Chapter 97: Two Games Left

Reese's notes on Jayden occupied four pages of the coaching notebook.

She'd been building them for three weeks—since the Northside game, since the moment she'd noticed the left-side spots disappearing from his pre-game circuit. The notes covered three categories: shooting percentage by designated spot, pre-game behavior patterns, and in-game physical indicators. The physical indicators section had seven items, each supported by game date and minute mark.

She set the notebook open on Marcus's desk Monday morning. He read it without speaking.

The hand trembling: first noticed Ch94 (Northside), repeated at Ch95 (Westbrook), observed again during Roosevelt Q4 warm-up. Duration: 2-3 seconds, before free throws specifically. Not during jump shots—only during stationary attempts. Correlated with game-pressure moments, not practice.

The left-side avoidance: complete absence from pre-game shooting circuit since week of Central game. No left-side warm-up attempts in seven games.

The behavioral pattern: Jayden was arriving to games exactly forty-five minutes before tip-off. Not forty-seven, not forty-three. Exactly forty-five. Every game. The variation that normal arrival patterns produced was absent. The ritual had become fixed.

"The hand trembling is inconsistent with the medication as I understand it," Reese said. "The medication was supposed to address the trembling. Dr. Pham's calibration window was supposed to stabilize it."

"It did stabilize," Marcus said. "He was at 77% from the right side. The hands were managing."

"Were managing." She tapped the page. "Present tense isn't clear to me anymore. The trembling is coming back in specific conditions. Free throws under pressure. Not jump shots." She looked at him. "Free throws are stationary. They require a different kind of stillness. If the stillness is what's being managed—"

Marcus stopped her. "What are you saying, exactly."

She held the notebook. "I don't know the medical details. I know the behavior. The behavior shows something is changing in the way the medication is working, or the way Jayden is using it." She closed the notebook. "I think you should talk to him. Before Thursday's game."

"Not you?"

She was quiet for a moment. "He talks to you about the real things. He tells me about the basketball things. The hands are both."

Marcus looked at the notebook. The seven items in the physical indicators column. The three weeks of observed data.

"Does he know you've been watching?" he said.

"No."

"Do you want to be in the conversation?"

"No." Said without hesitation. "If he knows I built a file on him, he'll feel like a study subject. He needs to feel like a player who's being checked on."

Marcus closed the notebook. "Leave this with me."

She gathered her other materials. At the door: "He's still your best shooter. He made four from the right side during the Roosevelt game. His percentage is holding." She held the door frame. "I'm not saying he's compromised. I'm saying something is changing and the change isn't going the right direction."

She left.

Marcus sat with the notebook for a moment. Then wrote on the legal pad: *Jayden—today. After practice. Alone.*

---

Practice at 3:30. Two games left, one win needed to clinch.

Darius arrived early—the new habit since the Vargas visit, the earlier arrival that Marcus had noticed without commenting on. He'd gone to Lakewood State on Wednesday, the official visit, the campus tour and meeting with Vargas and the other coaching staff. He'd been back Thursday for practice and had said exactly three words about it: *it was good.*

Marcus had left the three words where they were. Darius would bring the visit's meaning when it was ready. Pushing would only slow it down.

The team ran the full practice—eighty-four minutes, six minutes under the protocol. The Riverside scouting report had two adjustments: a zone-exit counter that Reese had built for their switching scheme, and a post-feed entry that gave Chris an elbow look before the double could arrive. The adjustments were clean. The practice reps absorbed them at live speed in sixty minutes.

At the water break, Marcus went to Jayden.

"How are the hands," he said.

Jayden looked at him. Jayden's alert expression—the one that appeared when something real arrived in the conversation.

"They're managing."

"I want you to be straight with me."

A pause. The water bottle in both hands—the both-hands grip that the notes had flagged as a pressure indicator.

"They're managing," Jayden said again. "They're not—it's not what it was in the fall. The calibration worked. I can feel when the medication is at the right level and right now it's at the right level."

"What does wrong feel like."

Jayden thought about this. "Tighter. Like the whole thing is pulled tighter. The thoughts and the hands and—all of it tighter." He looked at the court. "Right now the calibration is holding. Before a game it gets—it's always tighter before games. But that's normal. Dr. Pham said that's normal. Pre-competition elevation."

"The trembling before free throws."

Jayden went still.

Marcus waited.

"How did you—" He stopped. "Reese."

"Reese noticed. She brought it to me. You don't need to—"

"Is she going to put it in a report? Is it going in the credential thing?"

"No." Marcus was flat about it. "Reese's observations are internal. They don't go anywhere except my desk."

Jayden was quiet for a moment. "It's not compromising my shooting. The right side is 77%. I'm making the shots."

"I know."

"Then why does it matter."

Marcus looked at him. The fifteen-year-old who'd been managing his anxiety without letting it define him. The kid who'd learned to narrate his own spiraling and who'd started receiving support without performing gratitude.

"Because you're avoiding the left side entirely," Marcus said. "And because the free throw trembling is there even when your percentage is holding. And because I need to know what I don't know about what's happening with my player."

Jayden held the water bottle. Both hands.

"I'm going to call Dr. Pham," Marcus said. "Not to report anything. To ask her what pre-competition elevation looks like and whether what you're describing matches what she'd expect."

"You're going to call my doctor."

"With your permission."

A long pause.

"Yeah," Jayden said. "You can call her."

