of the bruise blooming there.
"Baby, you okay?" she asked, voice soft but steady. Her other hand rose to my jaw, brushing a line over skin still slick with sweat, her knuckles carrying that salt-sweet tang of her grit.
I folded forward before I even thought about it. Just bent down, forehead finding hers with a thud that felt more like relief than weight.
Finally, I could breathe.
Finally, I could breathe her.
Her eyes flicked shut on impact. She shifted closer, her knees braced wide on the floor between mine as my thighs opened without hesitation, making room for her in the same instinctual way my lungs made room for her exhales.
She slid one hand up, over my shoulder, across the damp line of my jersey, until her fingers hooked into the hot nape of my neck. The heel of her palm slipped under my ponytail, settling against the fragile heat there.
"I'm always okay withchu' ma," I exhaled, words breaking soft between us, noses bumping, our sweat mixing where our skin touched.
Her breath was warm, caught between the edges of our lips, and I wanted to stay there forever, in that pause where the pressure of the playoffs couldn't touch us.
Across the room, Aziaha sat sprawled, arms crossed but gaze tilted in our direction. Maddy had her head tipped back against the locker, water bottle balanced on her stomach. Neither said a word. They didn't tease, didn't clear their throats. They just... let us have it. Let me have her.
The hush wasn't awkward. It was protective. Like they understood we needed this. Me pressed forehead to forehead with my lifeline and the only thing keeping me from drowning in the weight of the next twenty-four minutes.
Her thumb stroked my jaw once more, the ticking muscle immediately relaxing and I swore the arena outside could've collapsed and I wouldn't have noticed.
Her skin was hot against mine, sweat and shampoo and something that was only ever Azzi. Our foreheads stayed glued, noses nudging, the weight of her hand still cradling the back of my neck like she thought I might slip away if she let go.
"You sure?" she whispered, voice low, careful, like she was holding back the whole damn speech she wanted to give me. "Don't lie to me. If it's too much you don't have to go out there."
I smirked, breath brushing over her upper lip. "Damn, mama. You gon' risk us gettin' to the finals just 'cause my knee is bein' a bitch again?"
Her fingers squeezed at my knee. She tilted her chin so her eyes locked on mine in the close space, deep brown and doe, cutting through me with that quiet kind of love that doesn't let you wriggle out. "Nothing is more important than you, P. I'm sure everyone would rather you not risk it and sit out."
"Baby, I'm okay. For real—"
"You're not bulletproof, Paige." She murmured, pressing her thumb harder into my jaw, like the force of her touch could make me admit it.
I tilted my head until our temples knocked together. "Nah, but I'm close. Gotchu as armor, don't I, princess?"
Her mouth twitched, but the line of her brow didn't soften. Always serious. Always holding the world steady when I'm too restless to stand still. "Asking me to defend you and calling me princess in one sentence. You really are something else, Bueckers."
I let my grin stretch wider, let it cover the ache twisting low in my leg and the tightness still chewing at my chest. "What can I say? My girl's versatile."
She giggles, the sound rumbling against my neck. And then, because I couldn't stand the space between our lips any longer, I leaned in. Just enough. Not hungry, not rushed. Just a slow press of mouth to mouth, the way you cup your hands around a flame to keep it from going out.
Azzi didn't hesitate. She answered like she always did. Sure. Grounding. The kiss more breath than heat, but it filled my lungs anyway. Oxygen. Sanity. All the things I couldn't find outside of her.
For one long second, the game didn't exist. The deficit didn't exist. The leg, the sweat, the crowd, they could all burn. Because right here, like this, I didn't need to chase anything. I was home.
21,000 voices layered on top of each other until they're not voices anymore...just a single wall of noise rattling through me.
42,000 eyes all fixated right on us.
But it also feels like heaven.
The need to prove who doubt us wrong and the need to prove who believe in us right.
The dream I've been chasing since I was a kid shooting at bent rims in Minnesota.
This is what I prayed for every night bent on the floor, hands clasped together. The stage where all the lights burn hot enough to expose every flaw.
I close my eyes for a second, whisper under my breath, just a scrap of prayer. "Let us win this, no matter the cost."
When I open them, everything blurs into focus. My teammates are spreading across the court, bodies slotting into their spots like pieces of a puzzle we've rehearsed a thousand times.
