Hidden Feelings and Hesitations

[3] Frankie

"Pass, pass!"

I turned towards the voice of one of my teammates and threw the ball, but Kayla easily intercepted it and took it down the court. She made a layup without a problem while I tipped my head back, trying not to say any words that would cause Coach to make me run.

"Let's go, McCann! What are you doing?" he yelled at my back. I rolled my shoulders and put my attention back on the scrimmage.

I'd been off all week at practice, missing easy shots, making bad passes—if I even made them at all—and fouling the girls so many times that if we were playing an actual game, I would've been benched. The plays weren't sticking in my brain, which was unusual for me. Normally I had one of the best memories for them. It wasn't like I didn't know what was going on with me, though.

Haylie hadn't left my mind since she'd busted into my room with my sister and her other friends. She was genuinely the most captivating person I'd ever met. All I wanted to do was spend time with her, but that was nearly impossible. We didn't have any classes together and Jules had sort of claimed her already. I felt like I didn't know how to be her friend. Since Harrison, Brady, Logan, and I had formed our little group in elementary school, I hadn't exactly spent much time with girls who weren't in my family.

I couldn't even steal glimpses of her during lunch, since I sat with my back to her table and suddenly switching would raise too many questions. Not that I would give an answer to the people who asked them. Instead, I had to settle for timing my trips between classes, but even that had become increasingly difficult.

Movement caught my eye, snapping me out of my daydreams as I put my hands up in time to stop the ball from crashing into my nose. Alexis had passed it high, but it wasn't like I had the right to say anything with the way I'd been playing. I took a shot from a spot that was just left of the paint and it barely hit the corner of the backboard before Emma jumped up to grab it out of the air.

"For fuck's sake," I growled and walked towards the locker room with my hands folded on top of my head. Coach called me over to him before I could get very far, though.

"I want you off my court until you can get a grip and get it together," he told me. "Practice is over in ten minutes. I want you running on a treadmill in the weight room until I come get you. Then you and I are going to sit down and have a talk." I nodded stiffly, keeping my hardened gaze on the floor as I left the gym.

The weight room was right across the hall, so it wasn't long before I was doing what I was told. When I'd walked in, there had been some kids already in there using the equipment for off-season workouts. A couple had tried to start up a conversation with me, but I was too pissed to even acknowledge them. I turned up the speed on the treadmill until my pace was a little too fast to be comfortable, wanting to punish myself for the loss of control I'd been experiencing so far this week. By the time Coach came through the door fifteen minutes later—his recap of practice must have taken longer than he planned—I was completely fighting for my breath.

He tossed me my water bottle and motioned for me to sit on the end of a bench press while he sank down onto the end of another. He was silent at first, rubbing his chin while he thought of what he could say. I didn't blame him for taking his time. I was a mess right now.

When he finally spoke, it was pretty much exactly what I'd expected him to say. "What the hell is going on with you?" Coach opted for tough love over coddling, which was what made me respect him so much. If you were going to be serious about a sport, you weren't going to get better with someone babying you.

I let out a deep sigh as my heart started to slow. Talking about this with him wasn't what I'd particularly had in mind for my Wednesday afternoon. As I tipped my water bottle back for a drink, I started forming my jumbled thoughts into something coherent. "My sister and this new girl are friends and I met her Friday night. She was over at my house with some other girls and I just... I have completely lost it. This girl is all I can think about, but I don't even know her. I have no idea when her birthday is or what her last name is or if she could ever have feelings for me. It's so fucked up."