BETWEEN WORLDS - Chapter 6
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The streets looked different in the rain. Azeil had walked from the bus stop five times now, but tonight the familiar route felt wrong. Buildings pressed too close, streetlights bleeding yellow through the mist, everything soft around the edges. His vision kept swimming from whatever had exploded in his chest back at the gym.
His lip pulsed where it had split. Each step toward his father's house counted down something he couldn't name. Not home. Not yet. The words mattered, though he didn't know why.
Rain turned to hiss against concrete, soaking through his sweatshirt. His dreads stuck cold against his neck. Highland Prep kids would've been diving between their parents' cars by now, designer backpacks dry under golf umbrellas. Here, people just walked faster and kept their heads down.
He touched his phone through his pocket. Still nothing. The thing felt like a dead weight. Back when his mom topped his contacts, her voicemails had been like armor against Highland Prep's particular brand of loneliness.
Now her number went straight to a disconnected service recording. Her voice lived only in his head, and everything else had cracked apart. What was left? His Highland Prep vocabulary in his father's neighborhood. Dreams that couldn't breathe in this air. Being suspended between places that both rejected him.
The fight with Zahair wouldn't stop replaying. For those minutes on the court, basketball had been pure language, his body remembering who he'd been before grief scrambled his wiring. Then Zahair's mouth had ruined it, yanked him back to the reality of belonging nowhere: too Highland for Langston, too Langston for Highland, too light for some spaces, too dark for others.
Mulatto.
The word stuck in his ears. Not because Highland Prep hadn't taught him worse. Their racism just wore nicer clothes. But hearing it from someone who looked like half his family, from the half his mother had fought to connect him to, that was different. That hurt in a place he didn't have names for.
He turned onto his father's street. Houses crammed together, their paint peeling like old skin. Three blocks over, empty buildings showed their bones through broken windows. Even the trees looked stunted, like the air here couldn't feed them right.
His mother never talked about growing up here. Her story always started with her Howard scholarship, like nothing came before. Principal Peterson had called her ‘Class of 2000. Valedictorian.’ Why hide that? What else had she edited out? Questions piled up with nowhere to go.
The house came into view. Porch light flickered, throwing sick yellow across worn steps. Unlike the others, his father's place showed care, cleared gutters, grass cut even where it grew patchy, fresh paint around the windows. Pride on a budget. And there was Jackson Carter, hunched on the top step with a bottle beside him.
Azeil stopped at the property line. Blood on his mouth, clothes soaked, later than he'd meant to be. Too late to slip inside to that bedroom that still felt borrowed. Too late to pretend today had gone according to plan.
His father looked up. Their eyes met across the yard, two blocks that didn't quite fit together.
"Late night," Jackson said. Not a question, not an accusation.
Azeil shifted his backpack, straightened his shoulders the way his mother had drilled into him, and stepped forward. Another line crossed in a week full of them.
"Yeah." The word carried weight he couldn't unpack. "It was."
Each step up the porch announced itself with a creak. The harsh light carved deep lines around his father's mouth, turned his stubble into something that looked more like giving up. Jackson Carter was forty-three but looked older, like something had been grinding him down from the inside.
"You're soaked," his father said, making room on the step.
Azeil sat, keeping distance between them. Rain drummed the roof, filling up the quiet.
Jackson lifted his bottle—beer, not the hard stuff—and took a sip. Not drunk, just settling into the evening. Azeil could practically hear his mother's voice, that particular tone she'd get about drinking.
"Split lip," Jackson said, squinting at him. "Fighting already?"
Azeil's hand went to his mouth, felt the swollen mess there. At Highland Prep, you needed forms and explanations for injuries. Here, a busted lip was just information to be processed.
"It's nothing."
Jackson snorted. "Nothing always means something." He set the bottle between them like a peace offering. "Especially when it comes bleeding through my front door."
The words hung there, not angry, not worried, just true. Azeil watched a car cruise by, bass thumping through closed windows. Everything here felt immediate, like the padding had been stripped away.
"Just a disagreement," he said finally. "Basketball."
First time he'd mentioned it to his father since moving in. Something shifted in Jackson's face, surprise, maybe interest.
"Basketball," his father repeated, tasting the word. "With who?"
