Eli was winning...barely.

Hands clenched into tight fists by my sides, I unraveled my fingers slowly from my palms and grabbed my soda from the brown mahogany swivel tray over my lap and gingerly took a sip, the fizziness coating my throat and burning all the way down as yet another player from Heisinger made it into their basket, and listening to the announcer declare Matthew Thornberry as the game's 'player to watch', I cringed, knowing that Eli should've been on their radar more than him.

Eli, however, had been slightly off his game ever since the Patrick incident. I could tell that a fight was bound to break out, but sitting next to my father and Johnson Pierce, who applauded him on deescalating the situation, I knew that something much bigger was going on down there on the court, if only I could have heard the conversation for myself.

Sara and Jared sat on my left while my father and the other basketball legends and higher ups in the industry sat chatting with him and Kara at a circular round table, a few reporters coming and going asking on-the-record questions about upcoming articles that they were doing. A few even got a 'family' picture of all five of us, like we actually were a 'family.' I wanted to yell out at how disgusting and unfair it all was, but I couldn't do that without creating an even bigger spectacle than my life actually was.

A commotion out on the court struck the entire room eerily silent. Everyone held their breath, no one deigning to move even a muscle as Eli had fallen from a considerable height after attempting to dunk the ball over the heads of some of the tallest players in the game.

Even worse, however, was the fact that the 'player to watch' was crouched down next to him, and even though I couldn't tell from our height, I knew it wasn't good. The game cameras swooped in to try and exploit the moment, broadcasting Eli's anguish as he cradled his arm and shoulder to his chest, pure vitriol and anger on his face.

"What's he saying?"

"I don't know, there's no audio," my father replied to someone who'd asked, but I wasn't paying any attention to the rest of the crowd, my focus solely on Eli and the pain so undeniably coursing through his body.

It was just his shoulder, right? That wouldn't be a considerable injury unless it was broken, then from there it would take weeks, months, for him to get better.

It wasn't even pre season, surely he'd be fine in time for the regular season and the championships, if they made it, that is.

"I can't tell from here, but it better not be broken. He shouldn't have tried that."

"Maybe not, but he made the shot," Johnson replied, a sense of respect flowing from my father's friend.

"Excuse me, Virginia? There is someone here who is wanting to speak with you," a server said, the man decked out in full black and white gear as he gestured to the VIP area. My eyes almost popped out of their sockets as I spotted just who was waiting on me, fury dancing across her familiar features.

Kara paled when her eyes followed mine, then my father was next in line for the discoloration of his features, but something strange happened. Instead of looking scared, he grew even more pompous, rising to his full height in his wheelchair and puffing out his chest, almost like he needed to remind himself that he had the power in the situation.

I so desperately wanted to keep my eyes on Eli, to make sure that he was alright, but one quick glance back to the court had him walking off with the help of a physical trainer and he waved with a quick smile to the crowd who cheered him on, and after one more longing look at Eli, the boy who had changed everything, I focused on my grandmother, the woman who would change everything else.

"Ahyoka," she half whispered, half spoke, as the relief became evident across her tightened face while she took me in, eyes shooting past me and landing on the sharks swimming in the waters directly behind me.

"Why haven't you been answering your phone? I have been so, so worried!"

The slight trembling of her voice was the only give away that she was nervous of seeing my father and her estranged daughter for the first time in who knew how long, their eyes briefly connecting before she pulled her eyes away and trained them directly to me.

"Please, move the ropes. She's with me."

The man guarding the VIP section obliged and soon enough, my grandmother was in my arms for the first time since my father forced us to sever all connection.

A fresh flow of tears surged to the surface as the first inkling of family, real and true family, embedded itself in my mind. She smelled of warm, rich vanilla and incense, maybe even a hint of recreational marijuana, but I still committed it all to memory, because I had no idea if life would be so unking to steal it all away from me again in an instant, so I had to treat every moment with her like it was the last.

Of course she'd been worried, I hadn't had my phone because my father turned the service off. I cursed my selfishness at not contacting her through one of my friend's social media, just to let her know I was alright, especially after realizing that she was terrified of me being in my father's care, after he had not only put me in immediate danger but also murdered her own daughter.

"Yona, what are you doing here?"

Her head snapped up as my father's words reached the both of our ears, sharp and clipped but still arrogant, somehow, like this was going to go exactly as he wanted, just like everything else had already gone regarding my mother's death. He wasn't going to get off so easily this time.

"Visiting my granddaughter, and since she is eighteen and no longer a minor, you can't keep her from me like you did before. She can make her own decisions and opinions about other people on her own."

The words were careful, poison tipped on tightly strung arrows and his closely guarded secret the intended target, and from the jerk of his entire body, I knew the impact held true.

