This was a familiar feeling.

Lisa’s phone rang.

They’ve played this game before.

She answered it.

How was this happening again?

She huffed into the phone.

This was out of her control just like last time.

She relented.

Something needed to change.

She hung up.

She needed to take charge this time.

Get ahead of the curve.

Gain the upper hand.


When Lisa opened the door to her condo David entered without any fanfare. In fact, they both remained silent. Only the sounds of footsteps, ruffling clothing, and eventually the door closing were heard. David dropped his bags in front of Lisa’s couch and took a seat, stretching and settling in while Lisa went straight to her kitchen and turned on the faucet. It ran for some time as she placed her weight on her hands, hunched over the sink. The water rushed and rushed louder than anything else in the condo.

Take a breath.

Catch it.

Got it.

Lisa stood up straight and took out the filter to her coffee maker. Her movements were slick and purposeful. As the water ran Lisa reached up into her cabinet and pulled out a glass. With it under the faucet she filled the glass and then emptied it into her coffee maker. Still, her movements were exact. This was the task and nothing else. She took out her favorite brand of coffee grounds, a brand she had picked up from Seattle, and placed two scoops into the built-in filter.

Place the filter into the maker.

Close the lid to the coffee grounds.

Put the coffee grounds away.

Close the cabinet.

Turn on the maker.

Methodical.

Done.

David sat patiently staring off into the distance until Lisa would address him. With nothing else to do but wait for her coffee to brew, Lisa rounded the island that separated the two and leaned back against it. Her arms were cross as she looked down at her seated father. But not a word was spoken. She waited patiently, staring down at her father until he would address her.

Stalemate.

There were so many questions Lisa wanted to just blurt out. Why was he here? Never mind that. HOW was he here? How did he find her? She told no one her new address, not even Eric, so how? Did it even matter? At this point, no. But he was here, and he was here for a reason. What was it? She remembered her conversation with that strange woman she met in Hawaii. She had told her that David’s jaw was broken and needed surgery. Was this true? Could Lisa tell? Was there a scar she could find? It didn’t seem so. Lisa grew impatient with each passing thought and tapped a single finger against her bicep.

A crack.

David did not move, though he could see the tapping from the corner of his eye. He’d smirk if he wasn’t so determined to win this game. But he sat still with his eyes forward, blinking slowly and adjusting his head, almost signaling to Lisa what his calm demeanor was intended for. And she received his message.

This was dumb.

This needed to end.

“What?” A single word. It was a loss, but this needed to move on. Why was he here? What did he want?

“What do you mean, what?” David calmly asked.

“Why are you here?”

“You are my daughter.”

“I recall you telling the reporters that, yes.”

David let out a quick, breathy chuckle. “So, you’re a Baltimore Spirit now. That’s great. By the way, how IS your career going? I heard you were almost suspended but never was.” David’s eyes narrowed as he glanced over at her.

Lisa tilted her head back. A new game. “How’s your jaw? I heard it was broken and needed surgery to fix it.”

A sign of weakness. It was quick, but David seemed surprised until a smile grew on his own face. It seemed he was approving of her response. His turn. “How’s your relationship? I haven’t seen Damario in a while.”

There it was. The line. And it was cross. Another defeat. Lisa scoffed, turning her head away. David stood to his feet, taking his wins with pride, and pulled up a dining chair to sit a bit closer to her. “You’ve been noisy online again. What did happen between you two?”

“You’re little hired goon? The hell do you care?” Lisa asked, still with her head turned away from him.

“Like I said, you’re my daughter. I’d like to know if I need to go ‘take care of him.’”

Lisa’s ear twitched as she turned a little to face David. “What?” David just tilted his head to reiterate his question. “No. You want to know what happened between us? We broke up,” she relented again. “And it’s your fault.”

The water was now boiling in the coffee maker. It bubbled and clicked in the silence between the two speaking. It was a get-out-of-the-conversation-quick ticket in the making. But it was taking too long.

“You two broke up,” David laughed, “and it’s my fault? Right. How is it my fault you two broke up?" he inquired.

