The Cat Comes Out

February 3, 2020.

2 weeks and 5 games went by with Chance as starter. It wasn't too much fun watching from the side as Chance scored big on the court, but I had had worse weeks. I still scored in most games and I decently contributed to the team, which was at least still better than at the beginning of the season. The teams we had faced in the past weeks had been tough. We had only won two of the fives game, and since our ranking wasn't too high in the first place, it had really dipped us down. To even have the slightest chance at making the playoffs, we'd have to turn things around fast.

On the brighter side, I had played a couple Call of Duty games with Luke and we'd caught up a little. Knowing that I had set things straight with him had also improved my mood, since it was one less thing that I had to carry around with me.

I thought about this while I sat in biology class, mindlessly listening to Mrs. Keaton's lecture. When I felt myself falling to sleep for the third time, I decided to distract myself and scratched a Tic-Tac-Toe grid into the desk. I nudged my desk-mate, Harper, who placed an O in the center despite looking as if the game was below her. I put an X to the right of her O and she put an O in the bottom right corner. I put an X in the top left corner, and she put an O in the bottom left corner. I put an X in the top right corner, but I was trapped. I frowned as she put an O in the bottom center square and won the game, immediately turning her attention back to the teacher. I put my head on my fist and tried to give the teacher as much attention as I possibly could. After the lecture was over, we were given assignments to complete on our own. (which meant that I would be getting help from Harper).

"Hey Harper?" I started.

"Sure thing," Harper replied, "but you have to let me sit with you at lunch."

"Why do you want—"

"I got into an argument with Aubrey," she said, "and so now I don't want to sit with her or the other girls I usually do because I don't want to seem desperate."

"What—" I kicked myself mentally for even starting to ask. "Sure, yeah. You can sit with us. It's just me and Austin now. We're going to have to find a table for more than two, though, which might be hard."

"Eh, we'll just get there first."

"Yeah, but you know how some cliques are with their tables," I pointed out. "But if worst comes to worst, I'll pull up a chair."

"Okay, sounds great."

After the bell rang, Harper and I walked into the cafeteria and got our food. We looked around for Austin, but like usual he wasn't there yet, so we looked around for tables that weren't already taken.

"What about that one?" I asked, pointing.

"That's where the football players sit," Harper said. "But what about that one there?"

"I think that's where the drama kids sit."

"And that one?" Harper pointed to another.

"Noo, absolutely not," I replied. "That's where the Giggle Girls sit."

"What?" Harper said.

"It's a group of girls like the ones you usually sit with, only they do makeup, talk about boys, and eat salads all lunch long. Oh, and did I mention the giggling?"

I shifted my gaze far from the Giggle Girls' table and my eyes fell upon one rather odd table in the corner.

"Hey!" I said, walking towards it. "Let's take this one. I've never seen anyone sitting here."

"Yeah, that's because it's the Crooked Table," Harper said. "No one's sat there for years."

I examined the table. It certainly was crooked, but it was also rather large. There were two chairs on each side of the table that was jutting out, and back against the wall there was a bench going across. The table itself was wider than it was long, which made it look rather awful. I jumped over the table, which was crooked to one side, and onto the bench. I took the corner spot and leaned back against the wall.

"I don't see what's so bad about this table," I said.

Harper looked around for any other tables, but by then they had all been taken.

"Fine," she said, setting down her food tray and coming to sit beside me on the bench.

Austin finally arrived several minutes later, and he looked confused when he saw me sitting at the Crooked Table with Harper. I beckoned for him to come over and he did.

"Hey, take a seat," I told him.

"Oh, I didn't know..." Austin looked at Harper and then back at me. "I can give you two some alone time if—"

Harper looked at me and started to say something, but I turned to Austin. "No, it's not that," I said before he could finish. "Harper just needed somewhere to sit. Harper this is my friend Austin and Austin this is my friend Harper."

"Hi," Harper said.

"Hey," Austin put down his lunch box and sat down in one of the two seats opposite me, looking nervous all of the sudden. "I've never had lunch with a girl before."

"No?" said Harper. "Well I can give you some pointers on how to do it. First step is to make sure your zipper isn't undone."

Austin's eyes widened and he glanced down and immediately tried to fix his zipper. I shot Harper a glance.

