AUGUST "MAC" MACALLAN RHODES
AGE: 33
BIRTHDAY: June 3rd, 1991
RELATION: Full sibling
TYPE: Solo
GENDER: Non-Binary
PRONOUNS: They/them
ORIENTATION(S): Lesbian
FACE CLAIM: ER Fightmaster
JOB/SCHOOL
JOB: Former WNBA Player, English Professor at PSU, amateur indie musician
ALUMNI?: Alumni
ABOUT
(tw: physical assault, domestic violence, casual drug use)
Preferring to go by the shortened version of their middle name, Mac always knew they were different. They never truly felt at home in their own skin, and for the longest time they never understood why. But that fell by the wayside for most of their childhood as they focused on school, on basketball, and on their siblings. With their mom being so busy with her self-destructive alcoholic spirals, Mac would help out as often as they could with their siblings, not wanting them to feel completely abandoned despite their mother’s noted absence from their lives.
Their biggest love was basketball though, it was their escape, their way of clearing their head, and it turned out they were actually really good at it to. It helped that they always towered over their peers, going from being the tall freak to the star of their women’s high school basketball team. Mac excelled academically as well as on the basketball court, their favourite subjects being English and History, and found themselves adored by all their peers. It made coming out as non-binary a lot easier, no-one really seemed to bat an eyelid when they changed their pronouns and still let them play for their basketball team, and that was all they could really ask for.
It was their basketball skills that scored them a scholarship to PSU where they pursued a double major in English Literature and European History and kept up with their games, the star of PSU’s basketball team right up until the day they graduated. The PSU faculty all but begged them to stay on for a master’s degree, but as it happened a scout for the WNBA’S Chicago Sky had been at several of their games now and offered them a contract they simply couldn’t refuse. Sure, Mac would have rather played for the Chicago Bulls but they knew that the men’s teams were not up to throwing away decades of history and tradition by letting a non-binary player in. Chicago was quite the culture shock from LA, but their newfound basketball family helped them feel at home and soon Mac couldn’t imagine their life anywhere else.
Chicago was where they met Jackson. She was a trainer that worked with Chicago Sky, and seemed to quickly fall for Mac and their dorky sense of humour as well as their athleticism and prowess on the court. It took a little convincing for Mac to agree to a date with her, but once they did, they fell hard and fast, and soon their life was perfect. Their career was thriving, Mac the top of their game and becoming the Sky’s number one player, Jackson was kind and doting and funny, and deep-dish pizza? Elite. They were happy, ridiculously happy.
Until they weren’t. Mac and Jackson were starting to fight a lot, just small things here and there, the way the dishwasher was stacked, whether it was Mac or Jackson that should have made dinner, how much time Mac spent out with their basketball teammates rather than at home, but they were starting to grind them down. They were seriously considering breaking up with her, life was too short for this kind of stress, and as much as they loved Jackson, they simply didn’t feel compatible anymore. However, those plans went out of the window when a seemingly random mugging when Mac was out on a late-night run, her assailant taking a metal softball bat to her leg and shattering her femur.
Mac was lucky to keep their leg, but the bone was shattered so badly and needed so many pins and metal plates, that their basketball career was over. It devastated them, more than being laid up for months, or the extensive PT, or the near constant pain they were in, they were no longer able to do the thing that they loved the most and that was like having their heart ripped out and stomped on. Jackson became their lifeline in that period, not just physically but mentally too, especially when they were confined to their bed thanks to their full leg cast, unable to do any of their normal tasks or routines. She became her whole world, and Mac didn’t see how much of a problem that was until it was too late.
It had been months since they had seen their siblings, their teammates, hell even the delivery man, and Jackson had… changed. She was colder, snappier, everything Mac did seemed to annoy them. They weren’t healing fast enough, they weren’t doing enough around the apartment, they weren’t even trying to get better according to her, even though Mac was pushing themselves to the limits of what they could possibly achieve on any given day. They weren’t used to this, weren’t used to someone being disappointed in them or being so… cruel. Mac had inherited some of their parent’s type A behaviour traits, so staying still and depending on anyone else so completely was entirely alien to them, they hated it.
But Jackson got worse, started withholding their pain meds and using food as a punishment for any perceived slight, wouldn’t let them sleep unless they had completed enough exercises or chores, made them feel small and stupid. So, when a year into their recovery when Jackson hit them for the first time, it wasn’t really that much of a surprise. What it was, was more consolidation that Mac was trapped. Trapped in this apartment, trapped in this relationship, trapped in this life that was nothing like what they had wanted for themselves. They felt defeated and broken, and every bit as useless and pathetic as Jackson kept telling them they were.
Their true breaking point came when the awful truth was revealed. The assailant that had shattered their leg and destroyed everything Mac had worked so hard for? It wasn’t a random stranger in a ski mask, it was Jackson. She had known that they wanted to break up with her, that she was losing them, and had decided to make it so that Mac could never leave her. This woman, that Mac had loved with their whole heart, had spent five years of their life with and had tried like hell to make this relationship work with, was the reason that their life had been irreversibly damaged. Jackson was drunk and bragging about it as if it were something to be proud of, and all Mac could do was stare at her, at the woman laughing maniacally as they described the sound their leg had made when it was broken.
Mac didn’t know where they found the strength from to leave, but the same night that Jackson confessed, they found their phone and called a former teammate. When she saw the state that Mac was in, heard what Jackson had confessed to, she drove Mac straight to the police station to make a report. They fought her on it at first, just wanting to forget any of this had happened, to never think about it ever again, but eventually conceded. The report was made, Mac was taken to the hospital for tests, a checkup, and to have photos taken of their various bruises, and Jackson was arrested.
They weren’t in a good place after escaping from Jackson, and while Mac hadn’t intentionally lost contact with all the most important people in their life, they had and that meant they were without a support system and safety net now that they were alone and spiralling. It wasn’t like they wanted anyone to seem them like this anyway, so instead of trying to reconnect, Mac bought an RV and left Chicago, travelling west with no specific destination in mind, doing online therapy to deal with the fall out of their relationship, and learning to be a person outside of Jackson and basketball. It had been their whole identity, and now they didn’t know who they were. If they weren’t a basketball player, then what were they?
During their time on the road and at their therapist’s suggestion, Mac started to experiment with songwriting, teaching themselves to play the electric guitar too, and slowly, a new passion was found. Music became their outlet, their way of crying out at an unfair world in a healthy and productive way, and they started to play a few open mics here and there as a way of immersing themselves with other people again. They had been alone for almost two years at this point, but they were finally ready to start being human again, start going to coffee shops and restaurants and grocery stores at times when they were more likely to run into people than before.
Feeling in a far healthier spot and hearing that their siblings were mostly in LA now, Mac decided that it was time to fix their relationship with all of them, to start showing up for them again and to stop hiding out. They were still shy and introverted, but decided it was about time to try and be a fully functioning member of society again. Mac took on the job of English Lit Professor at PSU, still working on their music on the side and playing small gigs at various bars, but happy to keep try their hand at teaching right now too. Their leg has caused them pain ever since the attack, even after the bone and the incision had healed, and Mac relies on medical marijuana for relief rather than opiates. They’re aware that this seems a little counter intuitive, but they’re far more comfortable with the idea of marijuana than something like oxycodone or morphine after Jackson had used those to control them.
This is their first year of teaching, and while they’re nervous about it, Mac is feeling a lot more settled in their life right now then they have done since their basketball career was cut short. Maybe this was the way it was always supposed to be.