"Zahair Williams."
Jackson's eyes sharpened. "Big kid. Plays for Langston." Azeil must have looked surprised because Jackson shrugged. "I grew up here. People talk." He studied Azeil's face. "They're saying you took him on the court first. Then things got ugly."
"Who's 'they'?"
"I know people." Jackson sipped his beer. "This ain't Highland Prep, son. Different rules."
"I know that."
"No." Jackson's voice stayed level, matter-of-fact. "You don't. You been visiting. There's a difference."
The distinction sat between them like something they could both feel but couldn't name. Azeil's chest tightened the same way it had in the gym earlier. He was fed up with people making assumptions about him.
"I'm not dumb,” he said. "I see the empty buildings. The guys dealing on the corner. Cops driving around like they're just waiting." He nodded toward the street. "I got eyes."
"Looking ain't living it." Jackson kept his voice low, but there was an edge underneath. "Your mama kept you away from all this. Good for her."
"She wanted something better for me."
"Yeah. Me too." The words came out fast, like Jackson hadn't meant to say them.
They both went quiet. Azeil really looked at his father for the first time in six weeks. Jackson's hands around the beer bottle were rough, stained black under the nails from work. His shoulders had that bend to them that comes from years of things not going your way.
"Mom never talked about growing up here," Azeil said. "Never mentioned Langston Hughes at all."
Jackson's eyebrows went up. "Course not. Your mama was always about what came next, not what was behind her." Something almost like a smile. "Moment I met her, she was already out of here in her mind."
Emotion cracked his voice slightly, filled with pride and hurt. He'd never heard his father speak about his mother like that, or at all.
"Principal Peterson remembered her," Azeil said, feeling his way into new territory. "Said she was valedictorian. Class of 2000."
Jackson nodded. "Smartest girl I ever knew. She knew it too." He looked at Azeil. "Peterson said you were something else in that game."
That caught Azeil off guard. "I just made a shot."
"Didn't look like 'just a shot' from what I saw."
"You… you watched it?"
Jackson shrugged like it was nothing. "Wanted to see what all the noise was about." His eyes went to the bruise forming on Azeil's jaw. "Looks like being a hero got you more than a trophy."
Azeil's throat got tight. That championship game, it was everything at Highland Prep. All those hours proving himself to guys who looked at him like he didn't belong. And somehow his father had been watching from wherever he was, looking for some piece of who his son had become.
"I wasn't supposed to be in the game that much," Azeil said. The words came easier now. "I would come off the bench and play spot minutes." He stared at his hands, could still feel the weight of the ball in those last seconds. "Then everything went sideways."
Jackson was quiet, just watching him. "Sometimes the best stuff happens when everything falls apart," he said finally. "Makes space for something real."
That surprised Azeil, coming from this man who was basically a stranger. He thought about earlier in the gym, how all his careful acting had cracked when Zahair pushed him, and something true had come out instead.
"Coach Booker wants me at practice Monday," Azeil said. First time he'd said it out loud.
"You gonna go?"
Simple question, but it wasn't simple at all. Basketball was his thing at Highland Prep. Who he was in a place where he never quite fit. What would it mean to bring that here? To stand next to Zahair instead of across from him?
"Don't know," Azeil said.
Jackson nodded. "First time you touched a ball since your mama died?"
The question hit him sideways. Azeil's breath caught as memories broke through—his mother at his first middle school game, paying attention while other parents talked. Her voice cutting through everything: "Shoulders back, Azeil. Eyes up." She never just cheered. Instead, she instructed from the sidelines, influencing every aspect of his game.
"Yeah," the rain drowned out his voice.
Jackson stared out past their little yard. "She was good people."
It sounded real, and that made it worse somehow. "You sure didn't act like you respected her when she was alive," Azeil said. It slipped out before he could stop it.
His father didn't flinch, didn't get defensive. Just got a little smaller in his spot. "Maybe not," he said. "She made it pretty hard for me to be around, though."
"You could've tried harder." Each time he asked about his father, she seemingly shielded him from something too painful to handle. Azeil remembered every missed birthday or school event where he looked over and only saw his mom.
"Maybe we were both right," Jackson said. No anger in it, no blame. Just tired.
