The banners hanging from the rafters of the TD Garden weren't just fabric; they were monuments to ghosts. Seventeen of them, great green and white declarations of dominance, each one a weight of expectation, a chapter in a legacy that every player who donned the green was expected to understand and advance. The cloth of the oldest was faded, the lettering a little less bold, like the memory of the men who had won it. But it was the eighteenth banner—the one added just a few months ago, the one that still felt like it belonged to the present—that drew every eye. Its stitching was fresh and sharp, the fabric still stiff, refusing to droop with the ease of its elders. It hung there not like a trophy, but like a scar that hadn't yet softened with time, a brilliant, painful reminder of a victory that now felt a lifetime away to the young man who had helped win it.

Kyle Wilson walked into the cavernous emptiness of the arena hours before the media circus was set to begin, wearing his Celtics-issued grey sweats, the hood pulled low over his brow. His expensive headphones were draped around his neck, silent. The silence was preferable; music felt too emotional, too suggestive. It could sway a mood, and his mood was a carefully balanced thing, a glass vase on a narrow ledge. The championship ring, a gaudy, beautiful testament to a night of pure joy, was tucked deep into a hidden pocket of his backpack, not on his finger. It was too heavy with a new, unintended meaning. Too loud in its proclamation of a triumph that now seemed to mock the quiet devastation of his summer. He wasn't ready to wear it yet. To do so felt like a betrayal.

The quiet of the empty arena was short-lived. The media swarm descended, their voices rising in the echoing space like a restless, hungry tide. Cameras clicked in rapid, mechanical bursts, their long lenses tracking his every move as he walked from the locker room tunnel to the court-side setup, making him feel like prey being circled in the open. The flashes were like little shocks to his system, each one a jolt back to a reality he wished he could ignore.

"Wilson! Over here! Look this way!"

"Kyle, smile for the camera! Show us the champ!"

"Kyle, how's the offseason been? You look focused!"

"Kyle — can Boston repeat? What's different about this year?"

The questions fired at him all at once, overlapping, suffocating, each one demanding a piece of a story he wasn't willing to tell. They wanted soundbites, but his life had become a novel too dark and complicated for a headline.

Kyle clenched his jaw, the muscle ticking beneath his skin, and kept walking, his sneakers emitting faint, lonely squeaks against the polished hardwood he'd once felt he owned. Inside, he felt violently split in two. Outwardly, he was the 19-year-old champion, the phenom who'd played crucial, fearless minutes in the Finals, the kid from the islands that Boston wanted to crown as the next beloved star. He was supposed to be living a dream.

Inwardly, he was still standing on that sun-scorched Jamaican hillside, the heat a physical weight, staring at the polished oak of Derrick's coffin as it was lowered into the earth. He was haunted by the ghost of his mother, Nichola's, face—the mother who never got to see any of this, whose life was stolen in a moment of meaningless violence years ago. The two most significant people in his life were gone, and their absences were twin holes in his universe that no championship could ever fill.

He hadn't told anyone, not the team therapist, not his agent, but at night he was still waking in cold sweats, the sheets tangled around his legs. Sometimes the dream was just Derrick's laugh, that deep, rolling chuckle that seemed to come from his boots, echoing in his ear before it was cut short. Other times it was his mother's voice, singing a old song he could barely remember, always cut short by the sound of a door splintering, a scream, and then the terrible, final silence of a robbery gone wrong. The past was a stalker he couldn't shake.

Coach Brad Stevens, ever the watchful guardian, spotted him moving through the throng and intercepted him with a gentle hand on his elbow, pulling him aside into the relative quiet of the hallway leading to the locker rooms.

"You ready for this?" Brad asked softly, his eyes doing that thing they did—seeing right through the athlete to the person underneath.

Kyle's throat felt like it was packed with sand. He swallowed hard. "As ready as I can be," he managed, the words rough.

"Good. That's all we can ask," Stevens said, his voice calm and steadying. "Just be yourself up there. Answer what you want to answer, and let the rest roll right off you. Remember, you don't owe them your whole story. You owe this team your focus. That's it."

Easier said than done. His whole story was the very thing threatening to unravel his focus.

**The Press Conference**

The lights at the podium were hot and merciless, bleaching out the faces in the front row, turning the crowd of reporters into a faceless, murmuring entity. Kyle sat between Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, both veterans of this particular gladiatorial arena, both looking calm and composed in their crisp, team-issued polos. The questions came rapid-fire, mostly at Tatum first, a comfortable rhythm of established stars dealing with established narratives.

"Jayson, what does this season mean to you after finally getting over the hump last year?"

"Jaylen, how's the chemistry looking? Any different with a title under your belt?"

Then, inevitably, the focus shifted. The hive mind turned its attention to the new variable.

"Kyle Wilson, sophomore year coming off a championship run where you were a key contributor — what's your main focus heading into this season?"

He leaned forward slightly, the cold of the microphone seeping into his fingers. His voice, when it came out, was steady, rehearsed, a line he'd practiced in the mirror. "Just to keep working. Play my role. Do whatever it takes to help this team win again. That's the only goal."

Flashes erupted. Shutters clicked like mechanical insects.