“Are you serious? You hired him to keep me under your thumb! How am I supposed to be with a guy like that?”

David shook his head. “No, no. There’s no way that little talk I had with him was the reason you two broke up. Come on, why’d you two really break up?”

Lisa tilted her head downward and spoke through her teeth. “I broke up with him because he couldn’t be trusted.”

“Right, right. But after that. What happened after you two got back together?”

At this point fresh brewed coffee was trickling into the pot. It was a slow trickle, not fast enough for Lisa to excuse herself from the conversation. But she got up off the island and made her way back to the coffee maker, anyway, staring down at it as it slowly began to fill the pot.

“And your tattoo,” David continued. “It’s faded.”

Lisa fought the urge to reach up to her neck. It was a sore subject and he brought it up like it was nothing. Just a few weeks prior she had started the long process of having it removed since the tattoo matched the one on Damario’s chest. She no longer could stand the constant reminder. And now her resolve was withering. If she wanted to keep any amount of control, she’d have to do something now. But what could she do?

“What happened?”

“He,” Lisa began, “rejected me the first time. I. I broke up with him and then tried to apologize. He. Called me a child and turned me down.”

“That softy? He turned you down?”

Lisa moved to the fridge and opened it. She was stuck. Everything that had happened started flooding back. She didn’t want to answer his questions, but it was a losing battle. She pulled out a mocha coffee creamer and placed it on the counter.

“Well,” she continued. “He did end up caving in. He came to me a few days later and apologized.”

“So, you two made it past our little private conversation. Then what ended things for good between you?”

Finally, the coffee was done. The get-out-of-the-conversation-quick ticket was ready. It was too late, though. She was fully in the conversation. She took the glass she used to fill the coffee maker with and dropped some ice cubes into it from the ice dispenser on her fridge, then poured her coffee over top the ice. She let a splash of creamer go in next. After that, she pulled out some peppermint extract from the cabinet and opened it. This caused David to immediately wince and cover his nose. The strong smell was too much for the mouse, but it didn’t seem to bother Lisa as she placed several drops into her cup and then took a whiff of the extract itself before putting it away. It’s a smell that used to overwhelm her, but she’s since gotten used to it and has grown to enjoy the pungent smell.

She paused, thinking about that last question. She broke. “I happened,” she whispered. “I broke his trust.”

“What do you mean?” David leaned it, slightly concerned at this point.

“I.” She tried to explain, but every time she did, she’d get choked up, unable to finish her sentence. But then one word said enough. “Jason.”

David lifted his head, understanding full well what she meant. Examining his daughter as she stared down into her cup, David’s heart softened. The game was over.

“I hid it from him for months, but he caught on, thinking I was acting strange,” she said into her cup. “We talked, but it turned out he thought all we did was kiss. So, I ran with it.” Lisa sighed. “Like an idiot. He told me I needed to get rid of Jason, but of course I couldn’t do that. And on top of that? He thought he was projecting his own nervousness onto me when he said he thought I was acting strange.”

“Nervous? Nervous about what?” David quietly asked.

“Ha. I asked him the same thing, and.” At this point tears were flowing down her cheeks. “He showed me the engagement ring he had gotten for me.”

David covered his mouth with his fist. The war between the two was on pause. David was her fulltime father now.

“So, I freaked out and got scared. I knew I had to tell him the truth, but I couldn’t do it. Not to his face. So, I asked to speak to ‘Dr. Panagakos’ instead. I scheduled an appointment and everything. And then I unleashed everything on him, while he was at work unable to say anything back to me. And then he clocked out.” Lisa tried to compose herself by lifting the cup to her lips, but she spoke again before she took a sip. “Have you ever seen Damario angry? I mean, curse-you-out angry?”

David shook his head in shock. “No.”

“He called me a bitch, and then slammed the door in my face.”

“Lisa.”

“It’s okay, ‘cause maybe I wanted this? I donno. I tried to go back to Jason after that, but he’s in a serious relationship now, so that’s out. I guess I deserved this.”

