✅ My Sister's Problem

39. All Grown Up

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I held the ball between my fingertips, and sent it down to the ground. I caught it a second later, bouncing back exactly where I had expected. I was getting better every time I played, and every time I practised. But this time was different, not just friends throwing a ball around. This was a game, with a referee and everything. Admittedly the ref was just Chain, wearing a tracksuit and a whistle on a string around his neck. He looked like a stereotype of a PE teacher crossed with a dancer from a rap video, and it was hard not to be amused by how hard he was taking it. But we had a referee, and I wondered how different it would be compared to everybody quietly agreeing on the rules.

Our team was me, Hugo, and Jaycen. I didn't know why they'd picked me; I barely had a couple of months of experience, while they'd all been playing for years, and I couldn't match them in height either. I'd never be able to leap as high as the basket; I couldn't even manage it on the one in the Eisens' back garden, which I'd now learned was a foot lower from the days when Hugo had wanted to perfect his slam dunk before he was actually tall enough. Still, Hugo had suggested that I play, and Jaycen hadn't objected. Meghan was cheering us on from outside the cage, and I felt a little guilty that she'd been left off the team after so much practice. But she was enthusiastic and didn't seem upset at all, so maybe there was some subtext that I was missing.

Our opponents were guys I'd seen once or twice, and maybe played with before, but I hadn't known any of their names. They might have joined us in a pick-up game in the past, but never been properly introduced. Now I knew that the tall guy with an Irish accent was Max; the swarthy muscular guy with Japanese writing on every item of clothing introduced himself as Jolly Roger (though his friends called him Rod), and the only girl on their team seemed to go by Shorty. An ironic name for someone who was probably six feet tall even before counting the mohawk, but I guessed that all the jokes about it had been made years before. Now it was just a name, something that only people close to her knew the foll story of. I knew their names, but I still didn't know them. I had no idea what they did outside a basketball court, who their friends were, or where they came from. They weren't friends yet, or even rivals. Just people who shared a hobby.

When I thought about that, it made me understand a little better. That was how Hugo thought about his friends; he barely knew anything except the interests they shared. He might know who was fastest, who was tallest, and who could challenge his incredible pass accuracy. But he didn't know anything about their families or their relationships, and never thought to ask. He saw them as the guys he played basketball with, rather than close friends. And the guys he played mahjongg with at the weekends were just that. If I asked, he would have no idea whether any of them could play a sport. Maybe it was an autistic thing; he'd said he was on the spectrum somewhere. He saw people through the lens of how they had met, and it would take conscious effort for him to learn anything more about the people he spent so much time with. In a way, he saw the community around him as a group, and never quite felt like part of it.

Nadine had asked him to teach her basketball. So she was a basketball player. He hadn't known there was anything else behind that question. He hadn't even thought about it. I couldn't imagine being so oblivious; but maybe there were things that I overlooked just as easily. And now he wanted to be sure that I was interested in the sport, and not just using it as an excuse to get close to him. I was sure I could prove that, but less confident that I could do it soon. I really wanted him to trust me, so much that I didn't even know whether it was him or the sport that attracted me most. But I'd set myself a goal of proving that I was improving when we first had a real game. When I was playing against someone who wouldn't let me win just so I would learn faster.

That day was today. I wasn't playing for some rivalry between neighbourhoods, or whatever it was. I was playing for Hugo, to prove that I was worthy of his attention. To show him that I was good enough to fit into his basketball-friends mental group. So what if I would have preferred him to see me as girlfriend material, or just a close friend. So what if, until recently, I'd been classified as one of his little sister's friends. I wanted to see him smile. And more than anything I wanted him to respect me. I didn't know why I'd suddenly become interested in basketball. Maybe it was because of how good the boy next door looked when he played. But when I did something, I had to do it well. And I wanted more than anything to show him that I was serious.

I was nervous, of course I was. It was a high scoring game so far, with everyone throwing themselves heavily into offence. We were already halfway through, and I felt like the guys were starting to respect me. But compared to the friendly games of the last few weeks, I noticed that they were a lot more focused on the ball. They didn't glance in my direction so often. They looked at the ball, and who had it. And when we were in possession, they were looking for spaces; places where they could get past the defence. It was a whole different game. Intimidating, but exciting too. I was determined to show them that I was good enough to play alongside them. Not just that I had potential, after so much practice; the time had come that I needed to prove that I was better than I had been.

I managed to get a little further, but Shorty got the ball off me and I cursed my slow reactions. She would never have managed that in a hockey game, but I hadn't fully adapted to a new sport. I was taking a second to think how to respond, and in that time I was an easy target.

I wondered if I was letting my team down. Letting my friends down. They must have noticed my moment of awkwardness. And I noticed that they weren't looking at me so often after that. Maybe it was just because I noticed it more. It could just have been that they weren't making an effort to include me while they actually cared about winning. They didn't have a glance to spare for the dead weight. Or perhaps I just wasn't in the right place, it was hard to know. I got the ball a few times, but always passed it on to Hugo or Jaycen before anyone was close enough to steal. I'd lost my confidence then, and they didn't even offer reassurances. They were more concerned with victory than my feelings.

I could have resented that, but I knew the feelings too well. I knew how hard it was when one of my teammates in a league game wasn't on the ball. Having to choose between passing to someone I trusted to score, and a girl who hadn't gotten a touch all day because she was distracted. I knew they were doing what they had to do, and I tried not to see myself as the dead weight. I would prove to them again that I'd learned enough to be useful.