Page 15

“Sad I’m missing it,” I said, mostly as a joke but also partially because it was true.

I wished it was easier for them to be here with me sometimes, even just in passing.

It wasn’t that I wanted a lot of time with them; I just wanted to be able to have a random Tuesday night dinner together or spend a Sunday watching football together.

That was one of the things that had changed the most in me as I’d grown up.

When I was a kid, I didn’t mind all of the time on the road—and I also didn’t realize how lucky I was to have parents who were so patient and available.

They drove me wherever for games and practices, paid up whatever money they could find to make sure I could play year-round.

AAU basketball had never been off the table for me and I was grateful for that.

Most of my time with my parents growing up had been spent going to or from practice or a game.

I’d never thought that much about what a sacrifice that was for them; I just wanted to play.

But now that I’d moved out and moved so far from them, I realized how little time I actually had with them because of basketball.

All of the driving around and weekend tournaments were quality time, but I didn’t have that anymore.

What used to be the thing that would keep us in the same room and car had taken me to a different timezone.

“We’re sad you’re missing it, too,” Mom said.

I could hear in her voice that she really meant it.

Neither of my parents had really wanted me to move out.

At the very least, they’d held onto hope that I would stay within the state for them, preferably driving distance.

I was their only child and my mom had told me from day one how quiet the house was now that I wasn’t there anymore.

But the stars hadn’t aligned that way. The programs I wanted were all too far for that.

My parents had barely even wanted me to push for my dream school—Point Brook University—so when I didn’t get recruited there, they’d really been crossing their fingers I’d stay close to home.

But Lakeside Green offered the best program otherwise; the only downside being I was even further from home than Point Brook would’ve been.

I continued my walk across campus, both of us staying on the phone for a touch too long. We silently played the game of you hang up, no you hang up.

“Alright, honey. Time for us to get moving,” Mom said.

“Okay, I’ll talk to you later,” I said. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

When I hung up the phone, I saw a text message from an unsaved number. My heart nearly stopped; I was certain I was misreading it. But when I read over it a second time, I confirmed it was real. Hey, it’s Maya. I’m at the Berg if you’re free at any point today .

I had to lock my phone and put it at my side for a second to take a deep breath and avoid embarrassing myself publicly. I had never forced a smile off my face so quickly, but I knew it was probably still peeking through. I couldn’t help it.

I cleared my throat and unlocked my phone again. In response, I wrote, Cool, just got out of class. See you in a few .

The Berg was one of the mid-sized student centers on campus.

It was closer to the freshman dorms, so I hadn’t been in a long time.

And even then, I hadn’t really gone when I was a freshman.

I needed absolute silence to study, and a casual, noisy dining area was the exact opposite of that.

School wasn’t hard for me, but it wasn’t exactly my favorite thing.

I’d much rather run a bunch of suicides and drills than sit down to write a paper.

It was surprising to me that Maya hung out here. But I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t the most excited I’d ever been to go to a student center. She might as well have invited me to a five-star restaurant.

When I stepped inside, it felt like being brought right back to freshman year.

For just a second, I was the scared eighteen-year-old who wasn’t sure what college was going to look like.

I wasn’t nervous to play basketball and get into the swing of the game in college—my skills had never wavered, and I’d been waiting my entire life to play in front of huge crowds—but I was nervous about having a new team and new coach.

There was so much learning that had happened so early into college—my first dorm parties, a poorly-planned and executed crush on a girl on my floor, the realization that being away from home was hard and exciting all at once.

But the nostalgia wore off almost immediately when I realized that people were definitely staring at me.

I hadn’t gained any type of name or face recognition, even on my campus, until closer to the end of my sophomore season.

All it had taken to go from faceless to the face of the program was a few major wins against schools typically considered better than us.

From there, it was easy to keep their attention.

It’d never been a secret who’d changed the momentum for us.

Coach Darlene always gave me credit where credit was due; she trusted me enough to let me do what I needed to do and play big.

As soon as she gave me the green light, I started pushing my team in whatever way I could.