David sighed and sat back in his seat while Lisa was finally able to take her first sips of her iced peppermint mocha. He rubbed his eyes and nodded to himself. “I never told you how I ended up marrying your mother. Well, marrying Sandrine,” he corrected. “I know I haven’t been honest with you in the past, but I want you to know that this is not your fault.” Lisa only scoffed in response. How wasn’t this her fault? “You were taking care of you and your needs, and that’s okay.”

David tilted his head back and began his story.

“I fell in love with Melissa. She was everything to me. I knew she was the one and I wanted no one else but her. Melissa to me was Jason to you: perfect, everything I could ask for. But like you and Jason, Melissa and I had our backs and forths of ‘will they, won’t they.’ Things just kept coming up and we just never got together. She would supposedly move on. I would move on. Eventually she got married and started a family. And that was that. I lost her for good. I was distraught. I thought I’d never find another girl like her.

“Then I met Sandrine. Sandrine was good to me, never did anything wrong to me. A perfectly fine woman. And as I see it, Sandrine to me was Damario to you. He did all the right things, said all the right stuff, but no matter what he was never going to be Jason. No matter what Sandrine was never going to be Melissa. But I was ‘happy.’ We got married and had a son. Nothing wrong had happened. I had to live with the fact that I missed out on a great thing and ended up with second best. But second best is not that bad, right?

“And then a crazy thing happened. I was still working for my father at the bar when I met Bellamy. Since I was married, I thought nothing of her. But we’d talk and joke and whatnot. Eventually we found out we had a lot in common. She, too, was in a relationship that felt ‘good enough.’ I thought I made a friend; someone who’d understand what I was going through, and someone I can vent to. But, I ended up falling for her. It was the strangest feeling. I felt for her the same way I felt for Melissa. I thought I’d never feel that way again. How could anyone match Melissa? But Bellamy was her own thing, her own perfection. Here was this girl who replaced Melissa for number one. But I was married. And on top of that, I had a child.

“It tore me up. I didn’t know what to do. Bellamy was apparently going through the same thing except she was married with two boys. But we were both happy together. And then it happened, we slipped. And it felt amazing. After years and years of feeling stuck in a punishment, I finally got to feel something wonderful again. I imagine that’s how you felt with Jason that night. Screw the ‘right’ thing and do something for you for once. Am I right?”

Lisa kept her nose over her coffee and eventually gave a small nod.

“And that’s okay,” he told her. “I knew there’d be consequences, but at that point, they would be completely worth it.

“We found out a few weeks later that she ended up getting pregnant. That. Split me in half. I was married. I had a three-year-old son, Bellamy was married with two sons. It was supposed to only be one night together. We thought the consequences were going to be worth it, but we weren’t expecting that. So, we needed to decide what was best; do we go back to our families and face the aftermath of our mistake, or… do we take that good feeling and learn from it? Do we drop our pasts and go with what actually made us happy?

“It was a hard decision. I didn’t want to lose my son, and I didn’t want to hurt Sandrine. They were innocent in all this. But I knew that if me and Bellamy left together, all the children would be with at least one of there parents, and none of them would have to deal with a parent who didn’t want to be there. At least, that was the plan.

“We wavered back and forth about it. We were scared to hurt the other person. But then she went into labor and time was up. It was decided then and there: Bellamy and I were going to start a new life together with our child. I finally was going to have my happy ending.” David clasped his hands together and stared down at the floor. “But she started hemorrhaging. It happened so fast. Doctors and nurses were everywhere. I was shoved out of the room. I didn’t know what was happening. But it didn’t matter. In the end, Bellamy ended up passing away before they could ever put you in her arms. For the second time I lost a perfect woman, but this time permanently.

“After Sandrine and I had fought about what I’d done, I knew I couldn’t come back to her, but I tried to. She turned me away and left with Emmett. And it was my fault. I missed out on Melissa, I chose Sandrine even though she wasn’t exactly what I wanted, I wavered, I slept with Bellamy causing Sandrine and I to get a divorce, and my choice was why Bellamy passed away. There I was, thinking I had a second chance at happiness, but all I had was a daughter born from my indecision and a son I would never get to see again.

