I hit the driveway early the next morning. Sunday. It’s early enough that everything is still a shade of gray. I can see my breath as I grab my ball from the tattered box in the corner of the garage.
I’m sure Mr. Hodgson is overjoyed to hear the rattle of our garage door and my ball echoing across the circle as I go in for my first layup at quarter after seven. By the time my ball settles through the stiff net and my feet touch the ground, though, that thought is gone.
My routine: Ten shots in a row, one hand only, three feet in front of the rim; take a step back and repeat, ten in a row, until I make it to the foul line, usually my fourth set of ten. Then I move to the right block and repeat, ten in a row, one-handed, before taking a step back at a diagonal from the foul line. When I’ve made it through four rounds, I move to the left block and repeat, then finally along the right and left baselines.
If I’m perfect, that’s two hundred made shots before I allow myself to just play around and work on my moves. I’ve never been even close to perfect, and because I make myself go back to zero at each spot after a miss, it’s probably closer to four or five hundred buckets before I make it through the circuit.
I don’t like to miss.
I know it sounds crazy, but there’s something about the rhythm, the routine of it, the perfect, delicate sound of ball only touching net—the feeling of being good and still working to be better—that frees my mind. It allows my brain to sink down a level, to see things how they really are.
This morning, though, my brain keeps wandering back to Liam Branson, smiling in that picture for Tabby. At seven in a row from the foul line, I can hear her phone buzzing in her pocket. At eight, I see her beaming at the screen, her hand at her mouth. At nine, she remembers I’m still there and looks up, says something I can’t make out, and goes back to her phone. At ten, I feel the pang of inadequacy, and my shot clangs high off the back of the rim.
I do this to myself four more times—choking number ten while some movie of Tabby and Branson rolls in my head. Shit that hasn’t happened yet: Tabby, wearing his oversize varsity jacket, cheering him on from the student section of the gym; waiting for him in the lobby after a game and leaving together, his arm draped over her shoulders; and the worst, Branson draining jumper after jumper over me in a scrimmage during practice while Tabby watches from the baseline, telling me “Good job, Matt!” and “Keep trying!” even though she can’t take her eyes off Branson after each basket, which really doesn’t even make any fucking sense.
Actually, that last image hits when I’m only up to six, and when my shot bounces back to me off the front of the rim, I scoop it up and overarm it as hard as I can into the backboard.
Not part of my routine.
All right, Matt. Time to get a grip here, buddy.
I decide to forgo the rest of my shooting routine for once and practice some moves, try to work out some of the weightless pinpricks that come with blinding frustration. At least before I break another garage-door window. Or Mr. Hodgson comes out and decides to go retired army ranger on my ass—he’s got to put up with this ball bouncing way early in the morning a lot.
And what good does it do me to agonize over Liam Branson? It’s not like he really knows who I am, anyway. Just another gangly, awkward freshman. Basketball season starts in a couple of weeks, and my other best friend, Trip, and I are going to be playing up on JV as freshmen, but even then, I’m not sure Branson’s going to care who I am. And I’m not sure why I suddenly need him to.
I’m not out here freezing my nuts off at 7:00 a.m. on the first day of November for Liam Branson. Fuck that. This time next year, Branson will be gone—hopefully putting on forty pounds of beer fat in a dorm at some state college—and it’ll be my turn to step into the varsity light as a sophomore. In fact, I want him to have the best season of his career, if only because he has to work his ass off in practice to keep me in my place.
And even though I might fantasize about Tabby watching me dominate a game, wearing my jacket in the stands, waiting for me in the lobby after the game, I’m not out here for her, either.
I just love this game.
I love knowing exactly where to stand on help defense, collapsing on some kid who thinks he’s got an easy drive to the basket and swatting his shot out of bounds. I love knowing what Trip’s going to do, where he’s going to be on the court, know exactly when his scrappy ass is going to dive at a lazy point guard who forgets to protect the ball and be sprinting up the court as it happens. I love when a defender thinks I’m too tall to shoot from the outside and swears at himself after the first unchallenged three, his coach or his teammates on his case as we come back the other way—and again when I blow by him after he charges out to get a hand in my face the next time.
Perfect.
