Link awoke to an insistent knocking at his bedroom door. He sprang up from his bed in shock, groggily stumbling over to unlock it. Managing to come to his senses just as he reached for the door, he looked back at his sky-blue sheets that were covered in splotches of deep scarlet. He reached for his face. Dried blood caked it. He had almost forgotten he had been injured in Nocera.
“Lincoln, hurry up. The door!” Moms' voice rang.
“Just a minute, jeez.”
Link knew he needed to hide the wound, either that or endure one thousand and one questions from Mom. His stomach twisted as he unzipped his schoolbag, rummaging through it until he pulled out a half-empty water bottle. He drizzled the water all over his face.
He couldn’t understand why he hadn’t woken up sooner. Usually, when he would obtain an injury in Nocera, he would jolt awake in the real world, as if he’d just had a bad nightmare. But how he had slept through a beat down from Zudane’, he had no idea.
I must’ve been so sleep deprived that I didn’t feel a thing, Link thought.
He grabbed a dirty shirt from his clothes basket and rubbed the blood off his face as best as he could, then positioned his blanket to conceal the bloody sheets on the bed. All the while Mom’s relentless knocking continued.
As Link couldn’t find Alex anywhere at Baylor’s, he had resorted to stick fighting with Zudane’. She wasn’t as quick as Alex was, but she was a technical and a more well-rounded opponent. She was completely aware of her surroundings, backing Link into objects, making him circle around so the sun would blind his eyes and then striking.
Out of all Alex’s friends, she was by far Link’s favourite. He found Winstell to be too withdrawn and self-critical, and Phen’s sense of humour rubbed him the wrong way, but Zudane’ had this air about her: compassionate, caring, always striving to get the best out of everyone around her.
Most students would refrain from using their Spells around one another and hold their cards close to their chests, saving them for the tournament. But not Zudane’. She’d teach those that wanted to learn her advanced Spells. Go through the Chains over and over with them until they nailed it. To her, this wasn’t an academy where the strong prevailed and the weak got left behind. This was a team, a massive three hundred strong team. And she wanted everyone to excel. Link admired her for that.
“Are you even dressed yet?” Mom shouted through the crack of the door.
Dressed? Then it occurred to him: It was a Saturday, no school. So why the heck is she hammering on my door?
“Dressed for what?” Link snapped back, finally unlatching the lock.
“Your interview,” Mom said, thrusting the door open angrily, almost taking him out in the process. “Coach Aldridge should be here in . . . .” She glanced down at her faded gold wrist watch. “Twenty minutes. Oh, how time flies when you’re cleaning.” Her gaze lifted straight to Link’s split eyebrow, which in turn made her eyebrows furrow. “What in the—Have you been fighting again?”
“No,” Link said, pausing so he could come up with a believable story. “I split it at practice last night.”
“Since when did you practice on Fridays?” Mom asked as she inched her face closer to his, examining the injury. “Hasn’t it always been Tuesdays and Thursdays?”
“Kenji and I went down to the courts for a shoot around,” he lied. “What’s with the questions?”
“What’s with the attitude?” Mom shot back, scowling. “Just hop in the shower, please.” She cast another glance at his eyebrow, her frown deepening. “I’ll try to patch that up as best I can. Now, have you thought about what you’re going to wear? Personally . . . .”
“Mom,” Link began, but she had spoken over the top of him.
“I’d recommend that dapper maroon dress shirt with the white polka dots you wore with Nadine on Valentine's Day. Not too casual, but not too overdressed. Just teetering somewhere in the middle.”
“I’ve already cancelled it,” he spluttered before she could get another word in.
Mom scoffed at her son in disbelief, as if he’d just spoken in some foreign language she couldn’t comprehend. “What?”
“I couldn’t find Coach Alford’s—or whatever his name is—number,” he explained, “so I called up NAU directly a few days ago and called it off. They said they’d relay the message to him.”
Mom pursed her thin lips, eying him off suspiciously as if she presumed this was all just a joke. “Stop wasting my time, Lincoln. Just jump in the shower, will you? I’ll start ironing your clothes.”
Mom set off towards his cupboard, likely in search of his maroon shirt, but Link clutched her shoulder and stopped her.
“Mom,” he said slowly, deliberately, so there was no way she could misinterpret him. “I’ve already called the college and cancelled.”
“Why on eart—” She began, then held a hand to her mouth in shock. “Why—” But the words failed her again. “How could you be so idiotic? First footage emerges of you shouting and knocking over tables at that café, then you go and make the papers with your kerfuffle with Adam. NAU was the only decent college left that was genuinely interested in you, Link! How are you going to get any exposure playing on a college team nobody’s heard of?”
“See, that’s the thing,” he said calmly. “I don’t want to play for any colleges.”
“What, and you think you can just go straight from high school into the NBA?” Mom shook her head at him in disbelief. “Highly unlikely, Link. Highly unlikely.”
“No, you're not understanding,” he said. “I don’t want to go to any colleges. Period.”
Mom started laughing. Not a pleasant, cheery laugh either. A maniacal “you better be kidding me, Lincoln, or I’m going to kill you” laugh.
