March 18, 2014
Calipari's whistle blew at 6:15 in the evening.
The sound echoed from one end of the Joe Craft Center to the other, and the Kentucky players began moving toward the benches with the specific energy of a practice wrapping up. It wasn't the relief of someone finishing something exhausting. It was the relief of someone finishing something demanding and knowing that what they had done over the last two hours would matter in a few days when the tournament started and there was no room for improvisation.
Calipari said something that Aaron didn't fully hear because he was already thinking about what came next. The players grabbed their towels, water bottles, and backpacks with the routine movement of people who had finished the same sequence a hundred times. The team staff began picking up equipment from the floor. Orlando Antigua exchanged a few words with Calipari near the three-point line, and the two walked together toward the back offices.
Aaron picked up a basketball.
He walked to the right low post, stood with his back to the basket with his feet in his usual stance, and began working alone with the same level of focus he would have had if practice were still underway. First, the short hook with his right hand. Ten reps, accepting none that didn't go in cleanly. Then the same move with his left hand. Then the fake and the pivot. Then the step-back from the free-throw line out to the perimeter. Every movement executed with the same demand as if there were a defender in front of him, because Aaron had been training alone long enough to know that the difference between a move that works in a big game and one that fails at the worst possible moment lies in the thousands of reps that nobody sees.
Julius stopped halfway to the locker room.
He looked back.
Aaron was still on the court, his dribble carrying the specific rhythm of someone who was neither warming up nor cooling down, but working—his eyes on the rim and his feet in his usual stance.
Julius looked back again. He looked at Andrew, who had also stopped and was staring at the court with the expression of someone who had just noticed something they should have noticed earlier.
"How long has he been doing this?" Andrew asked in a low voice, though no one else was close enough to hear them.
"Since mid-February," Julius said. "Every day. Practice ends, and he keeps going. Sometimes an hour more. Sometimes longer."
Aaron Harrison walked over to where the other two were standing and followed their gaze to the court. James approached from the other end of the hallway as well, his ankle no longer taped, though he was still taking the care of someone unwilling to rush a recovery that had taken weeks.
"Does he ever stop?" James asked.
"No," Julius said.
The four of them stood watching in silence for a moment. On the court, Aaron executed the Dream Shake from the low post with the fluidity of someone who had repeated the move so many times it no longer required thought. He spun off his right pivot, and the short hook shot went in cleanly. He caught the rebound off his own shot before the ball touched the floor and returned to his starting position without a pause.
"He's different," Aaron Harrison said.
"Since when?" Andrew asked.
"Since February," Julius said. "Since... I don't know. Since after the party. He's been like this ever since."
Nobody asked which party he was referring to, because everyone knew which one he meant.
"He's closing himself off," James said. "I see it in practice. He talks less. He goes out less. It's like he's in his own world."
"He is," Julius said.
Another hook shot. Another rep. Aaron grabbed the rebound and went back to the post.
"Someone needs to tell him something," Andrew said.
"You?" Julius said.
"You've known him longer."
"Which is exactly why I know he won't listen."
Aaron Harrison crossed his arms. On the court, Aaron finished his set of hook shots and began shooting fadeaways from the left perimeter—the same spot from which he had won the game against LSU three weeks earlier.
"He's about to play in March Madness," James said. "The biggest tournament of the year. If he goes in this tense, he's going to blow up before the first game."
"Or he's going to be unstoppable," Julius said.
"The two aren't mutually exclusive," Andrew said.
Julius considered that for a moment.
"Let's go," he said finally, starting to walk toward the court.
The other three followed without argument.
Aaron heard them coming before he saw them—the sound of four pairs of sneakers on the Joe Craft Center hardwood. When he raised his eyes from the rim to where they were standing, he understood that none of them had come alone.
"Practice is over," Julius said.
"I know," Aaron said, and kept dribbling the ball.
"Stop," Julius said.
Aaron shot a fadeaway. The ball went in. He grabbed the rebound.
"Aaron."
Aaron stopped with the ball tucked under his arm and looked at the four of them.
"What?"
"You've been like this for a month," Julius said. "Practice ends and you keep going for another hour. You cancel plans. You don't go out. James says you talk less in the locker room. Andrew says you haven't shown up in the team lounge in two weeks. I know you haven't come to the movies with us in three weeks, which is usually something you ask to do."
"I'm training."
"We know," James said. "And you're playing the best basketball of your life. We know that too. But there's a difference between preparing properly for the tournament and shutting yourself in the way you're doing."
Aaron didn't respond right away. He stared at the rim for a moment with that focused attention he gave things when he was processing something before replying. Then he looked back at the group.
"March Madness is only three days away."
"We know," Andrew said. "We also know that entering the tournament mentally exhausted is just as bad as entering physically exhausted. You said that yourself. Last year, talking about the Spurs in the playoffs, you said that exact thing."
Aaron didn't remember saying it in those exact words, but he didn't rule it out either. It was the kind of thing he would say.
"You need to relax," Julius said. "Go out. See people. Do something that isn't this." He pointed to the ball under Aaron's arm. "Meet someone."
"I don't have time to meet anyone."
"You already met someone."
Aaron looked at Julius.
"The party," Julius said, needing to add nothing more.
Aaron looked at the rim again.
"That was nothing," Aaron said. "It was one night. It wasn't even a full night."
"Did you save her number in your contacts?" Julius asked.
Silence.
"Aaron."
"I saved it in my contacts."
"Then it's something," Julius said with the calm of someone who had already won the argument.
"Julius. I have only a few days before the most important game of the season, March Madness, the tournament that defines everything we've built this year, and you're asking me to text a girl I met at a party almost a month ago."
