Faith in Me

Chapter 6 - HORSE Play

Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

Dylan took a deep breath and let the basketball fly from his hands, watching it soar in a wide arc before landing with a soft swish through the net.

It didn't make him feel any better.

He picked up the basketball and traversed the full length of the court before turning around. Staring at the hoop located at the other end, he made a move towards it, quickly twisting and turning, his sneakers squeaking loudly as he expertly maneuvered the basketball. Finally reaching his destination, he leapt with all his might and stretched his hands towards the rim. His attempt at a slam dunk failed spectacularly as his fingers banged against the cold hard metal and the basketball flew off the backboard and hit the ground with a resounding thud.

Angrily, he picked up the offending ball and threw it as far as he could, his fingers stinging with pain.

What a terrible day.

First, his alarm didn't go off and he was late for work.

As he was rushing out the door, his mom had called to tell him that his grandmother was sick again. He asked to speak to her, but his waipo was so weak that all she managed to say was that she missed him and reminded him to eat more.

Hao Ge, who was waiting in the car outside his apartment, had immediately booked him a flight back to Sichuan upon seeing his distraught face. Dylan was just about to dial his mother to tell her the good news when he received a stern call from his agency denying his leave request due to the tight shooting schedule. When Dylan tried to reason with them, he was tersely reminded of the terms of his contract and explicitly forbidden to leave Shanghai. His anger and frustration was further exacerbated by guilt when Hao Ge tried to help him and received an even worse reprimand.

Dylan was fuming by the time he got to set, and his mood only worsened when a simple scene had taken nothing short of 20 takes because he couldn't pronounce the words correctly in Mandarin. His mouth wasn't moving right and the dubbing would be off. He singlehandedly delayed shooting by almost three hours.

Feeling like the lowliest of the low, a terrible actor and even worse grandson, he was then forced to do an interview that was filled with unkind insinuations over the remake of Meteor Garden and the acting abilities of the young cast. The drama was still filming but fans of the original were already loudly vocalizing their disapproval. He understood that the original was a classic, but they were merely updating the story for a younger, more modern generation. The journalist's questions were clipped and dripping in sarcasm; the interview anything but fair. The reminder that people could be disappointingly narrow-minded and judgmental left a sour taste in his mouth and it had taken every single ounce of his self-control to remain and finish the interview.

Just thinking about it now made him want to slam his fist through a wall.

Exhausted, Dylan lay down on the cold ground and looked up at the sky. It was pitch dark except for a small sliver of the moon that peeked out from behind some clouds. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried to block out the miserable memories of the day. Damn, he was homesick.

A small cough from above pulled him from his thoughts. Dylan opened his eyes and saw Yue's face looming over him. She was holding a sketch pad in one hand and his basketball in the other.

"Hi," she said with a smile.

"Hey," he responded. 

Yue noticed he didn't smile back.

Dylan was about to sit up when she suddenly lay down on the ground next to him. Surprised, he turned his head to look at her but she was busy looking up at the sky.