The rain got heavier, coming down in sheets past the edge of the porch. Made it feel like they were cut off from everything else. Azeil felt like they were walking on glass. One wrong word and everything would break.
"I should go in," he said, standing up. "Got homework."
Jackson didn't try to stop him, didn't push for more talking. Just nodded and went back to watching the rain. But when Azeil got to the door, his father's voice stopped him.
"There's a basketball court out back," Jackson said, talking to the night more than to Azeil. "Concrete's all cracked up, rim's about shot. But it's there if you want it."
Not quite an apology. Not quite an invitation. But something.
"Thanks," Azeil said. It wasn't enough, how could it be? At least it was a start though.
The screen door snapped shut behind him as he stepped into the house.
The inside smelled like old TV dinners, Tide, and cigarettes that somebody else used to smoke. The kind of smell that gets into the walls and never comes out. Azeil stood in the living room, waiting for his eyes to get used to the dark. Some comedian was talking on the TV, canned laughter from a world that felt a million miles away.
He walked down the hall to the bedroom Jackson had set up for him six weeks ago when everything went to hell. The floorboards creaked with every step, no such thing as sneaking around in this place. Three more steps. Two. One.
He slipped inside and shut the door. Leaned back against it and closed his eyes, finally breathing air that was just his for a minute.
When he opened them, Jackson's version of his old room still caught him off guard. The posters were right, Jordan mid-fadeaway, Kobe's scowl, LeBron flying toward the rim. Same ones from the apartment he'd shared with Mom. But the desk by the window was scratched up, somebody else's furniture with somebody else's damage. Not like the clean white desk his mother had bought him new.
"Clean space, clean mind," she used to say. Everything in its place, like her law office.
This room was Jackson trying his best when Azeil's world fell apart. The thought hit him weird, made him less mad, somehow.
Azeil dropped his backpack and fell onto the bed. The springs made noise. Everything hurt, not just from playing Zahair or the fight after, but from the whole week. Five days of figuring out Langston Hughes, watching what he said, keeping his face blank the way his mom had taught him since he was little.
"World's gonna try to break you down, Azeil," she'd said once, fixing his tie before his Highland Prep interview. "Don't let it."
Tonight he'd finally lost it. All that careful control cracked when Zahair pushed him too far, and something raw came spilling out. Weird thing was, he wasn't totally sorry. When he shoved Zahair back, all that grief and anger and confusion behind it, something moved inside him that had been stuck for weeks.
His tongue found the cut on his lip, tasting copper. Coach Booker's voice was still in his head: "File it away. Use it for fuel, not an excuse to go crazy. That's what makes you a man—what you do with all that fire inside."
The fire. He'd been stuffing it down for six weeks, pushing away everything he felt, just trying to get through each day. Wake up. Go to class. Do homework. Sleep. Repeat. Like if he went through the motions long enough, he'd start feeling normal again.
But today changed something. First on the court, when basketball felt like basketball again for the first time since Mom died. Then fighting Zahair, when all that locked-up emotion finally broke free. Now, sitting in this little room with beat-up furniture and familiar faces staring down from the walls, he got it. Life kept happening whether he was really living it or just watching from the sidelines.
He looked over at the corner and saw a basketball sitting against the wall. Not his game ball from the championship, that was still back at Highland Prep, but something newer. The leather looked fresh, barely used. He couldn't remember packing it when he left their apartment. Couldn't remember seeing it when he first got here.
He got up and picked it up. Felt right in his hands, but different too. There was a little card taped to the back. He pulled it off. A white rectangle with Jackson's writing:
FOR WHEN YOU'RE READY
His throat got tight. Not crying exactly, but close. How long had this ball been sitting here? How many times had he walked past this corner without really looking, not wanting to deal with what it meant?
He sat back down on the bed, holding the ball like it might explode. Basketball was him and his mom, hours at the park with her rebounding for him, her voice cutting through all the noise at games, the way she smiled when Highland Prep's coach finally saw what she'd always known about her kid.
Playing again meant she was really gone. Meant those times with her were just memories now. Meant figuring out who he was with basketball when she wasn't there to watch.
It hit him hard and sudden: he wasn't avoiding basketball. He was avoiding missing her.
