The Start

Loving you was never my intent.

So why did we end the way we did?

_____

This first year of college was filled with so many ups and downs. So much pain and loss occurred in the span of less than a year. Through it all, he was the only one who made my life bearable.

_____

"Thank you for helping clean up Karis!" My coach calls to me.

I had just finished putting away the chairs that were used during our school's basketball tournament.

"Of course!" I smile back.

"I need to talk to someone and I'll be back to give you a ride home." He replies while walking towards another coach from a different school.

I turn around to pick up my backpack from the bleachers where I had left it when I helped with the after game clean up.

"Wanna shoot?" A voice called from behind me.

Turning around, I find myself face to face with a stranger.

The stranger was leaning in towards me so our eyes would meet.

I look around to see if there was someone else he was talking to.

There was no one else around.

I look back to him and point to myself as if to ask, "me?"

He smiles and stands upright, towering over me.

"Is there anyone else I would be talking to?"

I mean, in a way yes, since I don't know who this man is.

"No?" I reply, still unsure.

He lets out a slight laugh.

"So you down?"

"Sure." I reply, "Let me put my shoes on."

This experience was new. Never in my life had I been approached by a man. Much less one I didn't know.

To my slight disappointment, just as I was about to pull my basketball shoes from my backpack, my coach called out to me ready to take me home.

"I think I actually have to go." I say turning to the mystery stranger.

"It's cool." He smiles. "Next time."

So there's a next time.

"Okay." I smile back.

_____

That night I couldn't stop thinking about him. His smile. The way his eyes sparkled so naturally. How he towered over me. And the most important part, why he approached me the way he did.

I stare at the dark ceiling from the comfort of my bed and continue to ask questions I would never get the answers to.

I had seen him around the school as the men's team shared a gym with the women's team, but I had never spoken to him or interacted with him.

I saw the way he was with his teammates and assumed he was the "class clown" of the group, but hearing the way he softly spoke to me earlier in the day made me think there was more to him than he revealed.

Being the teenage girl I am, I decided to do some investigation work. The fact that I can't stop thinking about him means I should look into who he is. Right?

I roll over in my bed to grab my phone off the nightstand where it lay charging.

"If he's on the mens team, that means he is on the roster."

I type in our school's name and the men's basketball team roster into the search bar on my browser.

"Ben."

So that's his name.

I sigh and turn to my side.

"Should I look up his socials?"

Curiosity got the best of me and in a couple minutes I had his Instagram.

It's public.

As if a magic force took over me, I pressed the follow button.

"Are you stupid?" I ask myself. "He doesn't even really know you, and you for sure don't know him."

I snap out of my momentary delusion and quickly unfollow.

I scroll through his feed.

He's pretty.

Basketball takes up most of his feed, but there are a couple posts of just him.

"Why did someone like this talk to me?"

I shake my head and put my phone back on the nightstand.

I have practice tomorrow. I can't be staying awake wasting time on someone I don't even know.

"If only I had made conversation with him instead of standing there like a dumbass."

_____

The next day at practice, I found myself at the gym earlier than usual.

"Am I crazy?" I ask myself while standing outside the gym doors.

How could one person I never actually met be the reason behind my actions?

I sigh and walk through the door.

I sit on the bleachers while waiting for the men's team to finish their practice.

"Wow. They practice so hard." I say to myself. "That's probably why they are so good... If only my team could be the same way."

As I sat there, I felt the gaze of someone's eyes piercing me from afar.

Looking up, my eyes searched for the origin of the gaze.

Ben. It was Ben.

Our eyes met and time seemed to stop. Neither of us could look away as we made eye contact from across the gym.

When he finally took his gaze elsewhere, I could feel myself smiling in a way I had never smiled before.

What is this? What is this smile? This feeling?

I slap my face with both hands to snap out of the confusion.

Finally their practice was over and mine was about to start.

I take a deep breath as my teammates, my former friends, walk through the gym doors.

Earlier in the month, we had a falling out. There was no reason behind it, and none of them wanted to talk about it.

One day we were best friends, the next I was an outcast.

No big deal.

Only it was.

I had found people I really loved to be around for the first time ever. I poured in all my effort and loved them to the point that I was scared to ever lose them.

Maybe that's why I lost them. Did I become too clingy?

I feel my hands start to tremble as they walked straight past me like we were strangers. Like we had no history together.

Grabbing my reusable pill case, I stand up and quickly make my way to the bathroom. Tylenol and Advil help quell my nerves and quiet the pains in my body.

Splashing my face with water I tried to calm myself down.

"It's okay. You're okay." I reassure myself.

I know I'm not okay.

I walk back into the gym and past the group of girls. As if we were in middle school, I hear them giggling and whispering about me as I pass by.

"If they wanted to talk about me, they could have been better at whispering." I think to myself.

Throughout the practice I felt my confidence draining. Raspberries were blown when I tried to shoot or go for a layup. Snickers were heard every time I messed up.

When practice was finally over I was drained both physically and mentally.

Tomorrow we have a game and I don't think I'll be able to perform.

Good thing I'm stuck on the bench.