I formulated an idea by the end of school the next day. I was almost relieved that the choice was in Emelia's hands and she might not come. Allison waited outside my last class. We headed outside.
“Think she’ll show?” She asked.
“If not, there’s another school day tomorrow.”
“So, what did you plan? Can I come?”
“Depends on how you feel about basketball.”
I didn’t have to look to know she would be wrinkling her nose. “That’s your plan? I didn’t think winning would be this easy.”
“Not a competition.”
“Sounds like someone who knows she’s beaten. Save some time for me afterward.”
We pushed open the doors of the entrance and turned to the left, where the sidewalk led to the bike racks. Nervous hands twisted together under the tree that stretched over the bicycles. In a school of thousands of students, Emelia’s fear of being seen made her more visible. I wanted to gather her darting gaze and scattered thoughts and tell her it’s fine! The same response must have been elicited in Allison. She jogged over and grabbed her hands. With them squeezed in hers, she bounced on her heels.
“Emelia! We’re going to have such a good day. Well, after Dani is done with her social experiment. Then we can have fun.”
Emelia looked to me and somehow her concern intensified.
“You said you never tried sports before. Did you ever want to give it a shot?” I asked.
“Oh. Uh. Sure?” She said, but looked more like she wanted to say “Hell no!”
She bravely wore nonchalance until the basketball court came into view. Some of my classmates were already there, taking free throws and shouting at each other. Emelia stopped short of entering the fenced area. “Oh. There are a lot of people. Are you sure it’s okay to bring an outsider in? Maybe I’ll just watch, you know, over…” She gestured to the side.
No, watching leads to thinking. Thinking is bad. “They don’t care. It’s not like we’re an official team. We just mess around. You know the gist of it, right?”
“Keep the ball bouncing and get it through the hoop?”
“Close enough. I probably don’t have to worry about you fouling out.”
“Fouling out…?” The look on her face. Priceless.
“You’ll be fine.” I laughed and clapped her shoulder. I walked in and a couple girls called to me. I lifted my hand as a greeting. Emelia looked like she wanted to disappear.
One of the guys nearby nodded at Emelia. “Hey. S’up?”
“Um. Not much?” Each word Emelia used felt like a painful choice, like trying to decipher a secret code.
“Oh, I know you.” Nate spoke up. I tensed for a second but realized he’s an idiot. No way he knows it was Emelia’s house he tried to break into on Halloween. “Emelia, right? We’re in the same grade. I’m Nate Powell.”
Emelia mouthed the name a couple times. I saw the moment realization hit her. “Oh you—” Her eyes went wide and her face tightened to resist a smile. She lost the battle and started snickering.
“What the hell?” Nate demanded.
“Sorry, sorry, nothing.” Emelia waved to dismiss him. He looked to me and I returned a knowing smirk.
Her relaxation turned back to tension when they tried to rally everyone together for a game. Kylie, another classmate, noticed and said, “Oh, I get it. You’re a virgin, huh?”
Emelia sputtered and choked on air. “What? I, uh—”
“To sports, I mean.” Kylie put a hand on Emelia’s shoulder, in what was probably supposed to be reassuring. She jumped. Kylie laughed. “You gotta loosen up. Come on, fresh meat.”
Emelia looked at me with large eyes. “I feel like you’re throwing me to the wolves.”
I walked toward the court with the others. “Just stick close to me at first, if you want. Be alert and available for anyone to pass to you. That's basically it... Oh, and don't die.”
She nodded, solemn. Oh no, I might be enjoying this too much.
She was stiff starting out and far too nervous to do any good, but the longer we played, the more focused she was. Maybe she realized that not everyone was out to get her. When I went to take a break and drink some water with some of the others, she surprised me when she kept playing. I was going to stop torturing her and tell her that she did not have to play anymore, but if she actually wanted to stay, I wasn't going to say anything.
I sat on a bench and watched while a few of them tried to show Emelia some tips. She was so serious and attentive that I probably should not have been as amused as I was to see her trip and stumble all over the place.
