Straighter than Parallel Parking

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{ Chapter Seventeen: The Blood We Share is Not As Thick As Water }

WTH THE FLARE OF DRAMATICS THAT CIRCLED JANICE for a solid week after her confrontations with her aunt and father, Janice believes she is entitled to a little personal space.

In sweatpants, hair ties, rubber shoes and a beautiful, roughing game of street basketball.

Sitting on the edge of the street, panting heavily while draining a bottle of water, Janice welcomes the thin lining of sweat dribbling down her head like the orange ball is on the pavement in front of her.

She watches the teams pummel into each other; guarding, shooting, cursing and shouting encompassing the area. Stretching the burning muscles in her limbs, she contemplates about the first time she'd mustered up the courage to play with these guys.

The teasing for her began before she could remember. She was short—one of the shortest —and considered too puny to be on court with the rest of the bigger boys, like a wimpy little girl who got sick of dressing her dolls. 

One of the older boys in the neighbourhood, around 16 at the time named Julio (he visited now, having moved out), had turned down her offer of playing on with them and giggled with cockiness.

When Karlo was about to step up to defend his wicked talented sister—even though he was good two years younger than Julio and almost soiled his pants in doing so—Janice surprised them all when she challenged the boy to a shoot-off.

Julio had then laughed it off and accepted.

The bets were simple; if he won, she couldn't play. If she won, she was queen of the court.

Little did Julio know was that Janice had been going to a basketball camp for four years (she still continues the program every summer), and what she did lack in height, she brought back up in accuracy. So when you're beaten by a sixth grader who wears band shirts and ripped jeans, there's never really room for underestimation ever again.

That's why Janice loves breaking rules and classifications; because everything is considered impossible until you prove others wrong (and if anything, Janice likes to believe she can be right 120% of the time).

"Janice... you're... on..." wheezes one of her teammates, Cole, who promptly collapsed to her left. "God... they're... crushing... us."

Janice pats the poor boy's head. "I've got you. Try and remember how to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and I'll try and save our team's dignity, yeah?"

"I'll be the best... plant there is! Good... luck," he wishes her, before closing his eyes to regain his breath. "Try no... broken noses... yeah?"

"No promises," smirks Janice, who was already tying her loose shoelaces, getting up and shouting, "Yo! In replacement for Cole. Prepare to lose."

"Losers bring fried chicken?" bets one of her teammates.

"We're up by seven, why not?" agrees the other team's leader, Harry, narcism coating his words. "To 25 points!"

Ten minutes later, Janice pries the meat off of another crusty piece of meat. She moans as the taste assaults her tongue. "Victory seriously is delicious."

"Yeah, yeah, eat up our twenty bucks," grumbles Harry good-naturedly.

"With pleasure," coaxes Janice, ignoring the weariness in her movements from a tiring game.

"I keep forgetting how good you are," says her teammate, Evans. "Not seeing you for a while makes that easy to forget."

There are seven of them out today, her brothers and the rest of the boys either grounding in job hours, fishing through Tuesday plans, or too lazy to do anything more than sleep-in.