The apartment was empty.
Jude sat on the floor with his back against the wall and looked at the two duffel bags in front of him. Black canvas. Worn at the handles. They held seventeen years of his life and still had room to spare.
That was the part that got him. Not the leaving. Not the cross-country move to a state he'd never wanted to visit. Not even the fact that his mother was gone and wasn't coming back.
It was how little space everything took up.
Clothes in one bag. His Xbox, some books, the good headphones, and his cleats in the other. The football sat on the floor between them because it wouldn't fit and he wasn't about to shove it in there like it was just another thing.
He picked it up.
Wilson. Leather worn smooth in all the right places. The laces had a groove in them from where his fingers sat when he gripped for a throw. This ball had been with him since freshman year. Two state championships. Forty-three wins. The game against Neumann-Goretti where he threw for four hundred yards and the entire city started using his name in recruiting conversations.
Jude Fitzgerald.
The Philly Kid.
Five-star prospect.
That version of him lived here. In this apartment, in this city, with his mom cooking in that kitchen and telling him to turn the game film off and come eat something before he went blind.
The California version was some other guy.
He turned the ball over in his hands. The apartment smelled like cleaning solution. Someone had scrubbed it down after the estate people took the furniture. His mom's favorite chair was gone. The table where they ate breakfast was gone. The shelf with all her books, the couch where she'd fall asleep watching her shows, the photos on the wall.
All of it. Gone.
Packed up, donated, or tossed by people Arthur Fitzgerald paid to make the whole thing disappear as fast as possible.
Arthur.
Jude said the name in his head and felt nothing. That was the strangest part. You were supposed to feel something about your father. Anger, maybe. Resentment. Some kind of heat.
He just felt cold.
His mom had shown him exactly one photo of Arthur when he was twelve. A younger version of the man, smiling at a gallery opening, standing next to a woman who wasn't Denise. She told him the whole story in the kitchen while she made eggs. Told it clean, no bitterness, just the facts. Arthur had another family in California. A wife. Daughters. A whole life that didn't include them and never would.
Jude had asked one question.
"He know about me?"
She'd said yes.
He hadn't asked anything after that.
And now the man who couldn't send a check to help with rent, who couldn't pick up a phone for birthdays or Christmas or the two state championships Jude won while wearing his last name, that man had flown in for the funeral, signed some papers, and decided Jude's next eighteen months for him.
California.
Calabasas.
Some prep school called Westlake that cost more per year than his mom made in two.
A house Jude had seen in the photos online that looked like it was designed by someone who thought regular houses were too relatable.
He was supposed to be grateful.
That was the part that made him want to put his fist through the wall.
He was supposed to show up, slot into this perfect family, and thank Arthur for the generosity of letting his own son exist in the same zip code as him.
Jude set the football down.
His phone buzzed.
Marcus: yo where u at
He stared at the text. Marcus didn't know. None of them knew. Jude had told his boys he was leaving soon but hadn't given them a day or a time because goodbyes were the one thing he was actively terrible at.
You say goodbye, people get emotional. They make speeches. They ask you to stay in touch and promise things everyone knows won't happen because life moves and people move with it.
Easier to just go.
He typed back.
Jude: handling something
Marcus: u leaving today aint u
Jude looked at the message for a long time.
Jude: yeah
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Marcus: damn
Marcus: alright then
Marcus: im gonna miss ur ass
Marcus: go get that california bag
Jude almost smiled. Almost.
Jude: already got it
He pocketed the phone and stood up.
The Uber notification came through. Three minutes away. Black SUV. Driver named Hassan with a 4.9 rating.
Time to go.
He grabbed both bags, slung one over each shoulder, and picked up the football. The apartment door didn't lock behind him because there wasn't anything left to protect. He took the stairs instead of the elevator. Habit. His mom always said elevators in their building smelled like someone died in them and she wasn't trying to test that theory.
The SUV pulled up exactly on time.
Hassan was a middle-aged guy with a sixers cap and a beard that looked like it required maintenance. He popped the trunk without getting out.
"Airport?"
"Yeah."
Jude tossed the bags in. Kept the football.
The ride was quiet. Hassan didn't try to make conversation, which Jude respected. The city slid past the window. Familiar streets. The corner store where he used to buy Gatorade after practice. The court where he learned to throw a spiral. The neighborhood that raised him and taught him how to move and when to keep his head down.
All of it shrinking in the rearview.
His phone buzzed twice more. Group chat. His boys finding out he was gone and making noise about it. He didn't open the messages. He'd respond later. Maybe.
Probably not.
The airport was chaos. It always was. People rushing, dragging luggage, yelling at each other in five different languages. Hassan pulled up to Delta departures and Jude handed him a twenty even though the ride was already paid for.
"Appreciate it."
Hassan nodded. "Good luck, young man."