“Whoa. She's so uncoordinated,” someone said. I looked up to see Dara, a senior on the girl’s basketball team, coming to sit by me. She joined us sometimes when the team didn’t have practice. “Which dark corner did you find her in?”
You have no idea. “She’s just not used to it.”
“She has potential. She’s tall enough Taller than you?”
I shrugged. I knew she was right, but I wasn’t going to admit it.
“She also has an… honest energy,” she continued. “She hasn’t made a shot yet but keeps going. She could be good.”
It was weird to see someone else analyzing Emelia. “As opposed to a slacker like me?”
“I’m just saying. If you worked at it, you guys could probably join the team next year.”
I chuckled. “Are parental consent forms still required?”
“Still dealing with that, huh?”
Well, I meant for Emelia, but “Yea.”
My phone vibrated. A third text came in from Allison telling me to hurry up. Dara rejoined the group and I called Emelia over. She was breathing hard and her long bangs were sticking to her forehead with sweat. I tossed her my water bottle. “You’re not going to pass out, are you?”
She shook her head while she drank. “I like the challenge.”
“You leaving?” Nate called.
“First history essay of the year due tomorrow,” I called back. “Time to hit the books.”
“Nooo. Shit man. What was it on?”
Craig looked up. “Wait, there are essays in history, too?”
I smirked at Emelia and waved to them. “Later.”
Another text buzzed in telling me to meet at the Home Ec room. Emelia followed me to the back entrance of the school. I stopped before opening the door. “I know you can’t just show up in class again without questions but you’ll find a way. You could get a GED and write a killer essay and go to Yale at sixteen or whatever. You’ll catch up to us idiots. When your mom comes back.”
She smiled and I was struck by that earnest gratitude. I had to turn away and open the door. “Don’t worry. The school empties quick.”
The halls were quiet but I could hear the band practicing in the music room on the other side of school. Allison waved us down even though we were already headed toward her. She was holding a frame with the front faced away from us. “Finally. I thought they would lock the building before you’d get here. Come on.”
We followed her down the hall to the auditorium. Pictures lined the walls outside the room and I understood.
“You’ve heard about the art show, right? The art club and classes put together this gallery for a showing. The parents come to see them once a semester.” Allison spread her right arm wide. “These were from last semester’s show.”
Emelia moved to inspect them, giving each piece its own attention. She made comments like, “Oh, I remember Evan” and “Interesting choice.” Should I have fetched her a glass of wine?
Allison stuck out the tip of her tongue at me. It’s not like I doubted Allison would think of something Emelia would like more. I wasn’t good at this kind of thing. I imagined that I’d feel irritated when the inevitability occurred. But Emelia’s smile made me smile on reflex. She deserved as much as could be given to her.
Allison turned the frame around and held it up. “What do you think of this one?”
It was a painting of a tree with long, skeletal branches stretching over a pond’s reflection. I had never considered admiring a reflection in the water but the hollow feeling it gave me made me wonder if I had been missing out my whole life.
Emelia slapped a hand over her eyes. “I can’t believe you framed that.” She took it from Allison’s outstretched hands. “Where did you find it?”
“It was left in the art room from last semester.” Allison walked to an empty spot on the wall. “There’s an empty space for it. You belong here too.”
“Thank you.” She looked down at it. “I’m not going to put it up, though.”
Allison’s face fell to echo the disappointment I felt.
“I am going to make something better and put it up when I come back.”
Allison’s grin returned. “Okay. But you have a lot of pressure to make something better than that.”
That’s right. We just have to keep her hope alive.
We left the school, heading for Emelia’s house. On the way, Allison insisted we stop at her favorite restaurant. Emelia didn’t protest. As she ordered her food, not shying from being seen, I started to wonder if she was allowing herself to see the world as somewhere she could be. I wanted her to keep experiencing new things, to keep her away from the static gray walls of her house.
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