“We have poured thousands and thousands of dollars into your education,” she whispered dauntingly, pressing the heel of her palm against her forehead. “Put a roof over your head, for Pete’s sakes your father even gave you his old car. Do you know how many hours he’s—”
“I didn’t ask you—”
“This is your future you’re talking about,” Mom spoke over the top of him as if he hadn’t given this any thought. “If you go through with this, five-ten years from now you’ll-you’ll . . . .” She trailed off, then her eyes snapped back to him as if a sudden thought had engulfed her. “You’re coming downstairs with me right now. You’re going to ring the college back up, tell them it was all just a big misunderstanding.” She attempted to grab his wrist, but he jerked it away.
“Mom, stop,” he said, clenching his jaw to stop himself from losing his cool. “I’m really not in the mood for this.”
“Oh, you’re never in the mood for this, are you?” she spat. “You think you’re the only one mourning, Link? Your father and I are going through the exact same thing you are. So, it’s time you man up and—”
“You have no idea what I’m going through!” Link roared. “None of you do! And you never will! So just shut-up. Please.”
Mom eyed her son up and down in shock, exhaled, and then began pacing around the room to compose herself. She stopped dead in her tracks as she passed his desk.
Link’s cork board was propped against the wall. Covering it from top to bottom was the map of Nocera, decorated with multi-coloured thumbtacks. Sprawled across his desk were photocopied excerpts from the book, smudged notes, and Alex’s detailed illustrations—all his valuable research and detailed planning over the past few months.
Mom reached for one of the thumbtacks that were jammed into the map and pulled it out. The mustard-coloured string Link was using to plot distances between destinations unravelled and dangled helplessly.
“Don’t do that,” he said, seething.
Mom flicked the thumbtack onto his cluttered desk as if it was a piece of lint. Then she started rummaging through his drawers as if she expected to find drugs. And before Link could stop her, she did. Just not the kind of drugs she was expecting.
“What are these?” Mom asked, holding the half-empty canister of sleeping pills she had plucked out of his sock draw. She began reading the label. “Sleeping pills? Since when do you take sleeping pills?”
Her shrill voice followed him out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
“Did you buy these over the counter or were they prescribed? Link, answer me!” She reached for his arm but he jerked it away. “Are you going to say something? Are you going to talk to me or do you just want me to guess what’s going on inside of that head of yours?”
“Robert,” Mom shouted desperately, as her son rushed down the last few steps two by two, “Robert, stop him.”
“What in the heck is going on?” Dad asked, appearing from the dining room wearing a tan dress shirt and a pair of slim-fitting denim jeans. Immediately, Link recognized he had trimmed his goatee and cut what little hair he had left. He had a fluoro orange feather duster dangling from his right hand. Mom must have roped him into cleaning.
As if I didn’t feel guilty enough, Link thought.
Dad scanned his son from head to toe, then turned to Mom and asked. “Why isn’t he dressed?” He turned back to Link before she could respond. “Why aren’t you dressed?”
“Because Link cancelled his interview,” Mom said matter-of-factly.
“No,” Dad mumbled, shaking his head. “No.”
He kept saying no, as if by him refusing it made it less real. He continued to search his son’s face, looking for the truth, but Link couldn’t bear to meet his eyes. His gaze was fixed firmly on the front door. But he knew his father wouldn’t let him leave without some sort of explanation.
“Is it true?” Dad finally asked, his voice dripping with disappointment.
“Yes,” Link said, nodding solemnly. “I was—” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was supposed to tell you both earlier. I just . . . I don’t know; I just forgot.”
“Just forgot?” Dad repeated dubiously as he massaged his jaw and crossed his arms. “Well then, what’s your reasoning? And just a heads-up: this better be good.”
“Yes, Link, enlighten us all with your rationale,” Mom said mockingly from the bottom of the stairs.
Mom’s snide little comment got to him. He turned to face her, his chest heaving like there was suddenly an oxygen shortage in the room.
“OK, Mom. There’s a man in a grey suit that keeps terrorizing me. And using my book—you know, the one Alex and I were working on: The Book of Nocera?” Link let out a maniacal chuckle he wasn’t too proud of. “Yeah, well using that as a blueprint he’s created a parallel universe I enter every, freaking, single time I fall asleep.”
“So Mom, to answer your question, I’d say my rationale might have something to do with me simultaneously trying to juggle two lives in two worlds. And upon realizing that I couldn’t physically and mentally accomplish either, knowing I’d have to minimize the baggage in one of those worlds, AKA this one,” he paused to draw a quick breath. “High school. College. Basketball. You see, I had a realization: Why should I spend my time preparing for my future in one world when my future is clouded with uncertainty in the other?”
Mom and Dad were both regarding him in horror now. As if a demon had possessed their son and was babbling nonsensical sentences . . . But regardless, Link continued.
“The way I see it I have two options. Option number one—which I’m 99.9 percent sure will result in my death, by the way: I confront Kilaydis.” Link let out another dark chuckle, deeper than the last one. He was beginning to scare himself. “And option number two: I don’t challenge him. Which will mean Alex and I will be stuck in Nocera forever, or at least until Kilaydis takes over the land and butchers us both.”
A small shriek escaped Mom’s lips. She pressed both her hands to her mouth.
“But in saying that,” Link continued, “no matter what option, I couldn’t live without my little sister being here in the real world, where she’s supposed to be. Knowing I was the reason behind it all, that I had the power to save her, I couldn’t continue on like . . . .” He trailed off on the last words, suddenly finding it hard to speak. “So yeah . . . that’s my reasoning, Mom. ”
Link walked towards the front door. His Mom and Dad made no effort to stop him.