But the next reporter, a woman with a sharp expression and a microphone from a national outlet, didn't stop there. She leaned in, her voice cutting through the din. "Kyle, you had… an eventful offseason back home in Jamaica. Care to comment on some of the rumors circulating about your family and the circumstances there?"

The air left Kyle's lungs. The noise of the room seemed to fade into a high-pitched hum. *Eventful offseason.* The phrase was so sanitized, so bloodless. It reduced the earth-shaking cataclysm of his life to a piece of gossip. Tatum shot him a quick, almost imperceptible glance from the corner of his eye. Brad's words echoed in his head—*you don't owe them your whole story.*

He inhaled sharply, a quiet, seething breath, then leaned into the mic, his gaze locking onto the reporter. His eyes, usually warm and bright, had gone flat and cold. "My offseason was personal," he said, his tone low and leaving no room for argument. "I'm here now, and all that matters is basketball. That's it."

His tone was final, cutting through the room like a shard of steel. The atmosphere shifted palpably. Some reporters scribbled faster in their notepads, sensing a vein of something deeper, something with blood in it. Others hesitated, recognizing a wall had been slammed down and knowing they wouldn't be the ones to scale it today.

But inside, Kyle's chest burned with a cold fire. He hated the way they said *rumors*, like Derrick's sacrifice was a tabloid headline, like Omar's death and his mother's murder were just juicy offseason drama. He wanted to stand up, flip the polished table, and scream at them that his life wasn't a storyline for their consumption. But he didn't. He remained still, his expression a mask of stone, betraying nothing of the storm within.

**Photo Day**

After the tense conference, the mood lightened superficially as the team was herded into the bright, chaotic studio set up for the annual photoshoot. The air smelled of flash powder and hairspray. There were green screens, giant fans blowing for action shots, and the Larry O'Brien trophy gleaming under the hot lights on a pedestal.

"Kyle! Over here! Hold it up! Yeah, like that! Smile! Big one! Ring finger up for us, let's see it!"

He forced a grin, a mechanical stretching of his lips that didn't reach his eyes. He raised the heavy trophy with both hands, its metallic surface cold against his palms. The camera flashes exploded, a strobe-light barrage that left purple afterimages on his retina. But in the blinding white, he didn't see the trophy. He saw his mother, Nichola, in the crowd of his imagination, her face beaming with a pride she was never allowed to feel. He heard Derrick's gravelly laugh somewhere behind the cameras, whispering bets about how many points he'd drop in the home opener, a bet that would never be paid.

And then, as quickly as the vision came, it was gone. Another pose. Another backdrop. Another fake smile held for a count of three. He became a doll to be positioned, a prop in the great machine of NBA promotion, his exterior performing while his interior screamed.

**Locker Room Conversations**

Later, back in the sanctity of the locker room, the realness returned. The cameras were gone. It was just teammates, half-dressed, smelling of sweat and soap, the air filled with the familiar sounds of joking, easy trash talk, and the thud of locker doors.

Marcus Smart, his body already etched with the bruises of a practice scrimmage, clapped Kyle on the back with a towel-wrapped hand. "Sophomore slump's a real thing, kid. You ready for it? They ain't gonna be surprised by you no more."

Kyle managed a faint, genuine smirk. "Slump ain't in my vocabulary, Smart. You know that."

"Good," Smart grunted, his eyes serious. "'Cause they comin' for your head now. The league's a beast. It studies. It learns. Everybody's got tape on you now. They know your moves, they know your tendencies. You gotta be better."

Jaylen Brown, pulling on a designer hoodie, leaned in, his voice quieter, meant for Kyle's ears only. "Don't let that press stuff shake you, man. Seriously. Boston media... it's a lot. They build you up to tear you down. It's what they do. You play your game, you keep your head down, you'll be fine. We got your back."

Kyle nodded, absorbing their words. He was grateful for the camaraderie, the unspoken code of the locker room. But his stomach still churned. He wasn't worried about the opposing scouts or the sophomore slump. He was worried about the ghosts that had followed him across the ocean, the ones that would be waiting for him on the court, in the stands, in the silence of his own apartment. They were the only opponents he couldn't game-plan for.

**Nightfall**

That evening, Kyle sat alone in the stark, modern silence of his Boston high-rise apartment. The city lights twinkled below, a vast, electric map of a life moving on without him. Streets buzzed with the energy of a thousand Friday nights, but he felt completely disconnected from it all.

On the low glass coffee table, the championship ring box sat unopened. He hadn't even lifted the lid to look at it since the ceremony. He pulled out his phone, his thumb scrolling automatically through his camera roll. There were photos from the Finals parade: a sea of green, a million smiling faces, confetti raining down like green and white snow, his own face—younger, lighter—plastered on every banner and mural.

Then his thumb swiped again, and he was in a different world. Jamaica. The stark, brutal sunlight of the funeral. The grim line of men in dark suits he didn't trust, watching from the edges of the crowd with cold, assessing eyes. The raw, dark earth. The two caskets.

Kyle closed his eyes, pressing the heels of his hands against them until stars burst in the darkness.

"Second season," he whispered into the empty, expensive room. The words sounded hollow, a mantra without meaning. "Time to lock in."

But even as he said it, the question echoed back at him, unanswered and terrifying: was he locking into basketball, or was he just building higher walls to lock away the pain?

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