Haley covering Napheesa on the sideline.
And then my eyes meet Azzi.
She's getting ready to tail Courtney. Curls pulled taut into two tight braids that have now grown to fall to her mid back. She gives me a small secret smile and for a moment the ache in my knee disappears. Everything disappears.
And then the referees whistle sounds.
My head whips to Napheesa who's now dribbling the ball just on the edge of the court. Bodies shift as she calls a play. And I snap into the a trance tailing Bridget as she sprints towards the baseline.
Napheesa throws Courtney the ball and it's officially game on.
Courtney catches the pass before Haley's in her face, like a brick wall with a wingspan. Courtney tries to shake her, dribbling right, but Haley sticks, hips squared, cutting off every inch.
I keep my eyes on Bridget. She's fast and she darts along the baseline, trying to slip behind me for an easy corner three. Not today. I slide with her, knees bent, chest burning already from the sharp sprint, but I don't let her breathe. My pink Kobe's squeal against the hardwood, loud enough to drown out even the roaring crowd.
Bridget stumbles half a step. It's tiny, but I catch it. She resets, curls back up top, and just as she does, Napheesa takes a dribble toward the lane. Li is there. All six-seven of her, arms out like she's blotting out the lights above. Phee has nowhere to go.
She kicks it back out to Courtney.
And that's when Azzi pounces.
She reads it before anyone else does, lunges forward, hand slapping the ball loose. It skips across the floor, bouncing wild.
I'm already moving. My knee screams at me, but I don't care. Bodies crash together, everyone diving, but Azzi gets there first. She always does. She scoops it up, her arm muscles strain from the fight, and before I can even yell her name to kick it out to me, she yanks off her defenders, tearing down the court.
I chase after her, my lungs catching fire, my legs heavy but not heavy enough to stop me. The crowd is a hurricane now, screaming, stomping, begging for blood.
And then she pulls up. By the Dallas Wings logo plastered to the hardwood.
Her form is poetry I've memorized a thousand times:
The ball arcs high, impossibly high, and for a second the entire arena holds its breath.
And I swear to God, I feel like I'm floating.
What a fucking start. All because of Azzi fucking Fudd.
Two minutes left. The scoreboard blinks like it's mocking me. Dallas 72, Lynx 70. Every breath I take tastes like sweat and pain. Pain from my back. Pain from my knee. The kind of silence that isn't silence at all hums through the arena: twenty thousand people holding their nerves in their throats.
The ball swings to Natisha. Of course it does. Fuck. Cool hands, hot shot. She plants outside the arc, toes just shy of the line, and I already know what she's thinking.
Haley knows too. But Natisha isn't going to make the shot. Her form is all wrong. Knee bent too low. Shoulders loose. Her impact is going to be too high. Too bumpy. Haley doesn't need to block. Haley doesn't notice all that though. Before I can call Haley off, she fights through the screen, desperate, arms stretching wide.
Natisha rises for the shot, and Haley collides into her like a freight train, shoulder catching her mid-air. The sound is ugly. Body on body, whistle slicing through. Natisha crumples to the hardwood, the ball sailing uselessly off the rim.
The ref's arm slices through the air: three shots.
The arena erupts some in cheers, mostly in rage. The Lynx bench is up, fists pumping. Towels waving.
Geno would've chewed us raw for a foul like that, and I can almost hear his voice in my head: you don't foul a shooter when you know they're gonna miss, for fuck's sake.
We split into our huddles. Haley's face is pale as chalk, embarrassed at not being able to read Natisha's sloppy form, "Shit."
"Focus, Haley. It was one loose foul. We still got time." Azzi reaches out squeezing her arm. My own palm on Azzi's back squeezes in comfort.
Natisha's already at the line, calm as stone. First free throw is clean. Net barely moves. 72–71.
Second. Same thing. Swish. Tie game.
I bite down on my bottom so hard my jaw locks for a second.
The third is slow, deliberate. She dribbles twice, exhales, sets her shoulders and shoots. Perfect.
Minnesota's bench roaring, fans pounding the seats. My chest tightens, my knee throbs, but I don't look at the scoreboard. I look at Azzi. My anchor.
Her braids are damp with sweat, clinging to her neck, and even now she's steady, eyes locked in like she's staring down destiny itself. She gives me the tiniest nod. Just once.