"What?" she muttered. "I noticed it when he walked up, and I couldn't help myself."

I was about to make a retort, but someone walked up. It was Wesley, carrying his lunch tray.

"Hey, Blake?" he said.

"What's up Wes?" I asked him.

"Well Finn's not here today and I don't care much for the rest of his friends, so I was wondering if I could—"

"Sure, take a seat," I said, knowing what he was going to ask.

"Cool, thanks," he replied as he sat down beside Austin, leaving the two other seats open.

"And now it's a party," said Harper.

Harper seemed a little perturbed at a bunch of people she didn't really know sitting with me and her, but I didn't mind it. Since my falling out with Cam, Nathan, and Max, I had been sitting with just Austin. Austin was cool and all, but we were running out of conversation topics quickly. At least this was interesting and different.

I introduced Wesley to Austin and Harper and we all ate and talked for the rest of the lunch period. Austin and Harper mainly just listened when Wesley and I talked basketball, and Wesley and Austin started their own conversation after Harper started explaining the biology homework to me. It wasn't long before the bell rang for us to exit lunch.

We all got up to go our own ways.

"Thanks for letting me hang with you Blake," Wesley said. "I might sit with y'all more often. Better conversations than I got with Finn's friends."

"Not a problem," I replied. "Sit with us whenever. I guess Crooked Table is ours now."

"Oh, and I like you," he said, motioning to Austin. "You're pretty cool. And I don't think you're weird at all."

I raised my eyebrows. "You don't?" Austin asked.

"Well, you're a little weird," Wesley admitted, chuckling. "But in a cool way."

"Thanks!" Austin said. "I think you're cool too."

"Alright, see you guys." Wesley headed out of the cafeteria.

"I made a new friend!" Austin exclaimed when he was gone.

"Yep, you did," I laughed. "Just don't forget about me with this newfound popularity."

Austin just grinned and headed toward his class.

"Wesley didn't say that he liked me," pouted Harper when we were the last ones.

"Well you didn't talk to him much," I pointed out.

"That's fair," Harper said. "I guess I thought it was going to be just me and you here."

"Well Austin and Wesley are cool," I said. "Just give it a week or so of sitting with them and talk with them some and you'll come to like them. Austin's been my friend since I moved here, and I only met Wesley several months ago, but he's probably my best friend on the team now."

"A week or so?"

"Yeah," I replied. "Wesley's going to sit here again tomorrow, and you should too. It's about time that we break up the cliques anyway."

"Maybe you're right," she said. "I don't need Aubrey's drama to have a fun lunch. She can talk about her problems with the other girls."

"Sounds great," I said as I threw my trash away. "I'm off to English, but I'll see you in art?"

"Yep," she said, and we parted ways.

The rest of the day went by and it was on to practice. Before I could get the chance to warm up, though, Maia came up to me.

"The coach needs you in his office," she said.

"What for?" I asked.

"I dunno, he just told me to find you."

I walked into Coach Hendrix's office, thinking in the back of my head that I had already gotten called into his office way too many times.

"Blake, sit down," he said, as he usually did. "I have just heard something very interesting from my son."

He pointed to his left, and I noticed Jackson sitting there for the first time. What is this about?

"Is it true," the coach continued, "that you neither started the fight nor laid a finger on Chance?"

"I, uh—"

"It is true," Jackson interrupted. "I saw it happen."

"Why didn't you come to me before?" Hendrix asked.

"I just... I thought that if I didn't, Chance would be my starting shooting guard again."

The coach's lips tightened into a line. "Go wait outside," he told his son. "We'll talk about this after."

Jackson left, giving me an apologetic glance.

"So Blake, why didn't you come to me before?" he asked me once Jackson had gone.

"Well, you'd already been told the same story by Chance and Nathan, so—"

"How did you know Nathan was the witness?"

"Oh well I just figured. I mean, Nathan and I aren't exactly friends anymore so it would make sense for him to back Chance up," I explained. "He thought I was trying to take the spotlight from him, so I figured he and Chance both had the same reason to get me out of the picture."

The coach put his head down on his desk. "Why didn't you come to me with any of this?"