I tried new approaches to playing, new ways of keeping them ahead of everyone else on the court.

Even though I’d spent my whole life waiting for this exact moment, it felt like it’d all happened so fast. One moment, I was a girl playing basketball, hoping to get recruited somewhere—anywhere—decent so I could play.

The next, I was doing post-game interviews for the biggest sports networks in the nation and selling out our arena.

I never took sole credit for a win because basketball was a team sport, but there wasn’t one person who could deny that I’d been the reason attendance numbers went up so much.

By this point in my senior year, people were coming to games for me specifically.

I didn’t let it get to my head, but I acknowledged it.

And that meant I tended to pull way more attention in public places on campus than I used to.

Most of my classmates and people my age had gotten used to it.

But it seemed like freshmen hadn’t yet gotten the memo that staring at me and turning to their friends to say, Wait, is that Theo? wasn’t exactly subtle .

I pretended not to see any of it as I looked around for Maya’s familiar head of brown hair.

Eventually, I found her sitting in a back corner near the windows.

She was positioned comfortably and set up like she’d been here for hours—her laptop was open next to a notebook, two different textbooks, and printed out pages of articles she’d gone to town on with a highlighter.

She was deeply immersed in her laptop, her eyes never drifting from the screen like mine did when I was doing schoolwork.

“Hey,” I said as I approached.

Maya blinked up at me through her glasses like she’d forgotten I was coming.

She lifted her legs from the booth seating across from her and sat up straight.

She was dressed down today—her hair was in a claw clip, her glasses were on.

She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt for a high school I didn’t recognize the name of, probably from her hometown.

Just looking at her made me blush.

“Hey,” she said and gestured for me to sit down. “Welcome to my office.”

“Spacious,” I said.

“It’s certainly something.”

“You can really study here?” I asked. It was so noisy that we practically had to raise our voices to speak to each other.

“Oh, I love it,” she said. “I can’t focus anywhere else.”

I nodded, looking around as if trying to find our next conversation topic on the wall. I caught a few people looking over at us and immediately looked away. I hoped that Maya didn’t catch it, but she definitely had .

“Sorry, upon reflection, I probably should’ve picked somewhere way less public to discuss the paparazzi shot taken of us,” she admitted.

“No, it’s okay,” I said, and I could tell from Maya’s face that she wasn’t completely sold. I dropped my voice and leaned across the table. “I’m…used to it.”

Maya’s lips twisted up in an amused smile. “Oh, a true local celebrity.”

“It’s not like that—“

“It sounds like it’s exactly like that,“ she said. “Of course, people would snap a random picture of us at a game. People are really obsessed with you.”

“ Obsessed is a strong word. They just know my name.”

“And face, because it’s plastered everywhere around campus. The giant banner of you and your teammates leading into the arena is pretty cool, by the way.”

“Oh, god,” I said, turning away so she couldn’t see how visibly embarrassed I was. I knew it was written all over me.

“And I don’t know if anyone told you but your jersey is everywhere .”

From beneath my palms, I said, “So I’ve heard.”

I finally pulled my hands away to see Maya grinning, clearly pleased with herself. “Any reason you picked twenty-five?”

“Lucky number, I guess. I don’t really know. It got assigned to me as a kid, and I never let it go.”

“Hm,” she said.

“Good enough answer?”

“I was expecting something more heartfelt. I thought athletes always had some kind of story for their number.”

“What, my story isn’t heartfelt enough?” I teased back, surprised by how easily I was falling into rhythm with her. There wasn’t anyone in my life who would consider me particularly chatty. But Maya brought it out of me.

“What makes it so lucky?” she asked, closing her laptop and leaning in closer to me. She took off her glasses and put them down on the table. “Or maybe that’s a dumb question. I guess your career speaks for itself.”

“My ego is loving this,” I said. I hoped I was successfully playing off how nervous her direct eye contact was making me.

“I’m honestly surprised you’re not more of a nightmare. Or you just do a really good job of hiding it.”