These are the two things I want more than anything: to play at the highest level—to start varsity; and, well, for Tabby to choose me. The first, I’m willing to be patient, to keep working my ass off. But the second. The second is already slipping away.
Even though I can still see my breath, and my hands go numb every fifteen minutes, I’ve got a pretty good sweat going when Tabby comes shuffling across the circle in sweats and the black-and-sky-blue-striped earflap hat Mom crocheted for me a few months ago. They’re Franklin Black Bear colors. It’s even got the pom-pom thingy on the top and braided tassels that hang from the earflaps. Mom thought it’d be a big hit at football games and stuff. Which it was. Just not on me.
“Hey, Matty,” she says, yawning and sitting cross-legged at the edge of the driveway.
“Back for more of Murray’s Nerds?” I say, slowing down to lazy jump shots.
“Jerk.” She yawns again and rubs the sleep from her eyes. Then, “Does he have any left?”
I laugh but don’t reply. This is my favorite version of Tabby. She’s clearly rolled out of bed, and it’s like I’m the only one who ever gets to see her this way. Can you be in love with a yawn?
Just ignore that one.
“What are you doing up already?” I ask.
“That’s an excellent question, Matthew. Because you would think any normal human teenager would still be asleep at eight-thirty on a dreary Sunday morning, wouldn’t you?”
I smile and go in for one last layup.
“But there’s been this incessant, annoying bouncing noise for the past hour, and no matter what I do, I can’t seem to block it out.”
“Sorry about that,” I say, tossing her the ball and sitting down next to her on the driveway. Steam rises off my arms, and, I gotta admit, it looks pretty cool. At least in my head it does. Like I’m in a Gatorade commercial, or something.
“I’m kidding. It’s not my first time at the rodeo, Matty.” Tabby attempts to spin the ball on her finger, fails, and lets it rest in her lap. “It’d be weird not to hear it. I can’t figure out why you’re up this early.”
“Sorry,” I say again. “Just up.”
And because my brain is a masochistic piece of shit, I ask, “Did you get any more pics from Branson’s party last night?”
Because why would I want to just enjoy my moment with her?
Tabby shakes her head, looking down at the ball in her lap, and smiles briefly before looking up.
“Okay, serious question,” she says.
“Yes, Tabby, I pulled the rest of the Nerds for you.”
“No, for real.” But I see her pause for the tiniest moment—this girl truly is a Nerds fiend. “You don’t really think Liam likes me, do you? Like, likes me likes me?” She looks down again. “I mean, I know he’s a senior and everything, and…it’s stupid…” She trails off.
My heart is breaking. It makes no sense, but I want the answer to be no and yes with the same ferocity. And I can’t commit to a side to give her a response.
I mean, I can’t wish against Tabby’s happiness—not seeing her like this—even if it is killing me. Now, that doesn’t mean I’m not wishing some horrendous venereal disease on Branson right now. Something oozing and smelly and highly conspicuous. Because that would be marvelous.
Tabby nudges me with her shoulder after a minute, raises her eyebrows at me, waiting for my response. The most I can manage is a weak laugh and a lame “Why are you asking me?”
“I don’t know. I know you don’t really know him at all.” She pauses and grins. “But, you know, you’re kind of a guy.”
“Hey, watch it there, asshole.”
“Hey!” Tabby says, and punches me in the shoulder, hard. “You watch it, dingleberry!”
“Dingleberry?”
“You heard me. Dingleberry.”
I throw a sweaty arm over her shoulder. “This is why we’re so close, Tab. I’m the dingleberry to your asshole.”
Tabby throws my arm off and punches the same spot, harder. “Dingleberry to a horse’s asshole, maybe.”
“Well,” I say, rubbing my shoulder. “It’s hard to imagine how he couldn’t like you.” Then, when she raises her fist again, “Seriously, Tabby. I don’t know him at all, but he’d have to be an asshole not to like you.” And I can barely get the next words out: “Like you like you.”
Tabby smiles and leans in next to me, puts her head on my still-tender shoulder. We stay like that for a few minutes, quiet, watching our breaths. How the hell can I feel like I’m getting closer to Tabby and farther away at the same time?
When she lifts her head again—way too soon—I stand and reach to help her up. “Let’s go find some Nerds.”