"She was always allowed to see you. She just listened to me and chose not to. Isn't that right, Virginia?"

I didn't speak. We'd garnered the entire attention of the press box, mainly because everything had happened directly after the somber moment of Eli's fall, and I could feel my cheeks growing hot, the spot in which my grandmother held me rooting me to the spot and grounding me as the drama of meeting Eli's family grew to the background, though I knew they still lingered about somewhere. They weren't the object of attention, though.

This was the moment. I could always write more songs, better songs. I didn't have to have my equipment back from my father. Maybe I was just using it as an excuse so as to not disrupt the status quo, to be a coward and hide behind that need to play pretend that everything was alright, when it so obviously wasn't.

Did that mean that everything had to happen out in the open, ruining Eli's chances at being remembered as the great basketball player that I knew him to be? Would he forgive me for taking the attention away from what was supposed to be his night?

But then, could I betray my grandmother yet again in front of everyone, for the man who sat before me with his ego growing by the second, realizing that I would have to choose once and for all right before his eyes?

I'd made my decision before the words tumbled out of my mouth, the reporters nearby like cannibals and eating up every pound of flesh that I'd soon be offering up.

"No, you told me I wasn't allowed to see her and you blocked her number on my phone and I wasn't allowed to talk to her, ever. There were a lot of things you forbid me to do, weren't there, Dad?"

From the angry curl of my lip and words of poison tipped arrows all my own, my father's coloring turned from pale and ugly yellow to bright and pissed off apple red, the color tinging the tips of his large ears and the point on his rounded nose.

In the distance, the game clock buzzed loud and omniscient, almost like a signal to the little girl inside of me that it was time. The game was over. It was time for the truth to finally see the light.

No one spoke. Just as before in the wake of Eli's fall, no one dared to even breathe, cough, sneeze, blink, I doubted my own heart even beat in my chest.

And then my father did something so uncharacteristic of his personality that I almost thought it a dream. A tear slid down from the corner of his eye, sliding down his cheek, and pooling in the taut frown that pulled his features into something foreign, nasty, yet somehow also convincing to those onlookers watching in such trepidation and morbid excitement.

"I worked so hard to keep this woman from ruining your image of your father, yet here she is again, parading around to rub it in my face. Is it not enough that my wife is gone, you have to come back and remind me of it, as if it were somehow my fault?"

"It IS your fault!"

The scream ripped out of me before I had any time to realize what I'd said, but there was no stopping me now.

"You were drunk that night. You were the one who drove right into that intersection, in the middle of a red light. I still remember the exact words you said, right before that car crashed into us and cut my mother in half right in front of me. She begged you to pull over, to let her drive, to just stop, but you didn't. You said, 'See? It's green. Green means go'. And then the first car drove straight into the passenger side and killed my mom. I don't know how the hell you managed to cover it up, to avoid manslaughter charges, to even still be alive when she had to die...

"You know, sometimes I used to wish that it was me that died, instead of her. Never once did I wish that it was you, instead. Not until I remembered every repressed memory I had of that night and realized the truth. It should've been you, Mike. The drunk, ugly, worthless piece of a man who murdered his wife and drove drunk with his daughter in the backseat. I never want to see you again, unless its in a court room where you're tried for the murder of my mother."

Tears blinded me, the salty trail blurring my eyes from watching the impact of my words, but the damage had all been done. I knew everyone sat in stunned silence from the bomb that I'd just dropped that would destroy my entire world, body and soul, but it wasn't like the truth hadn't already done that, I'd only done the work to let everyone else understand its effects.

"Mom, is that true?"

Kara didn't answer Sara, not even as she stood up and got in her face and asked it again. I was still in a silent standoff with my father, the faux tears dried up on his face, but the fact that he wasn't arguing my claims was proof enough to the rest of the press box which person was telling the truth.

"Agitsi-" Kara started, half standing with eyes finally showing some kind of emotion toward her mother.

"No. I am no mother of yours. Not after you shacked up with this monster after I told you the truth of how your sister died. You chose his side, Virginia was a child. She is the innocent in this. Sara, too. You are not."

I swayed on my feet just as my grandmother caught me by the arm, half holding me upright as the room finally came to its senses after hearing what I'd said.

"Wow. You really think you know people. I have connections, you know? Judges, lawyers, police officers. You really got away with this for ten years? Men like you give the rest of us a bad name."

Johnson Price had spoken, and the rest of the crowd sided with him. My father hadn't said a single word.

Sara walked up cautiously to me, Yona eyeing her curiously with everything that I'd already told her about her other granddaughter just as the hall of famer basketball player ambled up to us.