His fingers traced the lines on the ball without thinking about it. The rhythm felt good, like meditation or something. Each groove connected him to all those hours of practice, to who he used to be, and maybe to who he could be again.
A memory came back so clear he could almost hear her voice. They were at the community center near their apartment. He was maybe fourteen, couldn't make a shot to save his life during some tournament.
"Basketball isn't just about your body, Azeil," she'd said, standing next to him while he kept missing shots, getting madder with each brick. "It's about using your feelings the right way. Too much thinking and you're a robot. Too much feeling and you can't focus. You gotta find the middle."
He'd rolled his eyes at her then, another one of Mom's lawyer speeches about basketball. But now it hit different. Control and feeling. Thinking and just playing. The balance she always had, that she was trying to teach him.
What would she think about him now? About how careful he'd been at Langston Hughes, how he'd lost it in the gym, how weird things were with Jackson?
The question just hung there in the quiet. But as his fingers kept moving over the ball, something changed in his chest. Not like everything was okay, but like he knew what to do next. Basketball had always made sense when nothing else did. When he couldn't find the words, when everything got too twisted up, the court was where things got clear.
He stood up, mind made up, and tucked the ball under his arm. The house was quiet now, the TV finally off. He walked down the hall slow, past Jackson's door where light was still showing underneath.
The kitchen was all shadows, just moonlight coming through the thin curtains. He knew where to step to keep quiet, found the back door more by feel than sight.
The night air felt good when he stepped outside, still warm but not as thick as before. The rain had stopped, left everything shiny in the moonlight. Three concrete steps down to a little yard, most of it taken up by what Jackson had called a basketball court. Cracked concrete with weeds growing through, a rim on a pole at the far end.
Wasn't much. Nothing like Highland Prep's perfect gym or even the park courts where he and Mom used to play. But in the moonlight, it had something those places didn't: nobody watching. Nobody judging. Just him.
He walked to the middle of the court, ball against his chest, listening to the city—sirens somewhere, car music thumping a few blocks over. Different from Highland Prep's quiet suburban nothing.
Then he started. Dribbling first, easy stuff his hands knew without thinking. Crossover. Through the legs. Behind the back. Each move connecting him back to himself, to who he was before Mom died and everything fell apart.
When his body warmed up, he stopped thinking so much. Moved toward the basket for an easy layup, felt natural as walking. Ball kissed the backboard and dropped through, that soft sound like a whisper. He did it again and again. Each shot building something inside him.
He worked through all his moves, free throws, jump shots, the step-back that won the championship. Every time the ball went in, something loosened up in his chest.
He didn't notice when he started crying, tears mixing with sweat while he kept playing. Body moving, letting out stuff that had been stuck inside for weeks. This was how he talked when words didn't workl with his hands and feet and breath, with falling down and getting back up.
"You gotta find the middle." Mom's voice was so clear he almost looked around to see if she was there, watching his form like always.
One more shot. From way out, hard but not impossible. As he jumped, everything working together perfect, something shifted inside him. Not fixed, that was gonna take more than one night, but different. Like grief wasn't some enemy he had to beat, just something he had to learn to live with.
The ball went up against the stars, perfect arc through the night. For a second everything else disappeared, Jackson trying to figure him out, Zahair giving him trouble, all the complicated stuff at Langston Hughes, even Mom being gone. Just this moment, this shot, just him being exactly who he was.
Swish.
He stood there breathing little clouds in the cooling air, letting it all settle. He wasn't the same kid who'd walked into Langston Hughes on Monday, all careful and buttoned up. That version broke in the gym today, showed something messier underneath, still figuring itself out.
Monday was coming with all its problems. Coach Booker wanting an answer. Zahair still being Zahair. All the careful walking he had to do at his new school.
But right now, on this busted-up court behind his father's house, Azeil had found something like peace. Not because everything was easy, but because he was ready to deal with it his way. Basketball had always been his safe place, where he could be most himself. Now it was something more, a way through all the hurt, one dribble at a time, one shot at a time.
He grabbed the ball and kept practicing as the night got deeper, each bounce on concrete making a rhythm that felt, for the first time in six weeks, like hope.
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Between Worlds is a fiction novel by Craig Griffin. New chapters post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Subscribe to get them delivered to your inbox.