Street Smart

Chapter 19: Nick

Sam jumped back into the car and tossed me a pack of Ritz crackers. I pulled the car out of the parking lot and headed back up towards school.
    "Thanks for stopping, I'm starving!" She explained as she ripped open a bag of sour patch watermelons. I laughed internally thinking of how ballistic our mother would be going if she saw her daughter eating such foods. To her, foods so sugary and unhealthy like sour patch watermelons shouldn't even exist in the food pyramid.

    Sam plugged her iPhone into my car speakers and began playing some more of her music. Quickly tapping the beat with her foot and singing in a very low hush as she munched on her food, she seemed so content. There was something she was hiding, I could sense it from her.
    "So, we've got a little while...Care to tell me that 'long story' now?"
    It was a complete long shot, but one that I had to take to make sure she was aright inside. She didn't speak for a few moments, so long that I thought she was just ignoring me. Eventually, to my surprise, she turned her head from the window and towards me,
    "He's forcing me to...get, um, help."
    The words spewed from her mouth as if they had caused a bloody battle within. The essence of help can be such a wickedly scrutinizing event. The inner battle between independent strength and summoned doom.
    "Hey, that's not so bad. I mean, with the bet."
    "I know, I know," she sighed, "it's just not that simple. It can't be."
    "And why can't it?"
    "Because. Just because it can't."
    "Because you don't want it to be? Because you want to keep struggling?"
    I had struck a sensitive nerve in her.
    "You just don't go from F's to A's in a night."
    "Of course not. If that were true we'd all be like frickin' robots by now."
    She laughed, somewhat honestly, somewhat for the sake of my feelings. Her focus point remained out the window as her body was slumped in the chair, with her feet on the dashboard.
    "Whatever," she tried brushing off the conversation, however, I was in no mood to let that happen quite yet.
    "Why do you play basketball?"
    "Because I like it," she answered annoyed.
    "Would you say you're passionate about it?"
    "Yes."
    "So, if you're heart is right about that, maybe so is that tiny fragment of it that is encouraging you to just meet with Mr. Hamilton tonight. Just give it a listen every once in a while, no harm can be done with that."