Daylight - Paige Bueckers

no hands

October 9th, 2022

Alex's POV

Sunday morning rolled around again and I'm definitely suffering the consequences of my actions the night before. Although I spent Saturday night at home with my roommates, we still shared enough shitty wine to last a lifetime. I popped an Advil, took a quick shower, and got ready to head over to the student union. 

The walk over to the student union was peaceful and quiet, a slight chill in the autumn air. As I begin to approach the door, I see someone sitting on a bench outside of the building. Paige. 

"Hey" I smile at her. 

"Hey" she says, standing up from her seat. 

As we're walking inside she asks "Do you need any help setting up?"

"Uhhh, if you wanna just grab some plates and napkins out of the cabinet and set them out, that would be great" I respond to her. 

"Yeah sure" she says, doing what I had asked. 

The rest of the group continued to roll in and we began our session. After talking and listening for about an hour, we decided to wrap it up. I begin to clean everything up and notice that Paige is lingering. 

"So what do you think?" I ask her. 

"Yeah, it was good. I like coming here" she says. 

"Good, I'm glad you like it. Thought maybe it could help you" I say. 

She stares at me, somewhat of a perplexed look on her face. "Where are you from?" she asks. "I've been meaning to ask you that"

I giggle and say "I grew up in North Carolina"

"Ohhh, that makes sense. You have a little bit of an accent" she smiles. 

"Only when I say certain words, I think. How about you?" I respond. 

"Minnesota" she says. 

"Being so real with you, I don't even know where Minnesota is" I say.

She laughs at my response and I notice how pretty her laugh is, making me smile. 

"So what brought you to UConn then?" she asks me.  

"Cheer" I say. "I signed when I was a senior in high school. I would ask what brought you here, but I already know it was basketball"

"It definitely was basketball. I'm glad I chose UConn though" she says. 

"Me too" I smile. 

"Your roommates are cool" she says to me. "Are they on cheer with you?"

"Yes they are. We all met freshman year" I tell her. "Who do you live with?"

"Uh, right now I'm dorming with Nika, Aubrey, and Azzi" she responds. 

"Ohhh right, ya'll have to live in the dorms" I realize. "That sucks"

"Yeah, sometimes it sucks, but there are worse things" she says, laughing. 

She waits for me to finish cleaning up and we walk out the door together. We walk in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, until it was time to go our separate ways. 

"Thanks for coming" I say. 

"Thanks for having me" she responds with a smile and we go off in separate directions.