Foreign Farewell

Chapter 1 : Beautiful Stranger

Amber's POV

Five minutes into the game, I was already feeling the stress. Even though I've trained a lot for this, at the moment my mind is jumbled up with unnecessary thoughts and I couldn't hardly concentrate on the court. My body was as exhausted as a flat tire, not cooperating well with my brain and the heat and nerves are getting to me.

A friendly game of basketball. If it was just that simple. Yet you'll never know who your oppenent will be. I could care less who they are as long as they play fair and square. But by versing against Hilmorton High, the school known for their undefeated titles and high ranked as one of the most fanciest school in town, they appeared to be more murderous looking than expected.

This I didn't know. Hilmorton has always been at the top. Major in all sports and academics. This private, all girls school was the only girls school in the country to have ever made it into the basketball championships in California. And every year they won. Nobody could beat them, nobody dare tried. Which is why I'm having doubts about my team, being too unexperienced. We only started training this year and seeing an aggressive six footer doing fast paced push ups while the rest of the team did some kind of elaborate stretching, compare them to us, I think there has been a huge misunderstanding.

Its not that I don't have faith in my teammates, its just that being a captain I have the responsibility to send my team into a winning streak and no matter what the outcome will be, I feel as if this is all depended on me.

Competing with them was no doubt, not easy. They stare at you like they are piercing through your soul and playing like pouring their anger and frustrations out showing no mercy. But we all kept calm and composed. Obviously not threatened by them. Well, I'm not. I think we are doing pretty well considering bombarded by a huge group of tall people. Despite our shortness, we still showed them some of our talents by scoring a few points down even showing off by shooting a three pointer effortlessly and skilfully blocked one of the players.

"Huddle up guys..." We exchanged tiresome looks as if we were going to collapse any time soon.

We're in the last quarter and a timeout was at hold when a player was sent into the bench when she got hurt defending. A badly fractured ankle. Unfortunately she belonged to our school. One less player meant a sudden decrease of self esteem. There's no way we're going to be able to win for sure. The score is 58-35 to them.

"Okay guys, I know we are losing terribly, but can we put aside the score and focus on what this is all about. Having fun. Thats right, we might leave without a victory but can we at least last these few seconds with true sportsmanship and show them a night they won't forget." We all nodded in unison and ready to head back to the game, pumped up to finish it.

"Crestview on three. One... Two... Three..." I said while they gathered our hands in the middle.

"CRESTVIEW!"

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We lost. That pretty much sums up the whole idea of my depression as of the moment. I reminisced back to what happened earlier and try and learn from my mistakes. I knew it was a bad season and I was definitely not satisfied of how it turned out. I'm probably going to be replaced as the captain soon, judging from how that game appeared, but I'll find a way to redeem myself.

"Hey Am, wait up!" I heard a husky voice coming from behind and I instantly knew it was Kris, my best friend.

It was Friday night, streets were covered with drunken teens, reckless behaviour and drink driving. Seems like a predictable night to me. I kept my pace slow while he walked beside me and I didn't know he was staring directly at me. I noticed it a minute later and faced him with a questioning look. Before I could ask why, he beat me to it.