Skinny Love

18.| The Zone

♡︎Emerson♡︎

"Ha ha! You have another letter, daddy!" The small girl cried out in excitement, her dad picks her up and spins around. The small girl shrieks and laughs.

She's still holding a basketball almost half her size as she ecstatically scrambles to a different point in the driveway and throws the ball up.

It circles the basketball hoop and then falls in. "Perfetto! Sei così bravo in questo gioco! Si si!" Her dad calls out, earning a laugh from his daughter.
(Perfect! You're so good at this game! Yes, yes!)

"Now you go!" She shouts to her dad. The ball is thrown to her father and she claps her hands in front of her.

"Okay cutie, let me just get in the zone." Her father says, smiling. He takes the fails to dribble the ball down to where his daughter is and just ends up picking it up. Once he gets there, he smiles at his daughter and squats down, one foot in front of the other, trying to "get in the zone".

The girl watches her dad giddily, waiting for him to shoot the ball and continue the game.

When the orange and black ball finally leaves his hands, it misses the rim by a long shot. Not even hitting the back board.

"You have another one!" She giggles and thinks for a second. "That means you have H, O, and R! I'm going to win daddy!"

"Not if I have a say in it Emmy." Her dad laughs back. The girl, Emmy, watches her dad take his shot and then she follows him, making the shot and keeping her zero letters.

The young girl and her father continue the game and every turn her dad earns a new letter. Once she wins, they play again. And again, and again. Until the street light are about to come on.

Once it started to get dark, a women comes out to the porch and calls for the girl. "Time to come inside for bed now, baby." She calls into the driveway soothingly.

The girl runs to her mom and hugs her leg tightly. "I won mommy!" She giggles into her mothers leg.

"That's great honey!" Her mom messes with her brown hair. "Let's go inside now, you can see all your friends at school tomorrow." The girl and her mother both smile.

She runs inside and up the stairs to her bedroom. Jumping onto her bed and waiting for her parents to come and tuck her in for bed.

Downstairs, her parents walk back into the house hand in hand, "Your daughter is brillante." The man kisses his wife.
(Brilliant.)

"Our daughter." She smiles. He nods in response and takes his wife's hand once again. They walk up the stairs and to their daughters bedroom.

Mom comes into the room and tucks her daughter in, whispering something that makes her giggle.

"Goodnight E." Her mom says, "We love you."

"Love you mommy! Love you dad!" The girl calls out to her parents.

Her dad, who never left the doorway smiles and walks out with his smiling wife.

The girl closes her eyes and falls asleep, still in the clothes she played all day in. She's happy because she beat her dad in the game outside and because her mom came and tucked her in and said goodnight.

She drifts off to sleep thinking about tomorrow's new day of preschool and how she has to tell all her friends about the games of basketball she played the day before.