“Imagine. Imagine if you and Damario had a child and then all this happened to you. That’s essentially what I went through. So, I get it. You wanted to do something that felt good to you after so many misfortunate things. But that happiness came at a cost.

“And you know what happened after that. You watched it all unfold. I was distraught. I couldn’t even get out of bed most days. I never wanted to be in a relationship again. And when I finally did start dating again, it was because of the realization I had when I was with Bellamy. There’s no one in this world who should matter more to you than you. You’re the one who has to live with you. So, why not do the things that make you happy. And at that time, I wasn’t ready to deal with long term relationships, and that was fine. I was happy with the flings and the one-night-stands. That’s what mattered.

“You’ve done a lot of growing up quick, but you were still a child when it came to making yourself happy. That is, until this last game you had with Vegas.”

“What do you mean?” Lisa quietly asked.

“You’ve gotten a ‘fuck the world’ attitude,” he smiled. “Tell me, why do you want Vegas to lose so bad?”

Lisa looked back down at her coffee. “It’s not that I hate the team or anything like that. It’s just… I lost a lot in Vegas: games, relationships, dignity, happiness. I wanted it all to die. That’s why I left. And it felt so damn good to beat them over preseason. It was like taking these last two years out back and putting it down,” Lisa said with a disturbing grin on her face. “But it was just preseason. This last game was the real deal. And, dammit, I pushed. It was a close game the entire time. I outplayed everyone on that court, but still, the past won. And on top of that, Damario was in the crowd watching.”

“He came?”

Lisa nodded. “He had never gone to any of my games before but now he decided to show up.”

“Why?” David asked in confusion.

“Because,” she started to say. “Because Damario’s Damario. He was doing the same thing he did last time.”

“Last time? You mean come back and try to be together with you again?” Lisa nodded back.

“I know that’s why he was there. I couldn’t. I couldn’t handle that. Plus, I think we need to stay broken up.” Lisa admitting this out loud hit her down in the pit of her stomach. In the end, it was for the best that she didn’t let that happen.

“So, yeah. He was there watching me lose to my past self. It didn’t matter if I played my heart out that night. We could never pull ahead far enough to secure a win. And then we lose in overtime by one lousy point. So, yeah, by then I kinda lost it.”

“No one else was fighting for what you were fighting for. You were taking on an entire team essentially by yourself, and in front of the last thing to cause you pain,” David summarized.

“Right! And all I said on Tweeter was that it wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Then Tyler, Lindsey, that rodent girl Shannon, and even the Las Vegas Tweeter all butted in just rubbing it in my face. So, I said fuck them, and fuck the world.”

David smiled and leaned in. “Right, but I said fuck the world once, while I was sulking in bed. You can say fuck the world all you want and still end up being the one to get fucked. I don’t want you going down that path. I want you to learn from my mistakes.”

“Uh huh. And that’s the whole reason you showed up?” Lisa snarked.

“Yes. It is. Like I said, you’ve done a lot of growing up in the traditional sense. You know how to be an adult in this world. But you didn’t really know how the world was going to chew you up and spit you out. You’re starting to get a taste of it, and now I’m seeing the Lisa I’ve been waiting for.”

“Is that right?” Lisa took another small sip of her coffee.

“But talk is cheap. That is, unless you know how to play the market. Right now, you still sound like a little girl backed into a corner and acting tough.”

“But you say stuff like that all the time.”

“Yeah, but do you think that people see me as weak?” Lisa said nothing. “Or do my words have some bite to them?” Again, Lisa said nothing, only bringing her glass once again up to her lips. “I’m going to teach you how to make them afraid to back you into a corner. I’m going to teach you how to say these things and give them power. Let’s put your money where your mouth is. You say fuck the world? Let me teach you how to do that.”

Lisa, shocked at first, replayed David’s words in her head. What was the reason for this? Was he up to something? Or was this something she could use? Good or bad, learning how to stand up against the world sounded promising.