We bring it back down the floor after Natisha's free throws, trying to answer, trying to rip the lead back. I call the set, ball in my hands, barking orders like my voice alone can bend the game. But the Lynx are coiled tight, every gap swallowed, every option eaten alive.
Haley can't shake free, Aziaha covered, Azzi takes a dribble but gets trapped on the wing. By the time the shot clock bleeds to nothing, we're forcing a desperation look, iron clanging us back into hell.
Clock keeps dying. My pulse keeps rising. My knee buckles a little bit more with each step. My back hunches a little lower from the weight of the pain.
Forty seconds left, Dallas down one. Azzi fights through her defender, makes herself an inch of space, and when the ball swings to her, I swear I see the whole world slow down. Her eyes don't even flick to me, but she still sees that I'm open and then the pass comes hot, snapping into my chest.
And suddenly I'm in the cage.
Four of them. Phee. Bridget. Jessica. Dijonai. All teeth, all limbs, circling me like sharks that smell iron in the water. Every dribble feels like it might be my last, the ball threatening to slip, claws reaching. At some point Jessica reaches forward and tires to snatch it. My muscles don't compare to hers but somehow the hours spent in the weight room still help me resist. I choke it down, keep my handle tight, heart thundering in my ears.
I look for space, any space. None. No clean pass. No window. No air.
Twenty seconds. My throat tastes like sandpaper.
There's a sliver. Barely enough daylight between Phee and Dijonai, like a locked door left cracked just enough to tempt you. They're bigger, stronger, built like mountains but I don't care.
I drop my shoulder and drive.
Collision. Phee's body is a fucking wall, muscles like concrete slamming into me, but I don't blink. Pain's nothing. Pain's background noise. My feet keep pounding, my hands cradling the ball like it's the only thing keeping me alive. I rip through the gap, tear the seam wide open, chest burning.
The rim rises, wide and waiting. My hand leaves the ball, fingers stretching skyward, laying it soft off glass. Time slows. It's perfect.
What I forget is the impact.
Phee's body slams into me from behind, too much force, her momentum chasing me down. My foot plants wrong. All wrong. The bad knee, the one already bound tight in layers of KT tape, takes the brunt. And then it gives. Gives in the way that I've only experienced once but still remember second by second.
Not just pain. Destruction. A tearing, sickening twist, my knee bending backwards, grotesque, impossible. I feel the tape snap against my skin like rubber bands, the joint caving under me.
I don't even register the ball dropping through the net, don't hear the horn. All I know is the ground exploding up at me, and then Phee's weight crashes down on top, her stomach slamming into my ruined knee.
The scream rips out of me with so much force it abruptly cute off when my throat also gives up on me.
And I know. More than the pain, the numbness, the all consuming cloud of grief that immediately engulfs me, I know...
But at the cost of never winning again.
Not on blood, not on anyone's arms pinning me down...just my own breath clawing up my throat. The couch lurches beneath me like it's about to tip under my weight, my knees almost clipping the coffee table as I jerk forward. Blanket slides off in a heap, puddling on the carpet. My chest is a drum on fire, hammering so violently I swear it might crack through my ribs.
I'm wet. Not the kind of sweat you can pat away with a towel. This is soaking. Slick rivers down my back, stinging in my eyes, dripping fast enough that when I swipe at my face it feels like rain. My open mouth rasps out these sharp, ragged gasps that sound too loud for the dead-quiet room.
My body's trembling like it forgot it's supposed to be mine. Quads twitching, hands stuttering against my knees, shoulders locked and jerking like static. The terror clings to me, phantom hands around my throat, even though the only thing touching me is the leather couch sticking to my reddened skin.
For a second, I don't know where the hell I am. My blood curdling scream is still lodged in my skull, the impact of Phee's weight still jammed into my knee. And it hurts. So fucking bad. Like it always does after a nightmare.
It feels like the bones should still be bending, tape ripping my skin. My brain's echoing with loud static.
But the TV across the room is off. The blinds are shut. The only scoreboard is the faint red blink of the microwave clock in the kitchen.
It was a nightmare. But a nightmare would imply it was a bad scenario that has no real implications. My nightmares are unique in the way that they are just flashbacks of what I once lived.
