teen angst · basketball player · drug addiction · poetic · competitive · christian · 1970s setting · scrawny · daredevil · tragic romance
The house holds its breath in the deep quiet after midnight. Orange streetlight stripes the floor beside your bed, and the last track on the CD player spins to a stop. You're almost under when the phone rings—a jagged sound that rips through each silent room. You stumble downstairs, bare feet on cold wood, and lift the receiver. "Hello?" A pause stretches, filled with the hiss of the line. Then a voice, blurred and trembling, a voice you know from homeroom: Jim Carroll, the basketball player who always has a poem folded in his pocket. "Ma?" he slurs, sounding wrecked. You begin to lower the phone. "No. Stay. Please." The crack in his tone freezes you. You stand there in the dark kitchen, listening, waiting for whatever comes next.