Love and Basketball

Chapter One

This is the beginning..........holy crap I'm panicking.......

LO’S POV

He was a mutual friend. Well, not exactly because no other friend of mine was a friend of his. It began with a friend of mine who went with her twin to their nephew’s basketball game and apparently saw a ‘hunk’ so ‘hot’ she nearly cried while telling me about it. She rambled on and on after school, as we sat down at a booth in McDonald’s. It was nearly fall season and the cold leather seat sent shivers up my spine. Our school’s junior uniform was abominable with its baby blue blouse, navy blue skirt that was mid-shin length and a burgundy blazer. We were an all-girls Catholic school and I think they were purposely trying to make us so unattractive that we wouldn’t lose our virginity until senior year or after. They even made sure to embed a cross on the collar of the blouse which left us with no chance of hiding the fact that we were put by our unloving parents into a prison-like ‘school’. The burgundy jumper did nothing to keep our body warmth in and every garment was too thin to keep the cold out.

So we sat down and Hayley (the one rambling) told me all the details. Hayley and Katrina were identical twins. You couldn’t tell the slightest difference until one of them decided to dye their hair. And that was all how anyone could tell who was who, but, when you knew both of them, it was like telling the difference between a donkey and a caterpillar. It was after school (obviously, because our school was so strict it wouldn’t let their students out until school was over. Study leave wasn’t even an option until you were a senior) and Kat (the nickname I gave Katrina because she slightly reminded me of the character Cat Valentine on the Sam & Cat show on Nickelodeon)  had stayed behind for Chem tutorials.

Now, Hayley was talking really fast and I knew that being Hayley, she would talk for at least half an hour. I decided to tune out a bit and thought about the struggle of a life I had. My parents were, being typical Mexicans, too strict that they would never (NEVER), as long as they were alive, let me go out with my friends unless it was to study for school inside school. Going out for me meant going out to the areas surrounding St Mary College. As I’m reflecting back on my so-called life, I hear the word, ‘DILWORTH’.

I immediately snap out of my daze and stare at Hayley.

“What?” I ask loudly.

Hayley sits across from me, newly manicured fingernails tapping on the oak table making clacking sounds so annoying I want to slap her for it. She stops tapping and a wicked smile grows on her slightly tanned face.

“Lorena María Caballero” she pronounces my full name with a plastic accent, trying to sound like my mother, “I see something has caught your attention. Something that probably sounds........... Immensely soothing to the ears, perhaps?”

She giggles quietly to herself when I notice a few guys at the other side of the restaurant staring at us. Or should I say, Hayley. I wasn’t ugly, or pretty for that matter. I considered myself as average and I think everybody else does too. I didn’t have the kind of body that could rock a bikini like most girls in school, but I also didn’t have the kind of body that would draw disgusted or shocked attention. To put it a short sentence, I was invisibly average. This was perfectly fine by me because I would never want to be looked as like I was a piece of meat.

Hayley, noticing my staring turns her head and groans loudly. Turning back around she whispers, “I wish guys would stop looking at me as if I was a piece of meat.” She lays her blonde head on the table and sighs. 

Funny that. Sometimes I felt like Hayley, Kat and I were mentally connected or something. I stare at her head and smile at the dark roots beginning to show themselves. I can’t wait till she realises this, I think.