The city lights of Dallas didn't look nearly as welcoming as before. I arrived home, worried about the pony who had been here alone for the past two hours.

I found her napping, and breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn't gonna have to face any heat for a while.

I talked to Kenny over the phone for a bit, mainly about the game, and then made myself a sandwich for dinner. I didn't really feel like putting much effort into a meal right now.

I sat down on the couch, lost in my head. After a few minutes of pondering, I had made up my mind.

It was time for the hard part.

I went and woke Rainbow up. I guess she picked up the look on my face, because the smile that she displayed due to my return faltered. I led her to the living room, and was about to speak when I hesitated. Then I dove straight into the issue.

"There's no easy way to say this," I said. "My games are in Oklahoma City, or other cities."

"Oklahoma City?" she responded, clearly confused.

"I need to travel for road games," I said. "And I can't take you with me when I leave."

"So...what are you saying?" she asked. Her voice broke, and a lump formed in my throat, momentarily clogging it and preventing speech. Once I found my voice again, I continued. "I can't always be with you," I said. "And you don't deserve to be alone."

"Isn't there a solution?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said. "The only viable solution that I can think of is somehow returning you to your own world."

There was silence. I was trying to think of any possible way around the situation. But my mind came up empty. There was no way to make this work.

"Why can't you take me with you?" she asked, making me think of a child not wanting to part with their parent.

I thought again, and this time, as what I took to be a miracle from God, I found a solution.

"Maybe," I told her, "There is something we can do."

She looked ready to cry at that point, and she still smiled. That made me smile. I continued to explain my solution. "I can rent an Airbnb for road games, and you could stay there." She probably had no idea what an Airbnb was, but I could tell that she was happy that there was a solution.

The rest of the night was a bit better. The mood was lighter, and I discovered that Rainbow is great to watch movies with. I went to bed that night feeling semi-optimistic.

The rest of the preseason was, to be honest, pretty rough for me financially. Rookies don't make too much cash in the NBA, but I was constantly renting new Airbnbs so I could be with Rainbow. However, even though, like I said, rookies don't get paid a lot, they get paid more in the regular season than in the preseason, which meant renting an Airbnb could be a bit less of a financial struggle from then on.

Our first regular season game was against the Rockets. Coach Donovan had given me more minutes because I played pretty good, but I was still benched until halfway through the third quarter, where the score was 71-66, with the Rockets in front. I wasn't concerned about the score or whether or not we won. I was just focused on playing the best basketball that I could.

I was assigned to Austin Rivers, who was a decent offensive player, but on defense he struggled. He wasn't too difficult to guard, or to score on. I put up 9 points in my first season game, which wasn't bad, but we took the L, which was.

I've sort of developed a habit of arriving at my rental homes and relaying the games to Rainbow Dash, who always listens. That's something I'm thankful for.

The first month of the regular season was pretty normal, but something big happened on November 25th, in a game against the Mavericks. Terrance Ferguson, who was assigned to Maxi Kleber, went up for a block and came down hard, resulting in him breaking his ankle. So now he was out, and I was in. It was a four point game, and we were losing with most of the 4th quarter ahead. What was upsetting to me was that Kleber didn't seem too concerned about injuring Ferguson or taking the foul. So the first chance I got, I blocked his shot. And scored off the turnover.

In the end, it was a W in the record books, but an L for the team. Ferguson had been taken to a hospital, and since he was out, Coach Donovan told me I was going to have to play more. He said he was moving me to his second rotation, which meant that most of the time I would be on the floor at the same time as Westbrook and George. It wasn't that big of a deal to me anymore, though, considering I had played with them for a month now. Our record definitely could've been better, and our team was already suffering because of our struggling offense.

I had a lot on my mind that night, and when I got to my house I unpacked it all with Rainbow. It felt good to have someone to talk to when I had things weighing me down. This time was different than the others, though. Rainbow actually had some advice for me.

"You're letting these things get inside your head," she said. "Just relax. Clear your mind."

I knew she was right. I was glad to be home in Dallas, where I could walk out into my own backyard and just stare at the sky, siphoning my negative thoughts out into the night.

I really did need to clear my head, so I tried something I had never tried before: meditation. I was about 5 minutes into it before Rainbow Dash came up to me and asked me what the heck I was doing. But honestly, meditation and some green tea(try it before you judge me) became my recipe for calm. That combined with the ability to tell Rainbow anything I had on my mind was definitely helping my mental state. In fact, my mental improvements even carried over onto the basketball court, which led to me becoming sixth man. That was huge.

What seemed like only a little bit of time later, December rolled around. We had an afternoon game that ended in a blowout win over the Spurs. When I got to my Airbnb, which was very nice and in a section of San Antonio that had a lot of trees, I grabbed the gift that I had bought for Rainbow. It was a book, entitled The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and I hoped that she would like it.

I was nervous that she wouldn't care for it, and at first I thought I was right, when she unwrapped it and gave me a confused expression. After a bit, though, she seemed to find the story interesting. It was nice to share the holiday with someone else. I called all of my college teammates, I talked to Kenny for a bit, and visited Ferguson, who was out of the hospital and going through rehab for his ankle. I had bought him some new shoes that he wanted, and they were pretty damn expensive. All in all, December was a decent month.

Then came 2018.

Author's Note

Oof. I really struggled with this one.

I'm sort of running out of ideas for where i want this story to go, so if you read this chapter, please comment a plot idea!