rivals in the sheets

chapter twelve

Ethan wished that he could just fix everything.

Undo everything in his life and somehow make it all fine again.

But things just didn't work like that in his life and at this point, he already understood that even if it stung a little to admit.

Sometimes, however, he could get a second chance at things and he could start fixing them bit by bit until suddenly things would maybe start making a little more sense again. And that was exactly what he wanted and what he would try to achieve.

And it seemed as if now was a time like that.

"Pair up, boys," shouted Coach immediately after scolding all of them for not being fifteen minutes early. "Emmerson and Hamilton, the two of you go together."

Ethan rolled his eyes but he was curious to see what Coach had in store for them.

Sure, being paired up with Hamilton wasn't great, especially since he had been doing so badly recently and Hamilton could easily outshine him, but that meant that something would change and he had the chance to change things.

And if he could change things, maybe they would finally get a little better and his life would get a little less hectic through that.

He grabbed a ball off the floor and passed it to Hamilton, and his throw was confident and proper for the first time in a while.

Hamilton shrugged, seemingly almost disappointed at the return of Ethan's return of skills, and passed the ball back flawlessly.

Ethan felt a lot more confident now, one on one with Hamilton with a new chance to prove himself as a worthy opponent, as a rival who could properly play against him and who could beat him despite the two of them being on the same team.

He positioned himself properly and threw the ball with all the force he had, passing it directly into Hamilton's hands. It was a good throw, not the best he had ever done but a lot better than the ones he was passing the last few weeks.

And for some reason, that was enough for him.

He would do more than one throw like that, of course, but it felt good just to know that he could pass properly like that.

The next two hours were spent as expected and Ethan couldn't be happier that he was back on his game.

"Ethan, can I talk to you?" asked the Coach as the rest of them went back into the lockers.

Ethan stayed behind, his bottle in his hands as he stood there awkwardly. "What did you want to talk to me about, Coach?"

"You played a lot better today than you did the last few times, and I'm glad to see you back to this kind of game. I want you to play like this on Friday again. I had some doubts about keeping you in the starting composition, but if you can play like this or better, then I'll have no regrets. Can you do that?"

Ethan nodded enthusiastically. "Of course I can."

"Good. Now go, I don't want to hold you back for too long."

Ethan thanked him and left back into the lockers.

He grabbed a towel from his locker and checked his phone, just in case. There could have been a phone call from his parents or a text message from one of his siblings, but instead, there was a message from the person he really didn't want to be hearing from.

Ava: (16:37) date after the game this weekend??

The message was probably just to piss him off and he knew that, but it worked. It pissed him off a lot more than it should have.