Jace recognizes he is back at the start of the season. He writes the failed final possession and Northbridge's inj...
The alarm on Jace Park's phone buzzed against his cheek while Caleb Stroud's hand still seemed to be in the passing lane.
Jace jackknifed upright, shoulder knocking the bedroom wall, and sucked air like he had just sprinted the last suicide. His palm was open. No ball. No Halden State Arena lights. No final horn burying Northbridge by two after his lazy left-handed pass became Meridian's title dunk. The phone read 6:12 a.m., Tryout Monday, four months before any of that should happen.
Across the hall, Rhea banged once on the door. "If you miss tryouts, I am not driving you to beg Coach Voss."
"I'm up," Jace said. His voice cracked around the lie that wanted to come out: I already lost the season.
He found a notebook under last year's geometry packet and wrote before the memory blurred. Final score, Meridian seventy-four, Northbridge seventy-two. Caleb shades right shoulder. Noah ankle goes in opener collision, worse by districts. Devon forces late wing iso when tired. Marcus jump-passes out of traps. Ridgeview hard hedge, second quarter. East Valley one-two-one-one press. Coach Voss benches me until foul trouble.
His hand shook so hard the pen stabbed through the page.
Rhea opened the door without waiting for permission. Former college trainer, current tyrant of sensible breakfasts, she took in the sweat on his face and the notebook full of scores. "Nightmare?"
"Film," Jace said too fast.
"Film does not make people look like they swallowed a whistle."
He closed the notebook. The final pass sat on the inside of his eyelids, orange leather leaving his hand a half second late. "If I told you I knew exactly how this season goes wrong, what would you say?"
Rhea leaned against the frame. "I would say knowing a bad ending does not give your hamstrings a scholarship. Eat. Hydrate. Survive the first sprint."
The leverage in that answer steadied him. She was not asking for impossible proof. She was setting terms his body could meet.
Northbridge Gym smelled of floor wax and old sweat by 7:03. The low ceiling trapped every sneaker squeal. Coach Mara Voss stood under the uneven scoreboard with a clipboard, watching thirty-two boys pretend they were not counting roster spots. Jace took the third line behind two sophomores, exactly where the failed season had placed him. Third-string combo guard. Practice ballast.
Marcus Bell bounced a ball at the front of the varsity line, sharp chin up, already looking like the starting point guard. Devon Reed stretched near the wall, headphones around his neck, all shoulders and bored confidence. Noah Kim smiled at everyone while rolling the ankle Jace had seen fold under Marcus in another life.
The whistle cut through the gym.
"Baseline to baseline. Touch every line. If your hand floats, you run again," Coach Voss said. "I do not keep tired liars."
In the failed season Jace had tried to win tryouts in the first sprint and spent the shell drill gasping. This time he ran the suicides like Rhea had yelled at him through summer conditioning: hard to the foul line, breathe on the turn, chest tall on the back half. Players flew past him early. Two bent over by the third rep. Jace finished middle of the pack with lungs burning but legs still listening.
Marcus glanced back. "Park pacing like this is a charity jog?"
"Ask me after the fourth drill," Jace said.
Marcus smirked. "You planning to still be here?"
There it was, public and useful. Jace let the insult sit. Coach Voss heard it; she heard everything that sounded like pressure.
The next segment was defensive shell. Four offensive players swung the ball around the arc while four defenders shifted, helped, recovered. Jace's group included two JV hopefuls and Ty Shaw, whose broad chest could set a screen like a door but whose feet hated angles.
"Ball. Help. Deny," Coach Voss called.
The possession unfolded from memory until it did not feel like memory anymore. Corner swing. Slot cut. Ty stared at the ball. The weakside cutter slipped behind him toward the rim.
"Ty, nail!" Jace barked, sliding one step into the lane with both hands up. "I got your corner. Sink!"
Ty bumped the cutter off path. The pass arrived late and skipped off a shin. Coach Voss's pen stopped moving.
"Again," she said.
They ran it six more times. Jace's calves ached. His shirt stuck cold to his spine. He called the low tag, recovered to the dead corner, and kept his hands off bodies when the sophomore tried to bait a reach. On the final rep the offense reversed through the top, and Jace saw the same backdoor Noah had punished them with in the failed tryout scrimmage.
"Cutter!" he shouted before the passer looked.
The ball went nowhere. The varsity line got quiet for half a second, which in a gym full of boys was almost a scoreboard change.
Coach Voss pointed the clipboard at him. "Park. You suddenly discover defense over the weekend?"
Jace tasted metal in his mouth. The easy lie was luck. The dangerous truth was impossible.
"I got tired of being the guy everyone attacks," he said.
Voss held his eyes. "Good answer if it repeats."
When she sent the next group in, Jace bent with his hands on his knees and counted his breaths. He had not earned a role. He had earned one mark on a tryout chart and a suspicious look from a coach who trusted possession evidence, not destiny.
At the scorer's table, the scrimmage draw went up in black marker. Jace's name landed with Marcus, Noah, Ty, and two wings on Court Two.
The exact failed-season collision was waiting in the afternoon.