It was game night in Norman and every warm black body in the county had flocked to watch Antwan Dixon play off the back of his fifty-nine point performance earlier in the week. Antwan took to the court for the shootaround in preparation of the game ahead without a worry on his mind. The crowd buzzed with excitement every time he knocked down a shot even though the game hadn’t even started and each time it happened Antwan felt more and more confident. He took a glance up into the stands and saw Jayson sat beside his mother and smiled in their direction. He was going to put on a show tonight that they would never forget now his mind was back where it should have been all along. Getting them out of this nowhere town.

From behind him amidst the buzz of the crowd Antwan heard a familiar voice calling out to him.

“Antwan.”

He looked round and saw Roland Spencer waving in his direction from besides the stands. A pair of black sunglasses sat over his eyes and his lip was swollen and pink but his suit made him hard to spot. Antwan looked back round, clapping in the direction of one of his teammates for a ball, and continued to shoot the ball as if he hadn’t noticed Roland standing there. He would talk with him once he was done.

A few shots later he heard Roland’s voice calling out to him once more. “Antwan, stop a minute and talk to me, son.”

He turned to see that this time Roland had crept from the stands to near the sideline and could see Coach Calhoun in the corner of his eye watching on. Coach disapproved of Roland’s presence at the games almost as much as Antwan’s mother and given the scolding Coach had given him after finding out about the weed, Antwan couldn’t afford any more distractions.

“I need to warm up, Roland, I don’t have time to talk. Tonight’s important.”

“You don’t have time to talk?” Roland said with a shake of his head, the hurt apparent in his voice. “What the hell is going on? You’ve been avoiding me ever since that little incident with the Sheriff’s Department.”

Antwan didn’t know how Roland had managed to get that to go away and Antwan had thought better of asking him, especially after his conversation with the deacon. The more he thought about it and all the things that Roland had done for him, the more Antwan began to worry that something more was going on here than he let on.

“It’s not that,” Antwan sighed. “I’ve been thinking, I guess, things have been a little hectic. It’s not about that.”

One of Roland’s bushy eyebrows cocked above his sunglasses. “You sure? It sure as hell seems like it.”

Antwan glanced up at the stands at his mother and Jayson as he mulled over how to approach what was about to happen. Roland had been a friend to him for years and despite everything Antwan still considered him a friend. He’d been there for him when even his mother hadn’t been and that meant something to him, but things had got out of hand. He caught his mother’s eye and she nodded at him resolutely as if urging him on. Antwan cleared his throat as he ran a hand through his hair and then looked at Roland with a brief smile.

“My moms wants me to give the car back, Roland, and I told her I’d do it.”

Roland let out a chuckle. “What? Why? That car is yours, son.”

“I don’t want it anymore,” Antwan said with a shrug. "So you do whatever it is you need to do. Take it back, sell it, or give it back to whoever you took it from, man."

Roland swiped his sunglasses from his brow and thrust them into the inside pocket of his oversized suit, reaching out for Antwan by the arm, and holding onto it firmly.

“You don’t like it? I can get you another one, Antwan, a bigger one if you want. You want some rims? We’ll get you rims. Whatever it is you want, son, I’ll get you. You hear me?”

Antwan tugged his arm free of Roland’s grasp angrily.

“Why are you always trying to buy me, man?”

A lock of shock appeared on Roland’s face. “What?”

“If you’re my friend then be my friend, Roland, I don’t need all these things.”

Roland stared at him silently as he visibly tried to find the words to convey how he felt. Antwan watched as his benefactor, his friend, looked as if he ran the gauntlet of emotions in the span of twenty seconds. First hurt, then anger, then sadness, before finally returning back to hurt, a wounded expression laid bare for all to see on his face.

“After all I’ve done for you, this is how you’re going to do me? This isn’t right, Antwan.”

Antwan felt a pang of guilt. It wasn’t the same guilt he had felt when he’d lost his temper with his mother or the guilt he’d felt when he found out Jayson had tried to take the rap for him. It was obligation instead of affection. For a second he wondered whether he’d gone too far but another glance in his mother’s direction in the stands helped steel him and assure him of the necessity of what he’d said. He looked at Roland and shook his head gently.

“It ain’t like that.”

Roland stood there as if looking through him and from behind Antwan the sound of Coach Calhoun’s voice bellowing in his direction reminded Antwan where he was and what he was meant to be doing. He placed a hand up towards Coach to assure him he was coming.

“Look, I need to warm up,” Antwan said as he began to jog over to centre court. “We’ll speak after the game.”

