Airball

Chapter 11 - The Blink Of An Eye

December 10, 2019.

The next two weeks flew by faster than a mere blink of an eye. It hadn't seemed like time was passing any quicker than it had in the past, yet I couldn't understand how a whole week had escaped me. I would wake up as usual, letting Otis out and fixing breakfast and lunch for myself and Liv. Then I'd jog to school (running faster and faster each day) and make it in time for the start of my four second semester classes. I'd be freezing when I got to school—since it was the start of December—but it wasn't too bad since I was moving and the school was warm when I finally made it inside. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I would go to math, biology, English, and art. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I'd go to health, Spanish, human geography, and gym.

I didn't put as much value in my alone time anymore, and I actually made some good new friendships throughout the past ten days. In art I started hanging out with Harper, who despite being indecipherable at times, was actually pretty cool. I also sat beside the other girl from my art class, Aubrey, in my health class. She was nice, other than the fact that she loved drama too much. She'd talk to me for an hour about a meaninglessly comment some other girl made about her in the hallway that day. In art class, however, she preferred to sit by herself. I couldn't imagine why, other than the fact that she was staying away from Harper for some reason. I never asked either of the girls if that assumption was correct. I knew better than to get in the middle of anything like that. I met Wesley in practice one day, who was one of the best players on the JV team. We talk about basketball strategies with Nathan in our human geography class. He's also in my Spanish class, but he talks to Finn for a majority of that class. Finn is also on the basketball team, but I don't know him that well other than through an introduction from Wesley. I got to know some more people on the team, but I didn't have much time to interact with them in between practice sessions and drills. Jackson seemed like a fairly cool guy, Tucker was a major introvert but he was nice, Xavier looked and acted like the toughest guy around—which he was—but he was super friendly when I got to know him.

In art I continued my painting of a basketball player. I decided to trace the court and the player first before painting after I made a mistake while painting. And unless I wanted the player's face to be a basketball (which Harper found hilarious at my expense), I had to re-do the entire thing. That was a bit of a bummer, but it wasn't like it was an amazing work of art to begin with. Besides, I had the whole year to work on it, so it wasn't exactly at the top of my priority list.What was at the top of my priority list, though, was basketball.

It had been more than two weeks since the first practice, and time was passing faster than I could keep up with it. On the first day of practice, December 17th had seemed so far away, but it was getting closer and closer. In practice, I mostly focused on myself and my own improvement. I pushed myself harder than ever in workouts and drills, and I tried my best to contribute what I could to team scrimmages. I had convinced myself that I would work my way up to being a starter by the first game, but that was looking less and less like a reachable goal. The coach had assigned me the position of shooting guard, which I was a little disappointed about, because my main position had been point guard for the past two years or so. I hadn't played shooting guard since I worked my way to the top of my middle school team. I understood the decision, though. If the point guard wasn't on their A-game, the whole team was at a disadvantage. The coach had assigned the two point guards to be Jackson and Nathan, with Jackson being the JV team captain. The other shooting guards besides me were Finn, who switched back and forth between shooting guard and small forward, and Chance. Small forwards included Cam, Wesley, Amir, and Colton. Power forwards included Max, Zane, Tucker, and Levi. Centers included Xavier and Diego. Most of the players could switch between two positions, so there were at least five players for each role on the court.