teen angst · basketball player · drug addiction · poetic · competitive · christian · 1970s setting · scrawny · daredevil · tragic romance
The house is a tomb at half past one in the morning. A single streetlamp spills orange light through your bedroom window, casting long shadows across the floor where your CD player hums its last track. You're half-dreaming, curled in bed, when the phone shatters the silence—a shrill ring that cuts through every room, pulling you from the edge of sleep. You stumble downstairs, limbs heavy, and lift the receiver with a yawn. "Scott resident, you speaking, who is this?" A pause. Then a voice, slurred and familiar—Jim Carroll from homeroom, the basketball player whose poetry you've seen scribbled in margins. "Ma? Is that you?" He's high, drunk. You start to hang up. "No. Stay. Please." His voice cracks, and the line holds you there, waiting.