The next week I had two tickets to the game. Quinn made sure I attended every game. He had finally found me two seats I liked. We were a few rows behind the home bench where I felt a little safer. If a ball came careening through the stands, if ball players were in front of us it would naturally be their instinct to grab the ball.
Something became apparent to me that evening in late November: the Matrix were a horrible team. They had accumulated a grand total of three wins and twelve losses. They were far and away the worst team in the league. The fans had realized that the time of transition and rebuilding was going to be a painful one. The demeanor of the crowd had already changed in barely two months. They expected lackluster performances and had begun to heckle their own players when a poor shot was taken or a foul called. Going to games wasn't as fun for Quinn anymore and it showed in everything he did.
He took to spending his off days with me, hanging out at my place, but the usual smile on his face was replaced with a frown. That frown made its way to game days as well. They were playing New York and by the half were down by twenty-four points, There would be no comebacks on this night, just like every other night in Charlotte and other playing facilities around the country when the Matrix were in town.
The loss was a convincing one, by more than thirty points. By the end of the game, the fans that remained heckled their team straight off the court. It was an altogether humiliating night for the team and one Quinn didn't want to talk about until the next afternoon. He'd come home from practice dejected. He asked if I'd like to take a walk with him in the park, so that he could relax. I knew he wanted to talk, maybe to vent, and I hoped he would finally open up to me. It was a warm and sunny afternoon, but fall was definitely in the air, and I wore a wool sweater as we walked through the park and sat at a bench overlooking an empty playground. It was nearing dinnertime and there was no one around.
"I hate losing," he said. "I get to the game and I already know how it's going to end. I'm twenty-six, Claire, I'm in my prime. I should be playing the best ball of my life and I don't seem to care. It's depressing."
"Every team peaks, Quinn. And right now you happen to be bottoming out. But it can't and it won't stay like that forever. So your team plays like shit, big deal! You don't win this year, hell, you may never win a championship. But you can become a better player. Some very great players played on some horrible teams. Look at Wendell Clark. He shone with the Leafs when they couldn't win if they were playing in a senior's league."
He chuckled at the analogy. "But I'm expected to raise the level of the team and it's so much pressure. If I play the ball myself, I'm greedy. If I give it away they tell me to shoot. I can't win no matter how hard I try. And the fans have had enough, and how can I blame them? They pay could money to see us play like shit."
"Forget what your coach and teammates say, and definitely forget about the fans. What do you think you should do?"
"I want to give the ball away all the time."
"Why?"
"I feel better when I give it to another player. They are more likely to score."
I furrowed my brow. "You can't score?"
He shrugged. "I can, but they are better at it."
I wasn't letting him get off that easy. "Who exactly? I've been to every home game this year. Exactly who shoots better than you?"
"Goran does."
I scoffed at that. "He averages four points more a game then you do, but he takes twice as many shots. That doesn't make him a better shooter."
I could see him thinking about it now. "Williams. He's a better player. He's good for eighteen or nineteen every game."
"Fair enough, but that's his job. He should be scoring more like twenty-five points a game."
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RomanceClaire needs an escape from her old life, a life filled with nothing but pain. On a whim, she makes a move to Charlotte, North Carolina. She knows no one there, just like she wants it. Things don't go as planned. She doesn't make friends easily at...