I Meet An Old Friend

January 21, 2020.

By the time the rest of the week had gone by and a new one had started, my dad had officially forgotten about the whole basketball fiasco. From all I knew, he had only come home early once or twice to confirm I was there before abandoning the whole thing. He was apparently satisfied that I was off the team, though, because he didn't bring it up again. I had gone to my first practice being back on the team yesterday, where it went pretty well overall. I had practiced a little since being suspended from the team, but I had to avoid it whenever my dad was around so he'd stay ignorant. I saw a little decline in my performance compared to the last game I had played, but it wasn't anything huge. At least, that's what I thought.

I went home at regular time from practice yesterday just to be cautious that I wasn't caught missing, where I had read a text from the coach saying that he had chosen that Chance would return to starting shooting guard position and that I would be playing in the secondary (or backup) team. Which meant that I wouldn't be starting in the game later today. I was pretty annoyed at this, but I was determined not to make a big deal out of it. I knew I'd get my chance again, if I just continued to work hard and do my best with the time I got. Still, it did bug me. Why did the coach give Chance the position over me? We had both gotten into the fight and I had been a starter before the fight, so why didn't I get the position back?

"You should pay attention, man," said Wesley, nudging my arm.

I glanced over at him and then back to the front of the classroom suddenly, trying to estimate how long it had been since I had stopped paying attention.

"Aren't we about to leave?" I asked him after reading the clock on the wall.

"Should be," he said, "but you know Mrs. Nickels. It's not over till it's over."

"Right," I muttered, sinking down in my seat a little.

Mrs. Nickels apparently noticed this motion, though, because she instantly shot me a look.

"Finding me class boring now are ve?" she said in her exotic accent. "Not listening to vot Mrs. Nickels has to says, hmm?"

"No, I'm listening," I ensured.

"Really?" said the teacher, looking surprised. "Then vot is it I say, boy?"

Wesley looked over at me, trying not to laugh. "Well now, let's see..." I tried to rack my brain, but I hadn't been listening after all. "That's a great question."

"Vell you better study hard for the quiz this Friday, because it vill be a hard one."

"I will do that," I said.

"Now," Mrs. Nickels said, looking at the clock and forgetting about the previous conversation. "Sporty kids, out. Your bus vill be leaving soon."

"That's us," Wesley said, and he and I grabbed our bags and headed for the door.

"Oh, and boys?"

"Yes Mrs. Nickels?" we asked.

"Beat Southridge for us," she said. "It has been avile since our team has beat them."

"Will do," said Wesley as we walked out of the classroom to a chorus of 'good luck' from the students.

Wesley and I walked toward the stairwell together.

"When did JV basketball become so popular?" I asked. "At the beginning of the season, no one could care less about our games as long as varsity did well."

"It became so popular when people started watching you play," Wesley answered.

"Well," I said, "they're gonna be disappointed tonight."

"Come on," replied Wesley. "You'll still get to play some. And you'll have your starting spot back in no time."

"Yeah, you're probably right," I said, and we walked the rest of the way down to the bus.

We boarded the bus, greeted the driver, and made our way to our spot in the back. Before we could get there though, Maia came up from behind us and tapped me on the shoulder. We turned to her.

"Hey, sorry," she looked to me, then to Wesley, and then back at me. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

I glanced over to Wesley, who just shrugged, so I followed Maia to her seat toward the front of the bus while Wesley continued to the back.

"What's up?" I asked her after she had taken her window seat and I had sat down in the aisle one.

"I don't think you provoked the fight between you and Chance," she said.

"Oh," I replied, caught off guard. "You don't?"

"No," she said, turning to stare out the bus window. "I think that Chance got someone to be a fake witness to what happened."

"Maybe..." I muttered, and then, "hey, no offense, but why do you care so much?"

"I don't know," she said, not looking the least bit offended. "I mean, I wasn't there or anything when it happened, so I don't know what went down. But I was just thinking about it, and there was really no reason for you to attack Chance. He was the one that was kicked off the team, and he had just lost his spot as a starter. So it really makes more sense for Chance to attack you."

"Yep," I said, reluctant to relive what happened or even dive too much into the subject. "That does make more sense."

"So what did happen?" Maia asked, looking from the window to me and nudging my arm. "How did it actually go down?"

"Look, I appreciate you trying to help me and wanting to hear me out and all," I said as the bus lurched and started to move. "But it doesn't really matter how it happened anymore. It's over, and I'm off as a starter."

"Yeah, but if Coach Hendrix knew what really happened, he'd give you your spot back," Maia persisted. "There's got to be another witness who will stick up for you."

I shook my head. "No one was there that I know that Chance doesn't know better. Besides, I guarantee they're too afraid that Chance will find out they told. But it's whatever. I'm prepared to earn my spot back."

"You already earned it," said Maia. "You shouldn't have lost it in the first place."

"I'll tell you what happened, okay?" I finally gave in. "But don't go spreading it around. The last thing I need from this is more drama."

"Deal."

I spent the remainder of the bus ride explaining what had happened in the fight to Maia. Of course, the ride wasn't much more than just a few minutes. Southride, the team they were playing, was also in Miami and it was probably the closest school that was in the league with them.

