“You should care,” Kip said. “We can’t win without me.”
That shut me up. Because I used to say the same thing. Yet our team had made it this far with me on the bench. Kip was wrong. “Yes, they can. But only if they play like a team, which means you have to stop acting like you’re God.”
“Why don’t you go home? Your knee is shot. You’re done with basketball. Get over it.”
Fire kindled in my chest, but before I could reply, Coach climbed onto the bus.
“That’s enough, Kip,” Coach said. “I hear you talking like that again, you’ll be done.”
So Kip continued on to the back of the bus.
No one sat with him.
● ● ●
The CIF Division V State Boys Basketball Championship was being held at the Power Balance Pavilion in Sacramento. We were playing St. Joseph Notre Dame, the team that lost to Rock Academy last year. I’d been keeping track of their games online, but we’d never played them before. I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Coach had showed the guys a few games, but that was before Grandma had given me permission to come, so I hadn’t seen them.
The game started out pretty even. They were good on defense; so were we. But they were tall—had three guys as tall as me but thick like Desh. Chaz messed up two drives to the basket when he came up against those trees guarding the hoop.
We really could have used Mike and Alex’s help. Dan was doing his best. He had the height, but not the muscle.
They got the first basket, but Kip got one on a fast break right after. We were faster than they were, but Desh was having a hard time scoring.
With a minute ten left in the first quarter it was 8-2, their lead. Chaz tried another drive to the basket and ended up on his rear in the paint. The St. Joe’s center got the rebound and lobbed it down the court to their guard for an easy lay-up.
No, no!
Coach groaned. “We need outside shooters,” he told me. “They’re too tall.”
He was right. Chaz just didn’t have the skill to go up against guys like that. And Desh and Dan couldn’t do it without Mike or Alex’s help.
“Chaz!” Coach held up two fingers. “Let’s run two!”
That play would set Kip up to shoot a three.
Chaz nodded and brought down the ball. He ran the play and passed the ball to Kip. But Kip missed the shot and St. Joe’s got the rebound.
Coach sat down beside me and sighed. “You think Jonathan can handle the pressure?”
“I don’t know.” I glanced down the bench to the end where three under-classmen were still wearing their warm-ups. “He can make those shots, though.”
“If he makes more than one, they’ll shut him down, and then we’ll have to see what else we could try. But if you’re sure about him . . .”
I wasn’t sure about anything, but what did we have to lose? “He hit eight out of ten from beyond the arc last time I worked with him.”
“Go talk to him, then. I’ll put him in second quarter.”
I reached down for my crutches—forget that. I leaned forward, looked down the bench. “Jonathan!” His head popped out, and I waved him over. “Move down.” I nudged Colin and all the guys slid over a seat.
Jonathan sat beside me, and I said, “Coach is putting you in at the quarter. Remember what we worked on at practice. Square up, then shoot. We need some outside shots. They don’t have to be threes. Just relax and make them count, okay?”
Jonathan nodded, though he looked like he might pass out.
At the break, Coach put Jonathan in for Kip and moved Kip to play point to give Chaz a break. He told Kip to get the ball to Jonathan and see what he could do.
But when the clock started, the ball ran back and forth without much of a break. Three minutes and we still hadn’t had a chance to get the ball to Jonathan.
When Kip got a rebound, Coach yelled, “Slow it down and run the play!”
But Kip took off for a fast break, even though there were already two St. Joe’s trees waiting at the other end. Instead of driving for the basket, he T-ed off to the side and shot a three. A brick. St. Joe’s got the rebound and everyone was running again.
Coach screamed at Kip, then sent Chaz to replace him.
When Kip came to the bench, he asked, “Why’d you take me out?”
“You can’t listen, you’re not going to play.”
“You can’t win without me,” Kip said.
“Sit down,” Coach said.
Kip sat.
The next time we had the ball, Chaz called play two and got the ball to Jonathan. He squared up and shot a three.
All net.
“Yes!” I started to jump up, but my knee didn’t like it. So I just cheered instead. Jonathan was grinning like a kid at Disneyland.
He managed to sink one more three before St. Joe’s put two guys up in his face, which left Desh wide open under the hoop.