"Tell your guy Eli that he's a great player, what I could see of him at least. I like his guts. Here's my card, and tell him to give me a call on Monday, we'll discuss his future in the NBA. I am so sorry you've had to deal with so much, and I hope that bringing everything to light will give you some peace."

He patted my hand after placing his card inside of it, and I was more than glad that he didn't hold the fact that it was my father who had brought him to his attention against Eli, that he actually judged him based on his own skill and not the person who 'scouted' him, in a sense.

"Thank you," I whispered out, but he was already gone. Sara was trying to speak to Yona, but it was all rushing in my ears, my eyes still glued to the absolute and total fury sparked within my father's eyes. I couldn't look away- it was like a train wreck but still I couldn't stop myself.

Kara was crying into his shoulder while reporters and photographers were growing in larger clusters around the VIP area, having heard much of my proclamation considering it had been rather loud.

I was surprised the rest of the damn court hadn't heard it, but then again, considering the amount of phones and cameras that had been trained on me during my entire diatribe, I was almost positive the damn video would go viral.

And that was what I wanted...I hoped. The more eyes on my father and what he had done, the better chance of everyone finding out the truth of what had really happened that night, and maybe with my testimony of what I remembered, not to mention the proof of his alcoholism which was bound to be in his medical records, everything would be corroborated and he would find himself in jail, where he belonged.

Irregardless of his impending jail time, he would still be crucified in the court of public opinion. All those endorsements and commercials he still participated in? Gone. The well would soon dry up, because that was what he deserved.

Because my mother deserved to be by my side, in my life, and not in the sky somewhere hopefully watching over me.

He didn't have the right to take her away from me, he didn't get to play god. But yet he did, and he'd tried to do the same with me being in the backseat.

"After everything I've done for you, why? After we grew so close? Why destroy that now?"

He wasn't worth my breath, but I replied anyway, edging closer to him so that not everyone heard what I was going to say, but most still watched our interaction inherently.

Emotion clogging my throat, some of my words ending in a near gurgle of a scream and a whisper, I gave back everything tenfold that I had ever wanted to say to him.

"Because it was all a lie. She is dead, because of you. You murdered someone, does that not register in your brain? She's never coming back, and it is your fault. You only got 'closer' to me, because you probably thought it would help your guilt that you carried, if you even have a conscience. Or maybe it was all calculated, so that in case I did remember that night, I would come to you first and you would try to talk me out of whatever I thought I was remembering. Our midnight snack talks? Total bullshit. You wanted to control me right from the very beginning, keep me under your thumb? It's too late, Mike. You're done."

I turned on my heel and almost smacked right into a cameraman, but pushed past him just as my grandmother caught my arm and helped usher me outside the door.

I hadn't registered the game ending before the entire debacle had occurred, but suddenly there was Eli, dressed in form fitting jeans and a tight UCM t-shirt, purple ball cap covering his still wet hair from the shower, shoulder wrapped with an ice pack around it but in otherwise good health.

I didn't think twice as I ran directly to him and he scooped me into his side, carefully avoiding his hurt shoulder, and he just let me be, silently soaking up everything he had to give.

Before the ravenous reporters and carnivorous cameramen came to ruin it, that is.

"Come on, let's get out of here," he supplied, not even a thought about the industry reps that could've been waiting up in the press box for the 'after party'. He probably had no idea about what had transpired, and yet he was still willing to drop everything for me.

I then remembered I had a crucial family member to introduce him to.

We avoided the press as long as we could, walking brusquely away from them while shielding our faces from the flashes, my hand firmly clasped in Eli's while Yona held onto my side. Eli shot her a curious look but didn't ask questions. Yet.

It wasn't until we were free and clear in the Uber that had been stationed outside waiting for Yona that I finally spoke.

"So, Eli, there's someone I need to introduce you to. This is Yona, my grandmother."

His dark eyebrows quirked up at me, but he didn't miss a beat. He reached forward to the front seat where my grandmother was sitting next to the Uber driver and shook her hand.

"Lovely to meet you, Yona."

"And you as well. My granddaughter has told me much about you."

I was about to tell Eli what had happened in the press box when Eli's phone started blowing up with messages and alerts.

"Sorry, it's my sports news app, it goes crazy after a game like this, especially with Johnson Price there."

"Actually, Eli, there's something I-"

"V. What the hell is this?"

And there it was, the article that I was dreading. Except it wasn't just one article...

"Eli, pull up Google."

"V, I don't know why- oh, shit..."

He was speaking as he pulled the app up, and the top trending stories were there. All of them had everything to do with me...and Eli. The positive spotlight on him was the only good thing to come out of that entire disaster.

"So, do you mind now telling me what the hell happened up there?"