When we reached Southridge, the whole team got out of the bus and the JV team went to get changed. Then we all practiced for a little while. Everything pregame had become a routine for everyone, even freshmen like me (which the JV team mostly consisted of anyway). We'd get on the road, arrive at the school, get changed, and then practice. We'd have some full court practice time and then we'd share the court with the home team, who'd had their full court time before we arrived even though they probably didn't get too much. We'd been sharing the court for about ten minutes before I finally noticed one of the opposing team's players.

"What?" asked Wesley, seeing the look on my face. Him and Finn came over to see what I was looking at.

"One of their players," I muttered, pointing. "I can't believe I didn't see it before now. I totally forgot he was on the team here."

"Who?" asked Finn, scanning the crowd of players.

"Yeah, what are you talking about?" added Wesley.

"Luke," I said, and they just looked at me, confused. "Number 5. He was on my middle school team."

"Oh, that's cool," said Wesley.

"Yeah well things didn't go so well between me and him when he decided to transfer to Southridge."

"Ah. So now you're, like, rivals?"

"I thought Chance was his rival," Finn said to Wesley.

"Oh yeah, that's right. You got a lot of rivals, man," said Wesley.

"Well it's not intentional," I said. "I actually make a decent effort to stay out of drama, if you can believe it."

"Hmm," Wesley replied. "So you and him gonna be competing for who gets more points?"

"I doubt it," I said. "I'm not starting this game, and Southridge would be stupid not to start Luke, so I have a feeling that the scores will be far from close."

I was right. The game didn't go at all as we had planned. I ended up getting four points, which I thought was decent enough. Jackson and Chance didn't perform as well together as they had done at the beginning of the season, which caused the team to suffer a lot. It also didn't help that Cam had been obsessed with scoring throughout the entire game. He had hogged the ball through almost the entire first quarter, before the coach had to take him out. I knew what it was all about, too. Unlike me, Cam had been starting, and he had wanted to out-score Luke. That hadn't ended up happening though, since Coach Hendrix had taken him out and didn't put him back in until the last part of the fourth quarter. Nathan and Max had also been off a little with Luke's presence, but Wesley, Finn, Diego, and Xavier had done alright. Tucker went another game without scoring any points, and Zane had sprained his ankle during the second quarter.

Meanwhile, Luke had been going off. He had been playing the position of point guard, which was different than what he used to play in middle school. He had always been shooting guard. It would be me as point guard, him as shooting guard, Nathan as small forward, Cam as power forward, and Max as center. But he had apparently been given the point guard position. And he rocked it. I had watched him from the bench when he was on the court and I wasn't, and he played the point guard position well. The way he had moved in sync with his whole team had reminded me of our middle school days. It even made me a little jealous at one time, but I quickly pushed the feeling down. I decided I would feel happy for him. I had spent so much time with Cam, Nathan, and Max putting Luke down for deserting us, but now I felt like I had been deserted by them too. I had decided that I would seek Luke out after the game. But before I could, he found me.

A couple minutes after the game had ended and Southridge had won, I went to the water fountain. When I finished and turned around, he was standing right there.

"Blake Manson," he said. I tried to study his expression and tone, but I got nothing. He was completely poker-faced.

"Luke, I—"

"Ah," he interrupted. "Hold that. If you're going to lay into me for leaving the team, you might can save some breath. Cam, Nathan, and Max have already done that."

"Hey hey," Wesley walked by and poked in the conversation. "All happy talk here, I hope." He looked at Luke.

"Yep, we're cool," Luke replied, putting up his hands.

"Good to hear," Wesley said, and he walked off.

"Make some new friends?" he asked once they had gone.

"Not as many as you," I countered.

"Hmm," said Luke. "So, why weren't you giving me a piece of your mind before the game like the other three were?"

"A while back, Cam, Nathan, Max, and I had a sort of falling out," I told him honestly.

"I see," Luke said. "Another friendship ending unpleasantly."

"Yeah, about that," I started. "Look, I'm really sorry about how we treated you when you decided to transfer."

"It's cool," Luke said.

"No, it's not. It was uncalled for, and we made it into a big deal. You were just trying to find the best opportunity for yourself, and we shouldn't have blamed you for that."

Luke nodded. "Apology accepted."

"And it obviously worked out for you, too," I added. "I mean, you whooped us today."

Luke laughed. "Yeah we did, didn't we?"

"Hey, you should come over some time."

"To your side of South Miami?" Luke said. "Nooo."

"Fair enough," I grinned. "But at least call sometime or hop on for a game of 2K."

"Call of Duty work?" he asked.

"Absolutely," I replied.

"Oh, and this doesn't change anything, by the way," Luke said. "I'm not going easy on you next time our teams meet."

"Oh no, I wouldn't expect you to," I told him. "You won't need to, either. It might be next time we meet or in our senior year, but I'll be back. And not as a backup. I'm going to be the starting point guard of this team eventually, and when I do you'd better watch yourself."

I raised out my hand and Luke shook it. "I look forward to that."