Page 7 of On Merit Alone
5:20 PM.
Ten minutes. The men’s practice slot would be over in ten minutes. But it wouldn’t actually be that soon. After, they would have a huddle and some of them would have recovery with trainers. Bench players might have to do extra shooting practices, and God knows whatever else those egotistical gym-hogging assholes did.
AndthenI could finally have the gym to myself.
I rolled my eyes. Would it kill management to give the women’s team at least a scrap of time between our game and the men’s self-important parade? Sure, they were in the playoffs and thatwasa huge deal, but we were a competing team just like they were, and we should be afforded all the perks and accommodations they got. Especially when it wasourseason the men were running into all because they couldn’t close out a playoff series in less than seven games.
Whatever. They’d be leaving for their next couple of games soon. Which meant I’d at least have some time to practice without having to maneuver around their schedule for a while.
I looked at the clock again.
5:25 PM…
Dammit, I could have sworn more time had passed. My knee continued to bounce. I bit my lip.
I just wanted to shoot around a bit. I only needed about an hour, maybe two.
I looked around my dimly lit apartment. Everything was clean and in order. The white marble countertops were spotless, the cream-colored cabinets wiped down. There were no dishes to do since I usually ordered takeout, no mail to sort since I paid all my bills automatically online, and there was no one to send me any actual mail. Nothing.
I didn’t need to look around the rest of my apartment to know it was dark too. Nobody was home. There was nobodytobe home with me, and I wasn’t in the mood for TV, so not even that was on to light up the space. Silence echoed louder than any background noise could. It was deafening.
At least on the court I would have the sound of my shoes scuffing the fresh polish, and the roar of my breath as my heart rate began to pick up. Here, there was just silence—silence and the smothering of my regrets.
5:28 PM…
Fuck it.I’d just wait in the locker room if the courts were taken. I needed to warm up my knee first, anyway.
Hopping down from my chair, I grabbed my bag off the floor. By the door, I paused near the large picture frames on the wall like I always did.
“Bye, Grandma. Bye, Grandpa,” I said, touching their photos like I was touching their memories. A few steps further down, I touched another frame. “Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad.”
Just like always, I rushed out the door before I could dwell over not getting a response. Not getting a goodbye.
I never had, and I never would.
Jesus, it took them long enough.Satisfaction at finally getting out on the court washed over me as I wheeled out the cart of balls to the far side of the gym two hours later.
Even after a short warm-up—a few laps around the court, some high knees, butt kicks, leg swings, and ample stretching—my body felt sluggish. I was tired, I knew that. And my knee didn’t feel the best, I knew that too.
But I also knew that I’d choked in the heat of the moment today. If I was going to start turning this season around, I couldn’t make a habit of that. Never mind that the missed free throws and other easy mistakes whenever the pressure seemed to be highest had become my norm this season. I couldn’t let it continue.
“One hundred buckets to earn a shower, Jones,” I said aloud.
Grandpa used to challenge me to the same test after practices or after an especially hard loss I needed to work out of my system. He wouldn’t coach me then. He’d always coach me on my technique, mentality, or strategy, but during those last hundred shots, he’d just talk to me. About anything, really. He’d tell me a story about Grandma, contemplate what we’d have for dinner, or even ask me questions sometimes. I hated when he did that, wanting nothing in the world than to make those last one hundred shots perfect. When I asked him why he never said anything about basketball, he just shrugged and said, “We’ve been on this court for hours, Mer. You know what to do with the ball and that there hoop. I can’t always coach you. You gotta coach yourself sometimes.”
I laid a hand on the first ball on the rack, taking a shuddering breath.
I’d been coaching myself without him for a while now, but it didn’t mean I missed him any less. It was times like these, when I felt as lost as I would if it was my first time on a court rather thanmy millionth, that I wished he could have stuck around a little longer to coach me through the hard parts.
Not just with basketball. But the hard parts of this world or this life… of losing them.
“One hundred baskets, Merit,” I whispered, trying to shake myself out of this funk.
Swiping a hand across my damp eyes, I lifted a ball and began.
Ten more.
My body was screaming at me to stop. My muscles ached in a way that was past productive, the burn becoming near constant with every one of my movements. My breath was becoming more labored than normal, even after taking a few five-minute breathers. I was nearing exhaustion, which didn’t bode well for the morning game in my future, but it was okay. I’d be sure to recover well and eat right. Plus, I had nothing else to do at home. All my work was done, all the chores completed. So even though I had surpassed my initial one hundred shots by about ninety, ten more good baskets wouldn’t kill me.
