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Chapter 3

AJANI

"Good practice today ladies! I believe that we are in pretty good shape for the season, but we still have a long road in front of us," Coach Harrison says enthusiastically as he ended practice.

"One Fam, One Team, One Dream, Bison on three, Bison on three, one, two, three, Bison," we repeated after him, and with that we were free to go.

"You want to hit the ice baths?" I ask Samaria. "My knee is starting to act up again."

"Girl you're smoking soap if you think i'm getting in that ice bath, but I am in need of a good massage so I guess i'll slide," she says making me laugh.

When we get to the training room, we notice that the baseball team is already in there getting their aches and pains treated.

Luckily for me, our trainer Miguel wasn't busy, so I asked him to set up an ice bath for me because he never allowed us to touch the high tech things in the training room in fear of us messing something up. This was his little sanctuary and I wasn't about to take that from him.

Due to me tearing my left ACL in the 10th grade, knee pains weren't foreign to me and I have come to know the training room as my second home.

"All ready Yani," Miguel says in his thick Venezuelan accent. I make my way towards him, mentally preparing for the pain and suffering I was about to endure. Ice baths were no joke whatsoever.

Stepping into the icy cold water, I sat down, submerging myself in the water. Shockwaves of the cold sensation radiate throughout my body, and it took about five minutes for my body to adjust to its new surroundings.

The four ice baths were situated side by side, and I sensed someone get into the one next to me, even though the other two were unoccupied.

Looking up I was surprised to see that it was him. The boy from my AA class this morning, sitting on the side of the bath with his feet in the water.

"I didn't know you played a sport, which one?" he asks, smiling.

"Basketball, and i'm guessing you play baseball?" I ask in more of a statement than a question.

"You are correct, I just transferred from TCU," he said as he submerged his body into the icy water and winced in discomfort.

"What position do you play?" I ask becoming interested due to my lengthy history playing softball.

"RBC, right beside coach," he said laughing. "But no for real, first and short stop."

"No way!" I say getting excited. "I played first for nine years."

Naturally continuing our conversation, the fifteen minutes that we had in the ice bath flew by and it was time for us to part ways.

"Well it was nice being able to talk to you again even though our first conversation wasn't really a conversation," he said obviously nervous which I found adorable.

"You too Luka, I will see you around," I respond laughing.

Looking around for Samaria, I found her talking to one of our teammates from Germany, named Luiza. She was a very sweet person, but her english sort of suffered which is why Samaria and I spend a lot of time with her to help her submerge herself into the language and culture. Many people make fun of her accent, but I really don't understand how someone that only speaks english has the audacity to make fun of someone who knows four languages other than her native one, and not to mention she also comes from nobility... like kings and queens nobility. We also hung around because she was very naive due to her sweet demeanor and unknowingness of her surroundings, and we didn't want anything to happen to her or anyone to take advantage of her.

"Was that the boy from class?" Mari asked intrigued, not even bothering to say hi.

"Hey Luiza, hey Mari and yes it was," I say as I walk past them to get to the locker room.

"Yani, hello! He very cute for you." Luiza responded giggling. "Good practice, no?"

"Yes it was great, and y'all don't get ahead of yourselves with this one," I say as I got my self ready to shower. As I was reaching for my soap and towel, my backpack fell out of my locker along with a small piece of paper from one of the pockets. Quickly realizing it was the paper Luka gave me in class, I pulled out my phone and sent him a text reading, "hey :)."

Little did I know that text was the start of the many twists and turns on this rollercoaster ride that I call life.

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