I press the heel of my hand to my forehead, like maybe if I push hard enough I can keep it from splitting open under all the memories. My chest refuses to slow, jerking me up and down, up and down, until I'm nothing but a machine sputtering out after a game I'll never finish.
I don't even know how I ended up on this couch, or what the hell last night was supposed to be. One minute I was by the lake, lungs tearing themselves apart, and the next I was clawing for the bottle of Michter's throwing back a swallow big enough to corrode my esophagus.
Now everything is hazy. I try to make the room sharpen by squinting, but my contacts are out, my glasses are missing, and the migraine pounding behind my eyes makes it all bleed together anyway.
I press my palm into the couch and push myself upright, careful not to put weight on the wrong knee but too late. It seizes, flares, that same hot sting that rears its head when the nightmare don't dissolve after I open my eyes.
I drag my leg up, prop it on the coffee table, and lean back against the cushions. The ceiling tilts. The only thing in clear enough focus is the crucifix nailed high above the TV like some gruesome physical embodiment of the pain coursing through me.
A pastor would've called that thought blasphemous and maybe it is. However, the pain is too great for me to care about the ugly thoughts my mind can't stop conjuring.
I scrub a hand down my face, unfamiliar grit in every muscle. There's a neat little cup of water waiting on the table, two Tylenol pills resting beside it and the pack of watermelon gum that tells me more than I want to know.
I'd always been dramatic and weirdly terrified of medicine. For whatever reason, if I didn't chase pills with something sweet, the nausea hit instantly. Sometimes it was candy, sometimes a muffin, sometimes just a stick of gum and sometimes, sweetest of them all, Azzi would lean in and press a kiss to my lips the second I swallowed. But it was always something sweet to keep my stomach from lurching.
I freeze. My head jerks up toward the railing on the second floor, eyes locked on the closed door above.
My gaze drops back to the glass.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck." The words scrape out of me as I slap a hand over my eyes.
I reach anyway, shaking, slick with sweat, fingertips brushing against the rim. The room tilts, my vision swims. Then my shaky grip slips. The glass tips, rolls off the edge, crashes into the wooden floor uncovered by the rug.
Water splatters across the floor. Shards explode, scattering into jagged pieces.
All I can do is choke out a raw little sound...half sob, half snarl, this pitiful, cracked cry that makes me hate myself even more.
The water pools in the cracks of the wood, darkening the grain.
My palm is wet. Not from the water. From me. The sweat hasn't stopped seeping out of me since I woke up.
The thought rises and I kill it immediately. Azzi upstairs, behind that door, probably awake now.
She heard. She knows. And if she wanted to come down, she would've already.
Unless she's waiting for me to ask.
Unless she's as tired of being the one who reaches as I am of being the one who runs.
I push myself up from the couch and the knee screams before my weight even settles on it.
That hot, familiar twist, like someone's driving a screwdriver into the joint and turning it slow. I hiss through my teeth, catching myself on the armrest.
The room tilts. The crucifix on the wall doubles, then settles. I blink until it becomes one again.
I need to pick it up before she comes down and sees me barefoot, drunk-sick, bleeding from a dream. Before she adds it to her collection of reasons I'm not worth the trouble.
The knee buckles, just a hitch, enough to make me grab the coffee table for balance.
Another step. I look down and there's a silver sticking out from the arch of my foot. Clear glass catching the lamp-light, almost invisible except for the red beading around it.
I reach down for it too quick and the world lurches.
My hand finds the floor, palm flat against the wet wood, and the sharp bite of something else, something bigger, slicing into the web of my palm near the thumb. The pain arrives late but thorough, a bright, clean sting that travels up my arm like electricity.
I jerk back, but my hand is already bleeding, a thin rivulet tracing the line of my life-head, dripping onto the rug between my feet. The shard that cut me is still in my palm, buried deep enough that I can't see where it ends and I begin.
The blood drips faster now. I wish I wasn't familiar with the sight of my blood oozing out of a deliberate cut, however the way my sweat soaked thigh twitches makes it all too evident that it's too late for that.
I should stand up. I should find a towel. I should do any of the things a person with sense would do, but my body won't move. It's stuck in that place between shock and surrender, the same place it went when my knee tore, when Azzi screamed my name and I couldn't answer because the pain had swallowed my voice whole.