"Like I was saying before, you had already gotten your take on what happened and I didn't want to make the situation worse for myself if you thought I was lying to you."

"So you took the blame?"

I was a week or so off the team and my position. I needed a week to straighten myself out anyway, and I figured that if I really deserved the position then I'd earn it back."

"Hmm," said Hendrix, raising his head to stare at me. "I've never coach a kid quite like you, Blake. There's something different about you."

"Thank you?" I replied.

"Anyway, Chance is losing his starting spot and I'm not going to let either Jackson or Nathan play either for the next couple of games, so how would you like the position of starting point guard?" he raised his eyebrows at me.

"Me?" I replied. "Are you sure?"

"Well I'm down both my point guards, and you've proven yourself to be the Blake Manson I accepted on the team, so I don't see why not."

I thought about it, but something was nagging at me. I couldn't accept his offer.

"I'm sorry sir, but I can't."

"You can't what?" Hendrix looked surprised.

"Don't take Jackson and Nathan off the team."

"What are you talking about? Nathan lied to me about what happened and Jackson kept it a secret."

"Jackson just wanted his friend back on the team, and Nathan was mad at me for something different," I explained. "I've held too many grudges in this sport, and all they do is weigh me down. So let's just forget about all of this."

"I can't forget about this," the coach said. "I have to give them a punishment for what they did, no matter why they did it."

"Okay then, double workouts in practice for the next week," I suggested.

"If I do that, you don't get your position as point guard," the coach pointed out. "The position that you've been working towards."

"I'm not going to stop working towards it," I said. "I'm glad I've finally proven to you to be the person you accepted onto the team, but I don't think I'm that person yet. And if I am that person, than I'm going to work to be even better. I won't take the road that's easiest, because that's not the one worth taking."

The coach pondered this for a long time. "Maybe the person I accepted onto this team had more to him that I had thought. I looked on and saw a good leader on the court, but now I look on and see one that's an even better leader off it. Ever since you decided to run for that kid you didn't even know in tryouts, you haven't ceased to surprise me."

"Thank you?" I said again, never sure exactly what to think.

"Go on and practice," the coach said. "You're dismissed. Oh, and I'm giving them two weeks of double workouts at least."

I nodded and walked out of the office. Jackson was waiting by the door, and he started to follow me.

"Hey, we need to talk about—"

"It's fine," I said quickly, not really wanting to talk about it any further.

"Yeah, that's what we need to talk about," he said, walking in front of me and blocking my path to the court. "I heard what you said in there, about forgetting the whole thing and not kicking me and Nathan off the team. Why? I mean, we both basically lied and got you suspended from the team."

"That's why," I said simply. "If this keeps going on, I'm not going to be able to enjoy my time on the team, even if I do get the position. In my time here this year, I've not only made enemies but lost friends. If that's going to stop, someone's got to stop it. And so I will. That's part of the reason I accepted the punishment in the first place. My middle school team were all really close to each other, and that's how I want it to be here too. Besides, it harder to win a championship with a team who all hate each other."

Jackson nodded slowly. "Look man, I'm really sorry that I didn't speak up. I shouldn't have let Chance blame it on you, and I should have tried to stop Nathan too. I think Chance beating you up in the first place was going way too far, and I should have stopped it before it got to that point. I'm supposed to be the team captain, but look what a stellar job I've been doing."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "I'm guessing that you've known Chance way longer than you've known me, and it's only natural to stick up for your friend."

"I'll talk to Chance," Jackson said. "I'm sure you two can come to an understanding. Maybe we'll all be good friends in the end."

I shook my head. "Nah, Chance hates my guts and that's the way it's going to be. And since I've stolen his position again, he'll only hate me more now. I don't want you to force him to try and get along with me, because that will only build up the resentment. If we ever becomes friends, which is doubtful, it'll have to be real. I've realized this year that lying and keeping things hidden never works out. But in the very least you could keep him from physically harming me, right?"

Jackson smiled. "Sure. And so where does that leave me and you?"

"Acquaintances who've forgotten their past conflict and make a mean basketball duo?"

Jackson laughed. "That works for me."

We decided on a fist bump to end a conversation that would then be forever behind us. And then we joined the rest of the team to practice for South Miami's major comeback.