Page 61 of Full Court Crush

“Good effort, everyone,” Coach Grant said, slightly bent over with her hands on her thighs, making eye contact with every player in the huddle. “I don’t think they were expecting such a close fight, and we can use that to our advantage. Let’s keep them on their toes in the next half, eh?” Coach Grant grinned and winked. “Go do what you need to do, we’ve got ten minutes.”

Keira picked up her water bottle from the carrier and slumped down into one of the chairs that made up their bench. Sweat dripped from her face and ran down her neck. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand, but all that served to do was smear the salty residue across her skin. She twisted in her chair to reach behind and open her bag, rummaging around for a towel to help her wipe down. When she turned back around, Coach Grant, TJ, and Amelia were huddled together once more. She shrugged it off and took another sip of her drink.

It didn’t matter what they were talking about. She had to focus on her own game. She closed her eyes and visualised a variety of different shots from various places around the half court gracefully looping into the basket, or delicately kissing the backboard before floating down through the rim. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes once more. They could do this. She joined her teammates taking shots, turning her visualisations into reality.

It felt like only seconds had passed when the referee blew her whistle and sent all the players back to their benches. Keira dutifully jogged over to Coach Grant with her teammates and stood in a semi-circle around her, as she faced them, whiteboard pen poised.

“We need to start this half with intensity. They’ve had halftime to recover. Let’s try to catch them napping. Sienna, you’re in for Keira, and I want you to…”

Keira didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. The bottom had fallen out of her stomach.I’m being benched?Why?She looked to the other side of the semi-circle at Amelia, who had her eyes fixed on the whiteboard. Was Amelia mad she didn’t pass her the ball at the end of that last play? Had she had her benched?

“…with your agility, Sienna, I want you to run so many rings around them it makes them dizzy. If we stick to the plan, we can take this game by the throat and dominate this team. Everyone ready?” Coach Grant nodded at Amelia.

“Blizzards on three!”

Keira’s head was still so fuzzy she only half-heartedly joined the shout about half a second later than everyone else, and much more quietly. While the rest of the team took their spots on the bench, Keira walked along the line, taking a seat near the end. She tried to drag her attention back to the game, but she couldn’t control her thoughts, which had tumbled into a tornado.

I scored the three. Why should it matter if I didn’t pass? I made it so we were level going into halftime instead of trailing. Surely that’s a good thing?

A loud cheer erupted from the bench, and Keira’s head snapped up, just in time to see the Blizzards running back to defence. Sienna had scored. Keira could only watch as her team defended the key like their lives depended on it. She particularly focused on two players. Her jealousy of Sienna being out there instead of her made her extra critical, and her spiralling thoughts made her glare at Amelia.

She shook her head to dispel the thoughts and tried to support her team. She joined in the chants, cheered when someone scored, but her chest felt hollow. She wanted to be out there. Every fibre of her being itched to be on that court, running until her lungs were ready to explode, helping her team to victory, and proving herself in the process.

But, as it turned out, they didn’t need her. Coach Grant subbed Keira and a few others in when only three minutes remained in the final quarter. The Blizzards were up by eighteen. Victory was all but secured. All they had to do was run down the clock and keep the scoreboard ticking over.

She tried to keep working her magic, to salvage some kind of dignity from this game, but without Amelia, Asha, or Lucy on court she had no one to spark off. She scored a couple of times, but it didn’t assuage her embarrassment at being benched during such a key game.

When the buzzer sounded to announce the end of the game, the Blizzards flooded onto court, cheering and hugging each other. They were finally victorious in their first season as professionals. Keira glanced over at the opposition, who looked dead on their feet, crouched on the floor or stood with their heads hung low.

The Blizzards had won. They’d actually won. She tried to feel happy and excited, but her minimal contribution tainted what should have been the sweet taste of victory.

Amelia went around the whole team, high-fiving or hugging them. She offered words of congratulations and complimented each on specific parts of their game. When she finally stood in front of Keira, her smile dimmed a little.

“Well played today, Keira,” she said quietly. Keira noticed her arms twitching as if she thought about going in for a hug, but then thought better of it.

“Yeah, you too,” Keira said emotionlessly. Only a couple of feet between them, it might as well have been the Grand Canyon.

“We wooooooooooooon!” Lucy shouted, bowling into Amelia and picking her up, spinning her around. Amelia laughed, embarrassed, and commanded Lucy put her down. Lucy did so and turned to Keira.

“Don't even think about it,” Keira warned. She was only partly joking, her bad mood slipping out through the cracks in her façade.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Lucy winked, then held out her fist for a fist bump instead. Keira obliged, and then joined in with the rest of the team in the usual post-game rituals. But she couldn’t shake the negative voice in her head drawing her attention back to Amelia, wondering what on earth she had said to the coaches at halftime.

The changing room had been a cacophony of joking around, singing, and the usual joyous chatter that comes with victory. It was suffocating. Keira showered and changed as quickly as possible, in almost complete silence, only speaking when spoken to. It wasn’t until she was out of the changing rooms and walking back towards the team bus that she finally was able to breathe. The shower had helped calm her thoughts, which no longer ran continuous relays through her brain, but the negativity was still there. She was still heartbroken at not being one of the ones to help guide her team to victory. It was always great to win a game, but there was a bittersweetness to it when you spent more than half the game on the bench.

She dragged herself up the coach steps, nodded at the driver, then walked straight to one of the pairs of seats in the penultimate row. Swinging herself into the window seat, she put her bag down next to her. She immediately got her headphones out of her bag, put them on, and pressed play on her phone, not caring what music came on. She rested her elbow on the narrow windowsill and put her chin in her hand, staring out of the window. There wasn’t much to see in the badly illuminated car park, not that Keira was really looking at anything. She was replaying the game over in her head, wondering what she could have done wrong. No matter the different perspectives she considered, it all seemed to come back to that last three-pointer of the second quarter.

Maybe Amelia feels threatened by me.

Keira almost laughed. No. She knew Amelia. Even if Amelia believed Keira was the better player, she wouldn’t care. She’d probably just start training even harder, relishing the competition. But trying to logic her way out of her emotions had never worked in the past, and it wasn’t going to start working now.

Her phone vibrated in her hand, and she flipped it over to see the notification from her dad.

How did it go?

We won!

Then she locked her phone and returned to staring out into the winter night. However, her phone buzzed again.