Airball

November 15, 2019.

The next week sucked. I had started back playing scrimmage with my friends and I was actually having fun playing with them again. But then I would shoot a shot, it would air-ball miserably, and I would be stuck wondering if I would ever be good at basketball again. And then I would wonder if Id even made the team and get lost thinking about all the shots I had missed. High school basketball was on another level from middle school basketball, and I honestly didn know if I would have made the middle school basketball team. It was only a matter of time before I received the news that I didn make the team.

”Hello? Hello? Earth to Blake! ”

I snapped out of my thoughts and looked over at Cam, who was desperately trying to get my attention.

”You good bro? ” he asked, squinting at me.

I looked over at the clock on the wall and saw that I had zoned out for more than half of biology class. ”Yeah, ” I told Cam. ”Im good. Whats she talking about? ”

”Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, ” Cam said, which was what he said whenever I asked him about anything in biology.

I tried my best to focus on what the biology teacher, Mrs. Keaton was saying. I had gotten up early this morning to take a longer run, and I was still tired. Plus, it was biology. Who actually stays awake during biology? Mrs. Keaton was talking about some activity that we were about to do, but once I heard the word ”packet ”, I lost interest.

”Once you complete it, please turn it in at my desk, ” she was saying. ”You
e going to be working in pairs for this project. ”

Cam punched my arm and I nodded at him, but Mrs. Keaton had other ideas.

”You will not be choosing your partner, I will be counting you off, ” she said, earning one loud groan from the entire class. She counted everyone off, and everyone went to find their partners. I hadn been paying attention, so I just stayed at my desk and watched the commotion.

Unfortunately, I didn get out of the assignment that easily. My partner—who I recognized from art class—found me and sat down in Cams seat beside me. She placed the packet down between us and stared at me expectantly. She had bright red hair and brown eyes and wore a loose red shirt.

I didn know her name or anything about her but I hated awkward silences, so I decided to speak first. ”Red, ” I said intelligently, just because thats what popped into my head.

She raised her eyebrows like she didn know how to respond to that, which to be fair, I wouldn either. ”Yes, ” she said. ”Thanks for noticing. ”

For a moment, I thought she was going to say, ”You too ”, because that was probably now the color of my face. Did I mention that I hate awkwardness?

”Im Harper, ” the girl said finally.

”Im— ”

”Blake Manson, ” she interrupted. ”I know who you are. You play basketball. ”

Great, I thought, another person to inevitably let down.

But I nodded. ”Thats me. ”

”So, Blake Manson, are you going to help me with this? ” she asked.

I hadn even noticed, but Harper had already filled in about half of the front page of the packet while we were talking.

”Oh, ” I said, ”well Im not very good at biology… ”

The girl just shrugged, as if this didn surprise her. ”Then just watch and learn. ”

I did watch, but I didn really learn much. I tried to keep up and focus on what she was doing, but I ended up just listening to the sound of her voice and noticing how red her hair really was. I didn fall asleep, though, so that was a plus.

”Almost done, ” Harper said, biting her tongue as she scribbled in a few more answers.

I looked down at the packet to see what she was writing in. Not surprisingly, it looked boring. The adult human body is composed of 100 trillion cells, your body reacts with panic when you
e tickled, your heart can pump blood to every cell in your body in a minute, and it takes approximately four minutes to tell if you like someone.

”Only four minutes? ” I asked as she wrote it down.

She looked up at me and smirked. ”Yep, ” she glanced over at the clock. ”So, do you like me? ”

”What? ” I said, not sure how to respond.

Harper laughed and picked up the paper from the desk. ”We
e finished. ” She stood up and turned the paper in to Mrs. Keaton, then sat back down at her desk. I stared at her for a second, then shook my head. I had no clue what I just happened, but I decided not to worry about it.

A couple minutes later, Cam and his partner finished and Cam came back to his desk.

”Sup, ” he said, sitting down beside me.

”Hey. ”

”So, whats her name? ”

”Hmm? ” I murmured, still a little lost in thought.

”The girl, ” Cam said. ”Whats her name? ”

”Harper, apparently, ” I said.

Cam nodded. ”Shes hot. ”

”Hmm, ” I replied, and that was the end of that conversation. Within seconds, we were talking about how vampires could technically breath under water if they could only die by direct sunlight. Pretty soon, the class had ended and I was headed to lunch.

I got my food and sat down in the cafeteria beside my friends, as I usually did. I found myself lost staring around the cafeteria a few minutes later, absently looking for the redhead girl. I didn know what I would do if I saw her, but for some reason I wanted to see what lunch she had.

