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we’ve ever drawn—maybe the only thing that counts as a crowd at all.
When my teammates peek through the locker room door, they return with
radiant expressions on their faces. The only one put off by the show of
support is Danielle.
“I can’t play with all those people watching me,” she says nervously.
She starts to disappear into herself, sinking into the locker room bench,
almost like she’s going into Danielle Vision. “So many people. So many
eyes.”
“You’ll be great,” I assure her. “You’ve been killing it at practice with
people watching.”
“That’s, like, twelve people,” she says, staring at the lockers. “This is
our whole grade.”
“Hey.” I shake her shoulder. “I don’t mean to be insensitive, but buck
up. Either you want us to be dynamite—which means more people cheering
for us—or you want us to suck. You can’t have it both ways.”
She swallows and lets me pull her off the bench. “Fine. Just—don’t let
the announcer call my name.”
“I literally have no control over that,” I say, laughing at her.
“Shhh,” she says, walking to the door robotically.
When our team runs onto the court, there’s a huge roar from the crowd. I
find myself blushing in a good way. Irene and her squad are stationed at the
sidelines, working their magic. I almost wish she would turn around and
throw me a knowing smirk.
Googy wins the tip-off, and the ball lands in my hands, and before I
know it, I’m sailing down the court like I own the damn thing. Before the
other team has time to finalize their defensive formation, I pass the ball to
one of our open forwards, who sinks an easy jump shot.
The crowd cheers. I high-five a slightly less nervous Danielle, and as we
run to the other side of the court to play defense, I can’t help grinning.
We win that first game, and then our second game the following week, and
somehow we end up rolling into an undefeated season. November becomes
a flurry of practice-practice-game, practice-practice-game, and I’m high on