I look up and she's there, descending fast, the bell tassels of her anklet chiming incessantly, the bonnet still snug on her head, one hand trailing the banister and the other reaching for me before her feet even hit the bottom step.
"Don't move," she says, the kind of tone that stops panic before it can start.
She crosses the last few feet between us and drops to her knees, the silk shorts riding up her thighs, the matching shirt falling open at the wide collar giving away to two masses of plump flesh and dark peaks.
I shoot my gaze to the ceiling, "fuck."
Her hands find my wrist, lifting my palm toward the light. Same hands that once mapped every inch of me like cartography. "Fuck indeed."
She guides me to the couch, one hand on my back, the other still gripping my palm."Sit. Slowly."
Azzi too focused on my hand, bends to kneel in front of me. "Wait," my other hand shoots out grabbing her bicep to prevent her from touching the carpet.
I release her and grab a cushion setting it on the ground. "There's a shit ton of glass on the rug."
She studies the shard, her face close enough that I can see the sleep-crust in the corner of her eye, the way her lower lip has dried in the night air, the faint line where her bonnet presses against her forehead.
The shard is bigger than I thought. Jagged, triangular, buried at an angle that makes my stomach turn when I look at it directly. Blood wells around it, thick and dark, sliding down my wrist to her fingers.
"Don't pull it out," she says, more to herself than to me. "Not yet. We need to—" She stops, looks around, her gaze scanning the vicinity. "Where's the first aid kit?"
"Lemme get it." I clear my throat, eyes flicking up to my bedroom door.
"Just sit down-" she says.
I lift off the couch. "It's fine. I can-"
"You're injured and hungover. Sit down, Paige." Eye eyelashes flutter, eyebrows drawing inwards. "Please." She pleads.
How the fuck can I say no to that face?
I sit, gulping down the fear of her finding what I hide. But that's not why I comply. I comply because there's a sickness gnawing inside me. A sickness eager to know that if she did find out...what would she do?
"In my bathroom," I say, clearing my throat. "Inside the mirror cabinet."
The room is dark but my eyes adjust fast.
The blinds are barely cracked, imprinting the space with sharp lines of sunlight. The bed is unmade. Not messy, just lived in, the sheets twisted at the foot like she fought them in her sleep, one pillow on the floor, one crushed against the headboard.
A jar of water on the nightstand, half-empty, condensation ring staining the wood.
I walk deeper into the room instead of heading straight for the bathroom. My hands ghost over the Bible on her nightstand, spine cracked at Proverbs, pages warped from humidity.
And on the far wall, above the desk.
The back of a jersey. Framed. Not Dallas.
UConn. Number 5. Bueckers.
My slides thud softly against the carpet as I move closer, and the image flickers strangely with the shift of my angle. The number blurs. Warps. Changes.
It's one of those lenticular prints. One movement changes the image entirely. Her jersey. Mine. Back and forth depending where you stand.
I stop breathing. I stop breathing and I can't start again, not while I'm looking at that jersey I wore when I was eighteen and stupid and believed love was enough to outlast everything.
My eyes well. I blink fast forcing the tears back. Not here.
I force my gaze lower to the desk.
The mirror cabinet in the bathroom. That's where she said the kit was. But my eyes snag on something else, a first-aid kit sitting on the desk.
Maybe she put it here from the bathroom and forgot or whatever.
I slide the box off the top shelf of the desk. Something clatters to the ground. The sound of it hitting the ground is tiny, almost swallowed by the carpet.
The floor is dark, but I can see it. Small. Rectangular. A glint of silver where the faint light catches the edge.
I bend. My knees creak. My hand trembles before it even touches the thing, some part of me already knowing, already trying to crawl back out the door and down the stairs and into the car and back to San Francisco where I would've never imagined what I'm imagining now.
It's heavier than it should be for something so small.
Stainless steel. Partially covered in paper wrapping. Small enough to hide in a palm. Small enough to tuck into a pocket, a sock, the space between mattress and frame. Small enough to never be found by anyone... except me.
And it was deliberately hidden.
Beneath the first-aid box.
The blade shakes in my grip, like it's trying to tell me something I don't want to hear.
But I didn't need to hear, did I?
I stare at it and I think of her last night. The way she pressed her forehead to my stomach, the way she sobbed into my shirt, the way she said "I'm sorry" like a record stuck, like a prayer, like the only words she had left.