[b][center]*****[/center][/b]
He wasn’t sure what had happened or how it had happened but for the first time in his what seemed like forever Jayson had seen Antwan have a bad game. So bad that his team was down by eight points at home with little over a minute left on the clock. Every shot that Antwan had put up had looked wrong the second it had left his hand and Jayson had lost count of the number that had clanged loudly against the rim. Something was wrong. He’d watched from the stands with Michelle as Antwan had spoken with Roland on the sidelines and wondered whether maybe that had thrown him off his game, but whatever had happened Antwan looked like a completely different person out there. There was less than a minute in the game and he had eleven points, eight of which had come from the line, and turned the ball over countless times. 

Something was definitely wrong.

There was still time though. Jayson had watched enough basketball in his life to know that there was always a way back. Tracy McGrady had scored eleven points in thirty seconds, Reggie Miller had scored eight in nine seconds, and Jayson knew that one day people Antwan’s name would be up in lights with theirs. If anyone could bring their team back from the precipice, it was Antwan Dixon.

Except this time he couldn’t do it. They inbounded the ball to Antwan and instead of driving to the basket or pulling up for a three, he was caught in a double team in the corner and lost possession of the ball, within seconds the ball was being dunked emphatically through the basket. Antwan looked shell-shocked. Jayson watched as the crowd sat in cowed silence, some even shouting abuse toward the court, and shook his head in disbelief at what was happening.

The final forty-five seconds passed in the blink of an eye and the opposing team’s fans came streaming onto the court. Antwan stood with a blank expression and tried to navigate his way through them and towards the locker room. As he walked, one of the opposing fans stood in his way and screamed jubilantly in his face and Antwan shoved him away from him. Jayson leapt from his seat and descended down the stands towards his friend, intent on stopping him from getting himself into any more trouble than he’d gotten into this week.

He placed one of his hands on his friend’s shoulder as if to stop him lashing out at the fan. “Antwan.”

Antwan’s eyes were glassy with welled up tears, the rage was clear on his face, but it softened somewhat as he recognised that it was Jayson stood there next to him. 

He gestured towards the exit. “Let’s get out of here.”

Jayson took a glance back at Michelle up in the stands and pointed towards the exit of the gymnasium and she nodded, understanding, and began to descend down the stairs. Slowly Jayson and Antwan made their way through the crowd with Jayson making use of his impossibly broad frame to bulldoze through the crowd. Antwan was hurting. He wanted him out of there as soon as possible.

They didn’t talk as they made it to the exit of the gymnasium and Jayson knew better than to comfort his friend, at least not out in the open where everyone could see. Antwan wasn’t used to failure, he’d never had to encounter it before in his life, having willed every team he’d ever been on to victory since before he was thirteen. This would eat away at him, motivated him to become a better player, and he’d come back next year bigger and better than before. Jayson was sure of it. 

The cold air hit Jayson like a truck as he opened the gymnasium door and escorted Antwan through it. From behind him he could hear the cacophony of cheering fans and drums being played. He scanned through the crowd for Michelle’s face to make sure she was making good progress after them and followed Antwan out.

People had begun to file out of the gym after them and even in the light of the gym behind them it was difficult to see much further than a few paces ahead of them. Jayson made sure to keep his friend in his sight, placing his hand on his back as they walked, as they drew nearer to the beaten down old truck Jayson had driven them there in.

Suddenly in the darkness a figure stepped out in front of them. Jayson could barely make out his face beneath the black hoodie he was wearing but as they got closer something about him seemed familiar.

The boy smiled and reached into the waistband of his jeans. “You remember me, motherfucker?”

The moon shone along the length of the gun in the boy’s hand just long enough for Jayson to spot it and make a move. There was a loud bang as Jayson’s arms wrapped around Antwan and tackled him to the ground. From behind them the disgruntled fans that had been filing out of the gym were screaming and scattering. From atop Antwan, Jayson looked around at the boy in the hoodie, whose hands were shaking with fear as he stared down at them. He dropped the gun and sprinted off into the darkness.

“Jayson?” Antwan said from beneath him. “Jayson? You good?”

Jayson nodded, shocked. “I’m good, man.”

He attempted to push himself off of Antwan but found his arms too weak to support his own weight. A confused look appeared on his face as he reached down, placing a hand on his stomach, and felt his fingers run over a patch on his coat that was soaking wet. He lifted his fingers up to the light to look at the liquid to find them blood red. Slowly a feeling of unease set in it dawned on Jayson what had happened and he stared down at Antwan, his eyes beginning to flicker in his head.

“Jayson?”

He fell with a heavy thud atop Antwan and the world went black. He could hear the sound of Antwan shouting for help, calling out for someone to call an ambulance, as he wriggled out from underneath him. It was cold, so cold, all but for Antwan’s fingers interlocked between his own. He couldn’t see him, he could barely hear him anymore, but as he drifted out of consciousness he knew that when he opened his eyes he’d seen Antwan again. He had to. 

Who would look out for him otherwise? He was his best friend.