”Blake? ” Cam asked. ”You good, man? ”

”Who ya looking for? ” Max asked through a bite of dry enchilada.

”No one, ” I said, shaking my head. ”Nothing. Im just tired. ”

”Well, get it out of your system, ” said Nathan. ”Basketball starts soon. ”

”Yeah, about that. You guys realize that I probably won make the team, right? ”

Cam, Nathan, Max, and Austin all groaned. I felt bad that I seemed to be continually bringing them down, but I wanted to be honest with them. And I didn want to get their hopes too high up, because then theyd just be disappointed.

”Come on, dude, ” Nathan said. ”Why are you always down on yourself nowadays? ”

”Yeah, the Blake I knew in middle school never worried about anything, ” Austin said. ”And he didn let other people tell him what he could and couldn do. ”

”Alright well maybe Im not that person anymore! ” I raised my voice a little, receiving annoyed looks from students at surrounding tables. ”Everyone keeps reminding me of who I was in middle school, but maybe Ive changed, okay? ”

I got up and headed into the bathroom. I turned on the faucet and rinsed my face slowly with water. I didn know when I had become such a different person from a year or two ago, but I knew I shouldn take it out on my friends. After all, it wasn their fault.

I got myself together and went back to my table.

”Im sorry, ” I told my friends. ”Its not you alls fault Ive been a huge mess since, you know… ”

Austin touched my shoulder. ”No, it was wrong of my to think that you should be the same person as middle school. Weve all changed a little. And I know how much your arm has affected you, physically and mentally. ”

”Yeah, ” Nathan said. ”If I lost my ability to play basketball, Id be in a pretty rough place too. ”

”Thanks, guys, ” I said, and I realized something then. I wasn going to keep anything from my friends, ever again. I knew now that they were there for me, no matter what I was going through. I didn have to worry anymore that if I couldn play basketball, they would leave me behind. I made the mistake of thinking our friendship was nothing more than basketball, and I made a mental note to myself to never make that mistake again.

English went by pretty quickly. It was a combination of listening to the teacher and talking to Nathan and Max, and I felt like my old self again. I still knew in the back of my head that I probably wasn going to make the team, but that didn seem to weigh me down as much anymore.

After English was my art class. As soon as I had grabbed my sketchbook and sat down, though, I noticed something strange. There was a girl with red hair and a red shirt sitting on the other side of the classroom. I never had noticed that Harper was in my art class. I looked around again and realized that I saw several people who I hadn seen previously in the class. I guess I just hadn payed that much attention before. Harper glanced over at me and we made eye contact for a split second before I quickly looked away.

Once everyone was seated, Mrs. Parks started the class by slowly standing from her desk and walking to the front of the room.

”Okay class, ” she began. ”Weve covered the basics of art, which include the types of art and the different forms that art takes place in. Today we
e going to start a project that well work on until the end of the semester. This project will largely determine your grade in this class, and you will be graded upon how you tackle the project. ”

I wasn sure whether or not to be excited by the fact that wed be doing a single project for the rest of the year. I usually hated projects, but this one would be taking the place of classwork and notes and lectures. I decided to wait and see what the project was about. Then Id make my decision.

”Each of you will be doing your own individual work for the project, but there may be instances where Ill ask you to brainstorm with a partner. Your task is simple. All you must do is create a painting of something that is important to you. I want you to really dig deep on this, because your grade and this class relies on it. Be creative. I will also be asking for a couple page write-up of why your painting is of something meaningful to you. ”

There were a couple of complaints at the mention of writing a paper, but the teacher didn seem to care. She just gave out the instructions, like she always did, and the students just had to deal with it.

”This class and all of the classes this week will just be of you brainstorming ideas. Im giving you a lot of time because I want you to put in a lot of effort. Any questions? ”

There weren any. There hardly ever were. So Mrs. Parks looked around the room once more, nodded to herself, and retreated to her desk, where she would spend the remaining class period. The art teacher had the same pattern every day of class. Shed give instructions, ask if there were questions, and then sit down and pull out her cell phone. Shed spend an hour every class either scrolling through text messages from five years ago or exploring Twitter and mumbling her complaints about politics. I knew this because when I would go to ask her a question or turn something in, shed be doing one of the two things almost every time.

I thought about what to paint for the project. The first thing that came to mind was—obviously—basketball. Basketball was the thing I used whenever I was asked to describe myself or what I like to do. But in this case, it seemed like Mrs. Parks was asking for more. So I took basketball out of my mental list of options and focused on what was left. Except what was left scared me. Because there was nothing left.