I've been traded.

I received the news a few weeks before the preseason, and I still can't believe it.

The Thunder traded me and two picks to the Golden State Warriors for Nick Young and Kendrick Nunn, according to the phone call I received from the front office.

Stephen Curry. Klay Thompson. Kevin Durant. I was on a championship team. But given the amount of stars, I was probably going to get less playing time than I did in OKC.

I was happy to be moving to a better team, but also sad to leave OKC and worried about having to move to Oakland. It would be a long trip, so I had to start planning a way to get up there.

I decided to do something I hadn't done in a long time: invite someone over to my house.

I called Kenny and asked him if he wanted to come over for a bit. I just wanted some human company before taking off for Oakland. I've been doing my best to keep in contact with all of my other friends, but it's hard to find times that are convenient for the both of us to talk on the phone.

Thankfully, Rainbow was willing to stay in the guest room, or, at least, per her words, "out of his view". I promised her it wouldn't be long, because I felt kind of bad about having to hide her.

I was honestly sad about having to leave Oklahoma City, especially considering I hadn't even lived here for a year.

When Kenny arrived, I prayed that Rainbow was out of sight and opened the door. We talked mainly about our teams and our hopes for the upcoming season. I was sad about parting with him, because he had been a great teammate.

Everything was essentially normal up until he went to use the bathroom. I was browsing Bleacher Report while waiting on his return when I heard the bathroom door open, a pause, then a scream. I jumped up and whipped around.

My stomach sank as I saw Kenny in shock at the pony before him. He looked up at me, then back down, then back at me.

"What the hell is this?!?" he said, extending both arms in the direction of Rainbow Dash. "What am I looking at?!?"

"Umm..." I said, trying to find the words.

"I must be trippin," said Kenny. "Cause ain't no way in HELL I'm lookin at this damn.....THING right now!?!"

"Calm down," I said. "Please. Just give me a minute to explain."

"Please do." said Kenny in a low voice.

"Okay, well..." I searched for a good way to relay the story of how I ended up with Rainbow in the first place. "I just found her outside one night. I'm not sure how she got there, but she was there. So I took her in."

"When?" asked Kenny, looking me right in the eyes. "When did you take her in?"

"Almost a year ago," I said, breaking the eye contact.

"A YEAR ago?!?" Kenny cried. "You've kept this thing in your house for a YEAR?!? How?? We traveled all over the country for the NBA season! What did you do when we went on the road?"

"I drove," I said. "And took her with me."

"So that's why?" he said. "That's why you never went on the team plane? That's why you always traveled on your own? Because you were traveling with this thing?"

"Come on, man, it's not that bad," I said. "Why are you getting so worked up over this?"

"Imma sit down." he said, walking over toward the couch that I was currently standing next to. "Cause this can't be real. It can't be." He sat down on the couch and buried his face in his hands.

I looked over at Rainbow, who still looked shocked and hadn't moved.

"It's real," I said to Kenny. "It may seem impossible, but it's real. She's real."

"Okay," he said. "Okay. Whatever. Imma let you deal with this." He got up and headed for the door.

"Hold on," I said. "You can't tell anyone about this."

Kenny shook his head. "You're trippin," he said, then walked out the door.

After a moment of silence, I turned to Rainbow. "I want to be mad at you right now, but you're too damn cute and my mind is too damn weak for that." I sat back down on the couch and wondered what to do. I knew that if I called Kenny he wouldn't respond. He probably thought I was crazy.

"So, you're not mad?" asked Rainbow from behind me.

Without turning around, I said, "I'm not happy, but at the same time there's no point in me being mad. I just hope Kenny doesn't stay mad at me."

"Maybe if you give him time he'll come back," she said.

"Hopefully," I said. "But until then, we need to start packing."

"Why?" Rainbow asked. "Do we have to move somewhere?"

"Yeah, we do," I said. "Oakland."

"Where's that?" she asked.

"California," I replied.

"Why are we going to California?" she asked me.

I sighed. "Because I've been traded. Best thing for me to do is move to the home city of the team I've been traded to."

"What team?" she asked.

"The Warriors," I replied. "The team that swept us in the playoffs."

It was in that moment that I realized I was going the same route as Kevin Durant did two seasons ago. I was leaving OKC for Oakland and I honestly wasn't too happy about it.

I shook off the negative thoughts and headed over to my room, which with time had started to look less and less like my room. Most of the Kobe and MJ and other NBA posters had been taken down from the times I had taken them on the road. My console was in a box on the floor along with my NBA 2K games. I had carefully wrapped my autographed Shaquille O'Neal jersey up and put it away that morning. The only piece of basketball memorabilia that remained was my Miami Heat basketball, autographed by the 2012 Heat team. Its glass case shined in the dim light from my ceiling fan, and I could just barely see my distorted reflection.

I snapped out of my daze and began to organize the scattered boxes. At one point Rainbow came wandering by.

"Is there magic in your world?" I asked, wiping sweat off my forehead as I hauled a box over to the spot where I was stacking a few other boxes of my belongings.

"Yep." Rainbow nodded. "Lots of it."

"Must be nice," I grunted, going to pick up another box.

Just as I bent down to grab another load, my phone rang. I checked the caller ID.

It was Kenny.

Author's Note

Man, this chapter was shit.

I really wanted to add some sort of twist to the plot, and I thought maybe Kenny discovering Rainbow would work, but in proofreading this I'm not sure. Anybody else think this story is going downhill way too fast?

Ah, screw it. Imma keep writing.