“Pass it, Jonathan!” He needed to—
He passed it. A little short. One of the trees tipped it with his finger and sent it flying out of bounds.
“Aww, don’t throw it away!” Kip yelled.
“He saw the pass, though. He saw Desh. That was good.” I raised my voice. “Good try, Jon! Way to see it!”
And on we fought.
At halftime the score was 19-13. Coach wrote out a few new plays for outside shooters, and they worked on the court the first couple times. Kip and Jonathan scored. But St. Joe’s defense learned quickly and put a stop to it.
With a strong defensive game on both sides, both teams quickly reached the bonus, which slowed down the clock. We matched them well from the free throw line, though, and were keeping up until Chaz fouled out.
And that was the beginning of the end. Our guys were dog tired. And we were down by ten with a minute six left. For many coaches, that would start the “foul them on purpose” part of the game, but Coach didn’t play that way.
We ran with them and played good D. Kip chased down a loose ball and scored on the fast break, bringing the final score to 46 to 38.
And that was it. Game over. We’d lost.
● ● ●
I stared out the window into the rising sun. We should have won state. We’d been the better team—until I’d gotten hurt and Alex and Mike had been expelled. If none of the bad stuff had happened to us, we would have won that title easily.
But maybe better wasn’t the right word. I’d been cocky. I might have been the floor general, but Kip had always been my choice pass. I played favorites, and we won that way. But it hadn’t made us a team. Despite my averaging 6.2 assists per game, I’d been a selfish player. Methodical. Knowing exactly how I wanted my endgame to look, then doing what it took to get that.
I felt bad we lost, but not for me or Kip or Mike or Alex or even Desh. I felt bad for Dan, who was a nice guy and didn’t do stupid stuff. I felt bad for Jonathan, who’d tried really hard tonight. And I felt bad for Coach. It couldn’t be easy coaching a bunch of jerks like us.
My Precious II bleeped, and I dug it out of my pocked to read the text. Grandma had only let me have it for the road trip, and would be taking it back the moment I stepped in the house. My pulse sped up when I saw it was from Grace.
Lost my phone cord & couldnt charge my phone. Im fine. Dont worry. See u soon.
Soon? Did that mean she was coming back? It took me twenty miles to formulate a reply that was both kind and caring but not overly desperate.
Thanks for letting me know. We all miss you.
I stared out the window of the bus, thinking about my life and Grace and my knee and the future. As we passed by some huge fields and approached the freeway split where the 205 veered off the 5 to San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland, I felt like that was my life, kind of a road diverged. Was I going to go my way? Or God’s way?
Seemed like my way hadn’t done me all that much good lately. I guessed there wasn’t any real reason not to try it God’s way. What was the worst that could happen? I could tear
my other ACL?
Yeah, that would suck.
But I had nothing else to look forward to right now except months of physical therapy and the possible return of Grace. I didn’t doubt that God existed. I just wasn’t sure I bought the whole mysterious prayer thing. But maybe it was like making a promise or something. A vow. Or like swearing fealty to a lord, like a medieval knight. And if that’s all it really took to stay out of hell, I’d be an idiot not to do it, right?
It certainly couldn’t make matters worse.
Maybe that logic was stupid, but it made sense to me. So I hunched down in my seat and started to pray.
THE END
Spencer will return in Broken Trust
Other books by Jill Williamson
The Mission League series
The New Recruit
Chokepoint
Project Gemini
Ambushed
The Safe Lands series
Captives
Outcasts
Rebels
The Blood of Kings trilogy
By Darkness Hid
To Darkness Fled
From Darkness Won
Stand-Alone Titles
Replication: The Jason Experiment
Nonfiction
Go Teen Writers: How to Turn Your First Draft into a Published Book
Come hang out with me!
www.JillWilliamson.com
www.facebook.com/jwilliamsonwrites
www.twitter.com/JillWilliamson
And for writers:
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Contests, encouragement, and community for young writers.
www.GoTeenWriters.com
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Mike Turrell for helping me with police procedures, to James Scott Bell for his help with court procedures, and all my NCAA basketball helpers: Grayson Leder, Patricia Woodside and son, Rebecca Luella Miller, Scott Abel, James Scott Bell, Joe Torosian, and Kourtney Leone.
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