After Hannah Baker- Zach Dempsey's New Life

28: Tournament

School started up after the week-long break, Mercedes and Ethan were going to be out of school for a good part of January. Ethan was still going to be at basketball practice every day so Ryan went to Mercedes basically every day after school for the first two weeks.

It's been a month since school started up again and we have a basketball tournament out of town for the weekend. Ryan, of course, wanted to come and see me play. She was sat in the bleachers behind where the team sat. Mercedes was sitting beside her holding Alex. Justin had come along and was waiting in line at the concessions to get Ryan and himself something to drink.

After warm-ups, the team walked over to our seats and sat down to listen to coach talk. I sat in front of Ryan and slowly leaned against her legs. I could just barely hear her giggle over the chatter of everyone else in the gym.

***

At halftime, Mercedes and Ethan had to head home, they couldn't stay the whole weekend at the tournament, not with Alex. During the game I glanced over to where Ryan was still sitting with Justin, and Bryce was slowly making his way over to where they were sitting.

Ryan and Justin hadn't seen him coming until he plopped down next to Ryan.

I saw the next part in slow motion.

Ryan scooted over into Justin's side then Bryce scooted closer to her. I watched her say stop when Bryce wrapped his arm around her shoulders. She pushed him away but he grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back, he started talking slowly and confidently. Justin looked at Bryce angrily and stood up.

At this point in the game, we were bound to win and one of my teammates had tossed the ball to me. I made it look like I was throwing the ball back to him but threw it harder and it hit Bryce in the nose. Ryan pulled away from Bryce and pushed Justin way from Bryce and down to the bench where the bench players were sitting.

The guys who were on the bench watched Ryan hand the ref the ball then looked at her confused as she talked Justin down.

A few minutes later, the coach pulled me out of the game.

"What was that Dempsey?" he asked confused. Bryce was sitting right behind him and smirking with a hint of blood still coming out of his nose from where the ball hit him. He looked back at what I was glaring at then turned back to me and nodded. "Not on the court Dempsey," he said then motioned for me to sit down. I slowly sat down next to Ryan who was still calming down Justin.

Ryan smiled at me then looked back at Justin who was squeezing Ryan's hand. "Just ignore him," Ryan said while slowly leaning against me still holding Justin's hand. "Nothing he said is true," she mumbled quietly.

"What did he say?" I asked slowly.

"I'll tell you tonight," she mumbled.

The school had booked a floor in a hotel for the team because we were far from home. Ryan had asked coach if it was alright if she stayed in my hotel room with me, I was originally going to share the room with Ethan but he told coach last minute that he had to leave.

Coach said Ryan could stay with me but there had to be a "supervisor" in the room with us, and that is why Justin came because no one else on the team would be the "supervisor". There were two beds in the room anyway so Ryan and I would share one and Justin would get the other one.

After the game, Justin, Ryan and I walked out to Ryan's car together. Bryce was still following us so Ryan was holding both mine and Justin's hands.

Justin climbed in quickly when we got to Ryan's car. Ryan climbed into the driver's side while I climbed into the passenger side.

"What he said couldn't have been that bad," I said when she started the car and sighed.