I think of the empty bookshelf downstairs, the house that looks like it was built for someone else, the whiskey bottle reduced to nothing.
I think of the purple under her eyes. The chapped lips. The way she looked at me like I was real and she was the ghost.
And my traitorous intuition fills me with one thought, one answer, one horror that blooms in my chest like blood in water:
Because who would need to keep a blade hidden under a first aid box?
The answer sits in my palm, cold and final, and I can't breathe, I can't move, I can't do anything but stand in the dark of her room with her scent in my lungs and her vice in my hand, wondering how long she's been alone up here, wondering how many nights she reached for this.
I put the blade back where it was. Because I don't know what to do with it yet except carry the knowledge of it.
I close the door soft behind me and move down the stairs.
In truth, I'm not here for GSV or the chip. I'm here because she left a weapon in her bedroom and I need to know if she's already used it. If she's thought about using it. If the only thing standing between Paige Bueckers and nothing at all is whether the bad nights outnumber the good ones.
They can't. I won't let them.
Her life is mine. And so is her death.
Thirteen years of consuming each other, of becoming each other's only language. What did we think would happen?
You can't eat someone's heart for that long and not inherit the responsibility of keeping it beating.
I round the corner into the living room. She looks up when I enter. Her eyes find the kit in my hands, then my face, then drop away.
She doesn't ask what took so long. I don't offer. I cross to her and kneel again on the the cushion.
I reach for her wounded hand without speaking. She lets me take it, her fingers limp. Her skin is warmer than it should be, fever-warm, and I feel the tremor running through her palm into mine like a current.
Silence stretches. I don't trust my voice. She doesn't seem keen on using hers either.
I open the kit. The latch clicks loud in the quiet. I grab a few napkins from the dispenser on the coffee table and form a layer of them.
I reach for the tweezers, sterilize them with peroxide. "This is going to hurt," I say.
She nods. Throws her head back against the couch, throat exposed, the long column of her neck arching like she's offering it to something. But her eyes stay on me, glistening blue irises slotting low in their sockets, eyelids heavy with that specific exhaustion that looks almost like desire.
Her Adam's apple bobs. Her hand spasms in my grip.
I focus on the wound. The shard is ugly, buried deep and angled wrong. I position the tweezers, get a grip, and pull. One eager motion.
The sound she makes isn't a scream. It's sharper than that, a sudden inhale through the nose, nostrils flaring.
Her head rolls side to side, left right, right left, hair catching on the couch leather, and I watch her endure it the way she always has: like pain is just another opponent she has to face cooly and rigidly.
"I'm sorry," I say, twisting my torso to drop the shard onto the napkin layer.
"Why do you still apologize for other people's mistakes?"
Her voice is rasp, sand and smoke, and when I look back her face and neck are visibly redder covered in rivulets of beaded sweat, a vein pulsing down the long column of her throat. Her chest pumping in and out with knackered breaths.
I reach for the iodine bottle. Dab it onto a cotton bud, my voice coming out eerily monotonous, stripped of the emotion that's currently trying to claw up my esophagus.
"Everything in my life had changed so suddenly," I say, watching the cotton bloom with liquid. "So I just latched onto whatever I had left from the past. The good or bad didn't matter."
She sucks her top lip between her teeth. Her eyes close, head digging deeper into the backrest of the couch, like she's hoping the atoms align and she pushes through to the other side.
"This is going to hurt even more," I mutter. "Bear with it."
She remains silent. Her facial muscles twitch with restraint. I press the cotton to her wound. Her hand jerks in my grip and I feel the hiss she lets out reverberate down my spine.
I blow on the wound immediately, cool air rushing over the iodine's sting, my mouth close enough to her skin that I can smell the sting and the sweat and the faint trace of whiskey still leaching from her pores.
The bleeding slows. I grab gauze, wrap it around her palm, tape it down in neat crosses. My fingers work automatic, years of wrapping my own ankles, my own wrists, her body more familiar than mine.
Even when I finish, I can't find it in me to let go of her hand. Her head has stopped rolling. Her eyes are closed, breathing even.
My attention drops back to her hand.
Even after I finish wrapping her hand, I can't make myself let go of it.
Which is stupid. Dangerous too.
