The Best Player

6

"Hey coach" 

"Yeah hey coach" 

I grabbed my backpack and left my basketball on the floor. "I'll just go... bye... coach" I said squeezing past my Dad. "Love you!" I said as Isaak and Kameron pulled me.

3:00

"Wait so you have to move this over to this side to make it standard first?" I asked because Isaak was helping me. 

"Yeah, you always have to set it to standard form or else it won't work." He said looking at my work. 

"Right right." I said as I solved the equation out. 

"See." He said pointing at my finished work. 

"Thanks." I said typing my answer into the assignment on the computer. 

"No problem." He said packing his stuff up. I still had one more problem to finish so I started working on it. "Soooo, you ready?" He said. 

I paused with my pencil in my hand. "Of course I am." I said looking at him. 

"Well excuse me" He said holding his hands up in defense. 

I smiled and kept finishing my work. I started to put my stuff away as the bell rang. We both got up and walked out of class. 

"You better drop a 50 piece today." He said looking at me. 

My eyes widened in shock. "50?!" He laughed at me. "50 is absolutely crazy!" I said quietly. 

"You good?" He said stopping me. "I was just joking, but you actually may be able to drop 50. This district is kinda mid." He said crossing his arms. 

"Right" I said walking off, thinking. 

"What's wrong actually?" He said stopping me again. "You're not acting like yourself." He said looking down at me. 

I sighed and slightly smile. "I just want to show everybody that I'm, you know, good." 

"Des-" 

"I know I know, 'Des you are good'" 

He laughed. "I don't sound like that. Plus, you keep putting yourself down when you know you're good. I don't know how many times I have to say that." He said looking at me. 

I looked down and smiled. "Stop hiding your smile." He said scoffing and lifting my head with his hand. 

"Whatever man." I said pushing his hand and walking to the locker room smiling.

6:08

Diamond, me, and the rest of the 8th grade team are still sitting in the bleachers waiting for the 7th grade game to end. They were in overtime with two minutes left. Isaak and the rest of our friend group walked in, minus Kayoni who was doing the books since she as girls' team manager. 

Isaak sat beside me. "I thought y'all played at 6." 

I pointed at the game clock. "OT." I said still locked in on the game. 

"You ready?" He asked putting an arm over my shoulders. 

"Eww Isaak get offff" I said taking his sweaty arm off of me. 

"What? You're about to get sweaty too." He said laughing. 

"Girls! Let's go." Coach Sines said standing in front of the bleachers. 

The game was pretty much over due to the amount of time left in OT. I grabbed the issued backpack and stood up. 

As I was getting ready to walk down the bleachers, Isaak grabbed my wrist. "Good luck" 

"Thanks." I said walking down the bleachers and walking beside Diamond. 

"Okay Girl!" She said laughing at me. 

"I should say the same for you." I said smirking at her. 

"Whatever." She said smiling and looking away. 

We both sat out bags down by our bench and rushed to warm up because our warm up time was shortened due to the 7th grade game going over. After the layup drills and stretching, Coach Sines sent the first 5 out. I walked to the scoring table and dapped up Kayoni. 

"Get em" She said pretending to clench her mouth in anger. I laughed and nodded. 

The refs blew the whistled. "Hold your spots ladies. *whistle* BLUE! WHITE!" 

He paused and threw the ball in the air. We won the jump ball, so my teammate passed it to me. I saw Diamond sprinting to cut and passed it to her for an easy lay. She pointed at me and I pointed back nodding. 

"Every time!" Coach Sines said clapping her hands together.

4th Quarter ~ 65-67 ~ 0:12 Left

We were in a timeout and Coach Sines looked at me. "Destiny, you're taking the last shot." 

I widened my eyes. "What?" 

"You got it Des. You're the best shooter here!" Diamond said looking at me. "Isaak and Kam see you make practically every shot every day. I believe in you. Coach believes in you. And we already know your friends and teammates do." 

I nodded and smile. "Alright, I got y'all." I said standing up. 

"FINISH ON 3!" 

"1 2 3 FINISH" 

We jogged back on the court. It was the other team's ball, so we had to get a steal. The ref handed the ball to the girl and she passed it in. I locked her up, and while she wasn't paying attention, Diamond came behind her and stole the ball. She passed it to me and I looked at the clock.

9, 8, 7, 6, 5....

Our post, Leigha, came and set a screen. I came off her shoulder and shot a 3. It was like the world slowed and everyone was moving in slow-motion. The ball hit the rim and bounced up....