"I'm not asking you to fall in love or make long-term plans. I'm asking you to send her a text. Do something outside this gym for a couple of hours, which is the bare minimum a human being needs to remember they exist outside a basketball court." Julius gestured to the empty gym surrounding them. "You lose nothing by trying."
Andrew nodded. James did too.
"Aaron," said Aaron Harrison, who spoke the least of the four, which was precisely why when he did speak, the rest listened. "You've been the most unstoppable player in the conference for a month. That's not going to change just because you go out one night. But if you keep going like this until the tournament, you're going to enter it with your head stuck in one place, and that isn't always a good thing."
Aaron held the ball for a moment. Then he let it roll toward the free-throw line.
"One hour," he said.
"As many as it takes," said Julius, which was the exact same thing he had said the night of the party.
"I'm talking about sending a text, not going anywhere."
"For now," Julius said.
Aaron grabbed the towel he had left on the bench and wiped his face with it. The four watched him with the expression of people who had won something but had enough common sense not to celebrate out loud.
"Get out," Aaron said.
The four of them cleared out.
Julius was the last to leave. When he reached the hallway, he stopped for a moment without turning around.
"One hour," he said out loud.
Aaron didn't answer.
He waited until the footsteps disappeared completely down the hallway. They took longer than usual, probably because Julius was the type to linger during goodbyes when he felt he had won a point.
He was left alone in the Joe Craft Center with only the hum of the ceiling ventilation system and the artificial light over the empty bleachers. He looked at the court for a moment—the free-throw line, the rim, the ball still rolling slowly near center court.
Then he pulled his phone from his pocket.
He searched through his contact list. He scrolled down to the Zs. Zoe. The name had been there since the night of February 16, saved in the three seconds it had taken Aaron to decide to save it before turning off his room light. A month and three days. He hadn't deleted it. He hadn't texted her either. He had thought about doing it on several occasions, and on several occasions he had placed the phone face down on the nightstand and turned off the light.
He opened the text thread.
The last message was hers, the one she had sent him on Sunday morning.
Hope you weren't late for practice. Thirty-one days without a reply.
Aaron looked at the message for a moment.
Aaron:I was late.
He waited.
The reply arrived four minutes later. Fast enough for Aaron to understand she had seen the message almost immediately. Slow enough so it didn't look like she had been sitting with her phone in hand for days.
Zoe:I figured.
Aaron:How did you know?
Zoe:Because you left at ten in the morning on a Sunday and practice was at nine.
Aaron:Makes sense.
Zoe:A month to answer a text?
Aaron:A month.
Zoe:Worse.
Aaron:I know.
Zoe:And may I ask why exactly you're texting me now and not before?
Aaron:Twenty-nine days difference.
Zoe:Thirty-one minus two.
Aaron:Exact.
Zoe:And are you texting me now because I told you you were lucky with Calipari and it turned out you were right?
Aaron:I didn't lose the tournament.
Zoe:Not yet.
Aaron looked at the message. It was the closest thing to a provocation Zoe had said in the exchange, and Aaron didn't know whether to respond to it or ignore it. He chose to ignore it.
Aaron:I was training.
Zoe:The whole month?
Aaron:Basically.
Zoe:That busy?
Aaron:March Madness in a few days. Two hours of practice daily. Film sessions. Tactical breakdowns. Yes, that busy.
Zoe:But you're not training right now.
Aaron:Right now I'm in the empty gym texting you.
Zoe:Alone in the gym?
Aaron:My teammates left.
Zoe:They left you alone with your phone?
Aaron:It was a group intervention.
There was a longer pause this time. Aaron waited standing by the bench, phone in hand, eyes on the screen.
Zoe:So, what are you doing texting me now?
Aaron thought about how to answer that. The honest answer was that four people he had known for months had surrounded him in the Joe Craft Center and collectively convinced him that he needed to do something other than train for a few hours. That wasn't particularly romantic, nor was it the kind of thing Aaron usually admitted in text messages.
Aaron:My teammates said I needed to relax.
Zoe:How thoughtful of them.
Aaron:I know.
Zoe:And texting me was your first idea to relax?
Aaron took a moment.
Aaron:I had your number saved.
Zoe:And you waited until just now to use it?
Aaron:I had a very busy few days.
Zoe:That's the closest thing to an excuse you've given since I met you.
Aaron:It was a compliment.
Zoe:That's the closest thing to a compliment you've said since I met you.
Aaron looked at the message for a moment. Then he looked out at the empty court. Then back at the phone.
Aaron:Do you want to hang out one of these days? Before all the tournament stuff starts.
The reply took longer this time. Longer than the previous ones. Long enough for Aaron to wonder if he had been too direct too soon. Then:
Zoe:When?
Aaron:Tomorrow. If you can.
Zoe:Tomorrow works.
Aaron:At seven?
Zoe:At seven.
Aaron looked at the screen for a moment longer. Tomorrow. At seven. He had agreed to a date with someone days before the most important tournament of his college season, which was exactly the kind of thing Julius would have applauded with both hands if he had seen it, and the kind of thing the Aaron of two months ago wouldn't have done. Aaron put the phone in his pants pocket. He looked at the court. The ball was still lying near the free-throw line where he had left it when the others departed.
He picked it up.
He took a shot from the left perimeter. Swish.
He took another from the right perimeter. Swish again.
He caught the rebound from the second shot, walked back to center court, and left it there.
He turned off the lights of the Joe Craft Center and walked out.
Authors thought
What did you think of today's chapter? Give me your opinions and thoughts.
For football fans, check out my other fanfic, *The Golden Standard*, and discover the story of Wyatt Sterling.
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I also fixed the Discord link so joined