Just maybe

28 - Aftermath Part. 3

Paige had always lived her life like a well-drawn play in a basketball game.

Every move deliberate, every outcome clear. Growing up, she was the kind of girl who thrived in certainty. Her room might have been a mess of clothes and sneakers, but within that chaos, she always knew exactly where everything was. Her desk might look like a storm hit it, but she could find any paper in seconds. That was Paige, messy, maybe, but always organized in her own way.

 Always sure.

She was never indecisive. Not about what she wanted, who she was, or where she was going. Even when she was young, Paige had this rare, unshakable confidence, a certainty that carried her through every game, every challenge, every doubt people threw at her. She wasn't just good; she knew she was good, and she worked every day to prove it.

That's why when she first met Azzi, that day during the USA scrimmage, it didn't feel like chance. It felt like something inevitable. Fate, maybe. Paige couldn't explain it, not then, not even now, but she remembered it vividly, the way Azzi moved, quiet but deadly efficient, the way she smiled politely at everyone but didn't say much. The way she carried herself, humble and focused, like she didn't even know how much she lit up the court. Paige had played with hundreds of athletes before, but none of them ever made her feel that pull — that strange, fierce recognition — like Azzi did.

Even before that, maybe she already knew. Before the passes, before the long nights of practice, before the laughter on the couch or the teasing that came too easily, and the time she hides her feelings under the disguise of being her best friend. Paige had felt it — that Azzi was it. The one. The constant she never saw coming.

It might sound cliché, but for Paige, it was the truest thing she had ever known. She'd had plans, dreams, and goals — and then Azzi came in, and suddenly everything felt like it made sense. Like all her life, she'd been moving toward this person. That God made her just for Paige, that she was meant to be in her life no matter where, when, or who gets in their way. 

Her heart was meant to find love like she did with Azzi. That unconditional love people talk about in the books and movies. That kind of love you only encounter once in your lifetime.

They were opposites in almost every way. Azzi was quiet where Paige was loud, measured where Paige was impulsive, gentle where Paige was competitive. But somehow, they fit. They balanced each other in ways Paige never thought she needed. Being Azzi's best friend had already been more than enough — a gift, really — but falling in love with her? That had been the greatest, most terrifying, and most beautiful thing that ever happened to her.

And Paige was sure. She always was.

She was sure of Azzi's laugh.
She was sure of the way her hand fit perfectly in hers.
She was sure of the way Azzi's eyes softened when she was thinking, and the way she could calm Paige down without even saying a word.
She was sure of their connection, their future, of everything that came after.

Paige Bueckers had built her life on certainty. 

But now — standing frozen in the middle of the apartment, the air thick with tension and worry, her teammates silent and waiting for her to speak — that certainty was gone.

Her phone felt heavy in her hand, Azzi's contact still on the screen. No dial tone. Again.

Her heart hammered painfully against her ribs as she stared at the empty hallway leading to Azzi's room.

She didn't know where the love of her life was.

The girl she was always so sure of — the one constant in her carefully built world — was suddenly gone.