Still, I stay there kneeling between her spread knees, staring down at our hands tangled together.
And that's when I notice them properly.
The calluses are all wrong.
Not the clean roughness basketball gives you. Not the polished wear of endless dribbling and tape and hardwood.
These are grotesque. Random. Torn open in places. The skin beneath her fingers is cracked white like dry earth starved of rain. Tiny scabs litter her cuticles where she's picked herself bloody over and over again. Her nails are chewed uneven, bitten so far down it looks painful.
My bottom lip trembles before I can stop it.
She's staring at me now through swollen red eyes, leaned forward slightly, dirty dark blond hair sticking out in exhausted directions. The kind of eyes that don't belong to people who sleep through the night.
I let out a breathy laugh. Sharp around the edges. "Trust me. I don't." I squeeze her hand once. Hard. "There's no pity for people who let fear drive their life choices."
That lands. I watch it land.
Her jaw flexes hard enough to twitch. The hollow caverns beneath her cheekbones deepen as she looks away for a second, shame flickering across her face.
"You right," she mutters hoarsely. "Ain't no pity for cowards." Her tongue drags slow across dry lips. "And you shouldn't be wastin' your energy on one."
Something hot and revolting twists inside me.
I release her hand and stand abruptly, wiping my palms down my thighs like her sadness is something contagious I need off my skin before it spreads.
"You know what I deserve?" My voice comes out colder than intended. Sharper. "A championship." I don't even recognize my voice the way I snarl that word into her face.
My fist knots into the collar of her t-shirt and I yank her forward. The couch dips under her weight as her body stumbles toward mine, noses nearly colliding. Suddenly she's everywhere again. Heat. Misery. Sleep. Paige.
"And I'll do whatever I need to do to get that chip." My grip tightens. Knuckles brushing the sharp jut of her collarbone beneath the damp cotton. "Anything."
Silence swells between us. Heavy. Breathing thickening the air.
There's birds chirping outside somewhere beyond the lake. Morning unfolding while we rot alive in her living room.
And stupidly. So. Fucking. Stupidly. I notice the scent of her exhales.
Stale with exhaustion and sour with liquor.
It should repulse me. Instead my body reacts with horrifying familiarity, my stomach dipping the same way it used to at twenty two when she'd pin me against locker room walls and club bathrooms smelling exactly like this.
My eyes betray me next. Dropping to her mouth. Her lips are wrecked too. Split in tiny places where she's chewed them raw.
The memories hit with a rabid pan. Her mouth on mine. Her lips swallowed by my cunt. Her whispers at odd morning hours telling me she loved me like it physically hurt her to hold it in.
I recoil so fast it almost makes me dizzy.
I release her shirt like it's hot coal. Clear my throat hard enough to scrape skin.
"You need a shower," I mutter, stepping over her long legs sprawled across the rug. "You smell abysmal."
She blinks slowly like she's surfacing from underwater. Rubs a hand over her face. "Lemme cook you somethin' first."
I stare at the gauze wrapped around her hand. "Last time I checked, you weren't ambidextrous." I crouch down, snapping the first aid kit shut harder than necessary. "Or did that magically change too in the past two years?"
"Just shower, Paige." I gather up the bloody napkins. "I'm not a kid."
"It's just a cut, Azzi. It's not like I'm crippled-"
"Don't talk about being crippled." I snap at her. That quiet settles over us again.
"Okay." She stands slowly, unfolding herself from the couch in pieces, and starts toward the stairs dragging exhaustion behind her like chains.
Then something clicks in my head.
She pauses halfway to the staircase but doesn't turn around.
"Do you have saran wrap?"
Then she exhales. Long. Defeated. Like disappointment is her native language now.
She walks to the kitchen drawer beside the fridge, digs around, and hands me the roll. "Here."
"Hold still." I tug the plastic free carefully, my acrylic nails clicking softly against the plastic. Pink almond-shaped tips catching the kitchen light while I wrap the film around her gauzed hand. Sealing everything in place so water can't seep through.
My fingers brush her wrist once accidentally.
She's staring at me in that unbearable way of hers. Like she's trying to read meaning off my face she no longer has access to.
"You're welcome," I say quietly.
Just turns and starts climbing the stairs one slow step at a time, her wrapped hand held awkwardly away from her body like a wounded bird she's afraid to crush.
