I had a real bad attitude after my dad passed of liver cancer. I

Host: The basketball court was empty, the kind of empty that hums with echoes — the ghosts of sneakers, the faint thud of memory on polished wood, the silent breathing of space that once held cheers.
Overhead, the lights buzzed faintly, painting long, pale shadows on the floor. Dust floated like particles of time, suspended in gold.

Jack stood at the free-throw line, a ball resting loosely in his hand, the other tucked in his pocket. His grey eyes were distant — like he was aiming at something far beyond the hoop. Jeeny sat on the bleachers, her hands clasped together, watching him.

Host: Outside, night pressed against the windows, thick and absolute. Inside, memory took its place beside them — uninvited, but impossible to ignore.

Jeeny: “John Wall once said, ‘I had a real bad attitude after my dad passed of liver cancer. I was 9, and we were really close.’”

Jack: “Yeah. I read that once. People always talk about grief like it’s a phase — like you outgrow it. But truth is, you just get better at hiding it.”

Host: He spun the ball once, let it drop — the sound echoed, hollow and full at once.

Jeeny: “Hiding it doesn’t make it go away. It just turns into something else. Anger. Silence. Distance. It seeps into everything.”

Jack: “That’s what he means by ‘bad attitude.’ It’s not just anger. It’s confusion. It’s that feeling of the world losing its rules. You lose someone who made sense, and suddenly nothing else does.”

Host: His voice cracked slightly, and though he didn’t look at her, the tension in his jaw betrayed the tremor of something unspoken.

Jeeny: “I think kids carry that differently. At nine, you don’t even know what grief is. You just know the world used to be whole, and now it’s cracked — and somehow you think it’s your fault.”

Jack: “Yeah.” He threw the ball — it hit the rim, bounced off, rolled back to his feet. “You start thinking maybe if you’d done something — said something — it would’ve changed things.”

Jeeny: “And when you realize it wouldn’t have, that’s when the anger starts.”

Host: The sound of the ball rolling echoed softly, like a pulse fading in an empty chamber. Jack picked it up again, his hands trembling just enough to betray the truth.

Jack: “People tell you to be strong. To move on. But when you’re nine, what does ‘moving on’ even mean? You don’t move — you just build armor.”

Jeeny: “And call it strength.”

Jack: “Exactly.”

Host: The lights hummed louder for a moment, flickering. Jack stared up at them like he was searching for something in their glare.

Jeeny: “You ever think about what that does to a person? Growing up angry. Carrying that silence into everything else — work, love, friendship.”

Jack: “Yeah. It becomes your language. People mistake it for confidence, or coldness. But really it’s just — defense. Because caring feels dangerous.”

Host: His voice fell to a whisper, the kind that barely reached across the court.

Jeeny: “You sound like you’ve been there.”

Jack: “I have. My father didn’t die. He just left. But it feels the same. One day they’re there, the next day it’s just the echo of them — in your habits, your temper, your silence.”

Host: Jeeny lowered her eyes, tracing her finger along a crack in the bleacher wood. The air grew still, the kind of stillness where memories become almost visible.

Jeeny: “My brother died when I was twelve. Heart condition. I didn’t get angry, though. I just — stopped talking. I thought if I stayed quiet enough, I could keep what was left of him.”

Jack: “So you understand.”

Jeeny: “Yeah. Anger’s just another way of talking to the people who can’t answer.”

Host: The lights buzzed again. A faint wind from an open door carried the scent of rain into the gym, blending with the smell of dust and sweat.

Jack: “When I was sixteen, I remember watching old videos — him teaching me to shoot. I’d replay them over and over, just to hear his voice. That’s when I realized — anger was the only thing keeping me from forgetting.”

Jeeny: “Grief is strange that way. It keeps you close to them, even when it’s killing you.”

Jack: “Yeah. And everyone around you just wants you to be ‘okay.’ They don’t realize ‘okay’ isn’t even an option anymore.”

Host: The silence after his words was heavy — like the air itself had weight.

Jeeny: “But you know, Jack — there’s something beautiful in what John Wall said. It wasn’t just confession. It was honesty. It was saying: I was broken, but I kept moving. That’s the part we forget. Grief doesn’t end, but it evolves.”

Jack: “Into what?”

Jeeny: “Into compassion, if you let it.”

Jack: “Or into hardness, if you don’t.”

Jeeny: “Maybe both. Maybe we need both — the tenderness and the armor. One reminds us who we lost. The other keeps us alive.”

Host: She stood then, walking down to the court, her footsteps echoing softly. She picked up the ball, turning it in her hands, studying it as if it held a memory.

Jeeny: “You know what I think?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “That ‘bad attitude’ he talked about — that was love, in disguise. Love with nowhere to go.”

Host: Jack looked at her then — really looked. The fluorescent light caught her face, softening the sadness there.

Jack: “Maybe that’s true. Maybe every angry kid is just someone who loved too much, too soon.”

Jeeny: “And never learned where to put it once the person was gone.”

Host: A long silence followed, filled only by the faint hum of the lights.

Jack walked over to her, standing beside her at the free-throw line.

Jack: “Funny, isn’t it? We spend years trying to fix what grief breaks — when maybe we’re not supposed to fix it at all.”

Jeeny: “No. We’re supposed to live with it. Carry it right alongside our joy. That’s how we honor them.”

Host: The two of them stood in the middle of the court, the hoop towering above them — a quiet witness to everything that had been said.

Jeeny: “You ever visit his grave?”

Jack: “No. I tell myself I will, but… I don’t know what I’d say.”

Jeeny: “You don’t have to say anything. Just showing up says enough.”

Host: Jack nodded slowly, the muscles in his jaw relaxing, the sharpness in his eyes softening into something almost vulnerable.

He took the ball from her hands, stepped back, and shot. The ball arced perfectly — clean, effortless — and fell through the net with a soft, final whisper.

Jack: “He would’ve liked that.”

Jeeny: “He saw it.”

Host: The sound lingered — the echo of a perfect shot in an empty gym, the sound of memory finding its rhythm again.

Jack turned to her, a faint, honest smile on his lips.

Jack: “You think so?”

Jeeny: “I know so.”

Host: Outside, the rain stopped. A sliver of moonlight slipped through the high windows, landing on the court like a benediction.

The camera would have pulled back slowly — the two of them small under the vast, glowing lights, surrounded by silence, but no longer alone.

Host: Because in that stillness, they both understood what John Wall had meant — that grief isn’t a weakness, or a wound that closes; it’s the way love refuses to end.