Funny how life works. One day you’ re on top of the world. The next? Everything changes.
My parents beamed with pride at every early-morning drive to practice, every late-night study session. I’d graduated in the top twenty of my class and pocketed academic scholarships, but my heart belonged on the basketball court. That was the dream. After drills, I sat alone in the coaches office, my UConn hat crushed in one hand, feet bouncing with nerves. Then came the moment of truth.
The coach was leaning back against the edge of his desk with his arms crossed when I walked in, but as I sat down he pulled up a chair and put his elbows on his knees, close enough that I could see the gray threading through his stubble.
"Mr. Leon." He turned a pen over in his fingers. "We didn't bring you out here just to run drills. We've had our eye on you." He set the pen down. "Today answered what I needed to know. So the staff and I talked it over, and " He stood and extended his hand across the desk. "We want to offer you a full scholarship."
The fluorescent light buzzed. Someone was bouncing a ball in the hallway.
"Take your time," he said, though his hand was still out. "But not too much."
I got to my feet. My chair scraped back loud against the floor. I reached across and gripped his hand.
"Coach." My voice came out strange. "This is all I ever wanted."
Something shifted in his face not surprise, more like recognition.
"Good." He shook once, hard. "We'll come by and sit down with your family, go over everything properly. I think they're going to like what they hear."
Oh..yes absolutely sir.
Good, congrats, go celebrate, see you next semester, get use to wearing red, white, and blue.
I flung my bag over my shoulder, I had to call home. My thumbs fumbled over the screen as the phone rang. “Ring… ring…” Come on, Ma, pick up.
Ring.
Ring.
Come on.
Pick up.
Ring.
"Hello?"
Mom.
The second I heard her voice, I grinned.
"MA!"
"Leon? Is everything alright?"
"We did it!"
"What do you mean we did it?"
“Ma, Maaa, we made it!”
My voice cracked.
“They offered a scholarship, full ride, they will be coming by soon to go over it!”
Silence.
Then I heard screaming.
Clapping.
Someone shouting.
My dad laughing.
I couldn't help but laugh too.
A few moments later, Dad grabbed the phone.
"That's my boy."
His voice sounded proud.
"We did it, Dad."
"I knew you would."
"Let's celebrate."
"We will."
I was already walking toward my car.
"I'm heading home now."
“Be safe, son.”
I hopped into my car, heart still racing. I couldn’t wait to tell Jammi.
She’d been my friend since kindergarten, my girlfriend now. She’d even joined the cheer squad so we could spend more time together. I bit my lip, remembering how her skirt flared when she cheered, damn those thighs, that tiny waist of hers.
My little brother was starting to get stiff, thinking about those nights we sneak into the janitor closet after a winning game, then the car, the her room.
I tapped the steering wheel, drumming to the music, thinking about tonight. The light turned green. I pressed the accelerator. Horns blared. Then, out of nowhere, a truck barreled toward me. It seemed to ignore the red light. I stomped the gas, but the world slammed into blinding white light at me that felt like I was staring directly into the sun.
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on cold stone. I sat up, shielding my eyes. Around me, figures in flowing white robes stood in a circle. Their faces were half-masked; an old man with a jeweled crown hovered, beside him a woman wearing a slender circlet of gold.
“I apologize for the abrupt summoning,” the old man intoned, voice echoing off the walls. “But our kingdom is in peril. We needed a hero, a champion.”
“Summoning? Hero?” I struggled to my feet, heart pounding. “This has got to be a joke.” I called out for friends, looked around for cameras, anything. But these people stared at me with solemn eyes.
“I am Ruler Julios,” the crown-wearing man declared.
“Welcome to the Kingdom of Valenford.”
“I don’ t know what’ s going on. If any of this is real, send me back.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible for now,” he replied.
I don’ t give a DAMN!! Send me back.
The woman with the crown moved toward me with the kind of unhurried calm that made the air around her feel different, heavier. She was tall and strikingly beautiful, her gown the color of deep ocean waters. The fabric clung just enough to hint at every graceful curve, drawing the eye without effort and making it all too easy to forget that you was staring.
She touched my arm. I felt the warmth of it even through my sleeve.
My fists tightened. She didn’t flinch.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” she said. “But our people are dying in a war against the Sin of Pride. You are our champion.”
“Champion?” The word tasted wrong in my mouth.
She drew alongside me, her arm looping through mine, and walked me slowly toward the far end of the hall, where the floor dropped away into a wide balcony overlooking a city I had never seen. Towers of pale stone. Bridges strung between them like thread. And at the edges of it all, something dark and enormous moving slowly closer, the way a tide moves.
“What is your name?”
“Leon.”
“Leon.” She said it like she was committing it to memory. “When this war is ended, you will be returned to your world at the precise moment you left it. But everything you have earned here, every spell, every measure of strength will remain yours.”
My breath caught. “ There’s magic here?”
She lifted her free hand and a flame appeared above her open palm, burning clean and blue-white, no larger than a coin. “That,” she said, “is considered elementary, you can have the strength equal to one hundred men or more.”
I looked out at the city. Then back at the flame. A hundred men’s worth of strength. Spells I could bring home with me. I thought about the court. About the look on people’s faces. About every record ever set in every sport I’d ever watched.
The grin came before I could stop it.
“Where do I sign?”