CHAPTER 7
Hunter
I wanted to explode, to full on rip into this kid like Coach at halftime when our offense fell apart. I was completely putting myself out there, risking it all, and he ruined it, made me look like an idiot.
But everyone had to be watching us, and if I did that I’d look like a total jerk.
Coach Whitlock told us that we could always turn things around, even if the other team was winning. There was always a chance for a stop, a turnover, a recovery all the way back to score.
Maybe there was something else I could do.
“What happened?” I asked, getting back to my feet. It was weird because my avatar naturally got up halfway. I guess it was in the programming, because real me had never really fallen.
“I don’t know,” Pink Hair said. “Sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
I reached out my hand and pulled him up. His avatar was halfway up as well; I just helped him the rest of the way. The gloves had tech inside them that made it feel like I was actually grabbing someone’s hand.
The girls had to be watching. You can’t ignore two people totally colliding into each other and falling like fools so close to you. But if the girls saw me doing something nice, that could help get me back in decent field position to start on later.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said to Pink Hair. I was furious inside, but I was trying to recover here. “I’m Hunter Athanasopoulos.”
He gave me a look like he already knew who I was, but he didn’t look familiar. Maybe he’d only heard of me. He introduced himself. He had some crazy weird name I didn’t think I was ever going to remember. I really didn’t get him.
But I chatted with him for a few minutes, trying to recover from this whole mess. And then I realized that I could hear the girls talking behind me. One said something about how we collided, but I helped him up, and that was cute. The other said the pink-haired kid was cute, too. Nah, that couldn’t be right. But then they went back to talking about me.
Maybe this wasn’t a total disaster.
I waited just a little longer, talking to Pink Hair Kid, trying to build up my confidence. My heart was really thumping. Trying to talk to these girls was hard before; talking to them after looking like an idiot was going to be even harder. This was gutsy, but this was me. I told Pink Hair Kid goodbye and just gave it a shot.
“Hey, ladies,” I said. “I’m Hunter Athanasopoulos.”
They smiled. “I’m Ruby,” the one in the T-shirt said.
“I’m Grace,” the dress girl said.
“And apparently, I’m a klutz today,” I said. Not bad. Might as well just own it.
The girls laughed a little. “It was just an accident,” Grace said, waving it off. “That cute pink-haired kid wasn’t looking where he was going.”
Good. She knew it wasn’t my fault. It felt like I had been doing deadlifts of embarrassment, and I could finally drop them onto the floor.
I kind of went for it, my pulse sprinting. “I saw you two and thought you looked virtually awesome,” I said. “So I wanted to come say hi.” And I winked.
Winks are like a secret weapon. I think most kids would never use them. And I get it. They take a ton of courage. But if you really own them, a wink can take you from the normal-kid-next-door category to the hot-guy-from-a-movie category. Seriously. Bare minimum you’re entertaining and stand out. I don’t see why more people don’t use them. But again, you have to really own them.
Sometimes I don’t want to. I get really nervous, wondering what everyone else might think. But like it says on my poster of the Greatest of All Time dunking, “You can’t be afraid to fail. It’s the only way you succeed.”
After my brother challenged me to do it, I winked at Sarah Marie in the fourth grade and she blushed. Then at recess she told all her friends, and they were giggling while I played football. I pretended not to notice. Part of me wanted to feel all embarrassed, but instead I just kept it up. Between plays, I turned to them, and winked again. And they all smiled and laughed and talked about me.
It’s all about owning it. Once you do that, confidence is just like math or sports or whatever. Practice and it gets easier. Go after it. Don’t hold back. After a little while, you can walk into a party where you know absolutely no one, scream, “What’s up, people!” to everyone and walk up to the prettiest girls there and tell them they look virtually awesome.
“Want to go check out the games?” I asked.
They agreed, and I started walking through the crowd with the two prettiest girls in the room. It had been rough there for a little bit, but it felt like I pulled off a playoff win.
And a few seconds later, some cocky boy challenged me to a basketball shoot-off.
Girls watching. A little pressure. Game on.
I could still do this.