Marcus wrote in the legal pad. Not the notes—the appointment reminder: *Dr. Pham, Tuesday AM.*

"Finish the water break," he said. "You're shooting from the left side in the last twenty minutes of practice. All five spots. I want to see where you are."

Jayden looked at him. The thing working through his face—not relief exactly, but the precursor to it. The moment when a thing that's been held alone starts having other hands on it.

"Okay Coach."

---

Left-side shots, last twenty minutes of practice.

Jayden shot 8 for 15. 53%. Below the right-side 77%, above the week-two floor of 68%. The shot was mechanically different from the right—the release point slightly lower, the guide hand more active, the follow-through slightly shorter. Not wrong. Different.

He didn't know Marcus was watching the mechanics rather than the percentage. Marcus didn't tell him.

After practice, Marcus walked to the far end of the gym. DeShawn was doing his post-practice routine—the twenty minutes of free shooting that the original deal had created, the twenty minutes of liberty that had converted the structure-resistance into practice attendance. The routine had been running since October. Marcus had watched it from the baseline every day without commentary.

Today he walked the length of the court and stood at the three-point line, twenty feet from DeShawn's shooting spot.

DeShawn looked at him. The flat expression.

"The parking lot," Marcus said.

"Yeah."

"Who was it."

DeShawn shot. Made. The ball bounced back to him off the automatic rebounder—the one they'd installed after Reese had petitioned the booster fund. He shot again.

"Darrel," he said.

Marcus had known. He'd known since October and the Ashland Community Center and Tamara Murray's late-night call. He'd been watching the parking lot since the first time the black sedan appeared.

"He wants you at something this weekend," Marcus said.

"He wants me at something every weekend."

"Are you going?"

DeShawn held the ball. The pre-shot stillness, but not the actual shot—the pause between possessions.

"I went last month," he said. "Twice. Small stuff. Nothing—" He stopped. "Nothing that matters."

"To your record? Or to you?"

The pause was longer.

"I'm not—I'm not doing anything that's going to follow me," DeShawn said. "Darrel knows I'm not that. He's not asking me for that."

"What is he asking for."

"To be around." DeShawn's voice was flat. Not defensive—reporting. "He knew my dad. My dad's people are his people. When I'm around, it's—it's someone from that side of things who isn't gone yet."

Marcus stood with this. The sixteen-year-old who visited his father in prison once a month and hadn't told anyone. The visits getting shorter because the father was becoming someone DeShawn didn't recognize. The street that offered what the system couldn't: community, continuity, the belonging of people who'd known you before you had to earn it.

"You've got two regular season games left," Marcus said. "And then the playoffs. Two to three weeks of basketball."

DeShawn looked at the basket. "I know."

"After that—what happens with Darrel is your call. I'm not your father. I'm not telling you who to be around." Marcus held his gaze. "But I'm asking you to be here for the next two to three weeks. All the way here."

DeShawn shot. Made. Caught the return. Shot again.

"I'm here," he said.

"All the way here."

A beat. "Yeah."

Marcus walked back to the baseline. He didn't look back to see if DeShawn was watching. He'd said what needed to be said. The decision—all the way here—was DeShawn's to hold.

---

Thursday. Game eleven. Riverside, 5-4 going into the game.

Jefferson ran the zone-exit counter in the first possession—the Reese-designed escape from Riverside's switching scheme, the ball moving before the switch could engage. Darius to Chris at the elbow. The hook shot. Two points.

The flat hedge on defense: Chris anchoring, Jordan in the help coverage, the mobile-center adjustments from the Northside game applied to Riverside's similar threat. Riverside scored nine in the first half. Their system was good but the flat hedge was better at converting stops.

Halftime: 27-18, Jefferson.

In the locker room Marcus made one adjustment. He looked at Darius. "The Riverside guard has been going right exclusively in the second half of every game in their film. Comfort tendency. The strong-side pressure—" He stopped.

Darius finished the sentence: "Goes right and he runs into Chris. I've seen it."

"The coverage call is yours in the second half," Marcus said. "When you see him setting up right, call the shift."

Darius looked at him. The point guard face—the processing look.

"That's a coaching call," Darius said.

"It's a floor read. You're on the floor. You're closer to it than I am."

A beat. "Okay."

The second half: Darius called the shift twice. Both times it produced forced shots. Riverside's guard ended the game 3 for 11, the strong-side tendency transformed into a scoutable weakness.

Final: 48-31. Jefferson.

---

7-4. One game left. One win clinched.

In the locker room, the team's energy was the elevated state of people who could see the finish line.

"One more," Darius said, in the circle before Marcus spoke. Not the coaching voice—the floor-leader voice, the one that had been present since October. "One more and we're in."

The team responded the way the team responded to Darius's voice. Not with noise—with readiness. The preparation register.

Marcus let the moment stand. Then: "Sycamore. Tuesday. Full prep session Monday." He looked at the room. "We get in with a win. We don't need anything else."

He looked at DeShawn. DeShawn looked at the floor.

After the room cleared, Marcus stayed. He watched through the locker room door as the team disbursed into the parking lot. DeShawn walked toward the school's main exit—the forward direction, toward home, away from the fence.

No black sedan in the lot tonight.

He didn't know whether that was DeShawn's decision or Darrel Pope's schedule. He wrote nothing on the legal pad about it.

The legal pad said: *7-4. One win to clinch. Jayden—Dr. Pham Tuesday AM. Darius—the visit's meaning will come when it comes.*

He closed the legal pad.

One game left. And then whatever was waiting on the other side of one more win.