I was still stewing and bubbling with rage when I arrived at the girls’ basketball game that night. There had been a lot of prodding by Lakshmi, and I finally relented. Staying after school was difficult, since I took the bus every day and would either have to beg for a ride home, or walk through subzero temperatures back to the apartment complex. I wasn’t looking forward to either option.
Eaganville had spent all of zero dollars renovating the gym, and the wood floor was pocked and rutted with ancient wounds. The lighting was poor and the acoustics were awful, but the nine people sitting on our side of the audience didn’t seem to mind.
The old wooden bleachers creaked and groaned as I settled into an empty section. We were squaring off against the Burnsville Blaze, which was a quintessential suburban team destined to kick all of our asses. The girls were tall, mostly white, and had deeply impressive ponytails. The visiting section of the stands, across the court, was filling up with a collection of heavy-coated Minnesotans; they had even brought cheerleaders.
As you might imagine, we had no cheerleaders. I wasn’t sure if we actually had a cheer team or not, but I was certain they wouldn’t be caught dead cheering at a sports event. The jazz band had assembled behind one of the baskets and was really going at it, though.
I picked out Lakshmi’s dad almost immediately. His black hair was shot through with silver, and his attire could best be described as “asset manager.” He wore a button-down light blue oxford shirt and black slacks and was probably going to be forced to giving me a ride home. He had the dead-eyed look of a parent who’s attended too many losing games of his children.
“Go Lakshmi!” I yelled, pumping my fist in the air as the team came out for layup drills.
Lakshmi was wearing gray leggings under her basketball shorts and had her black hair pulled back behind a headband. Her gaze was steely as she swooped toward the basket, laying in shot after shot. She didn’t smile, she didn’t even talk to her teammates much. She looked like a programmable robot that was ready to slaughter humanity. I felt scared for the other team.
Then I spotted Elijah. He was wearing the kind of long black coat that a lot of geeks wore—the kind that signaled he sort of imagined himself as the Batman, hunched over the edge of a tall building and looking for crime.
“Hey,” he said, tromping over to me. He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his toes, causing the entire bleacher to squeak like a tortured mouse.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Just here to watch.” He jerked his head toward Lakshmi as if I didn’t know who he was referring to. “Rooting. I’m here to root. Woo.”
“Cool.”
“I love watching her compete.”
“I didn’t know you guys were a thing.”
He smiled, showing off his perfectly straight teeth. “We’re not… actually a thing. There have been moments where we have been close to being a thing, but the thingness never truly materialized.”
“Oh. So is this like a stalker situation?”
“No no no, it’s not like that. I am a just a big fan of Lakshmi.”
“Right.”
Elijah waved at Lakshmi. She didn’t see him. He waved again, a little more conspicuously. She still didn’t see him.
“She’s focused,” he said. “Like death itself. I love it.”
I laughed. “Are you sure it’s not a stalker situation?”
He hunched his shoulders and sat down next to me. “I am here as a sports fan, nothing more. Even though I know absolutely nothing about sports.”
“I think you’re not alone in that.”
“I figure the best way to be a fan is just to cheer for everything.” The teams were huddling up. “Huddle! Wooo! YES! GO LADY KNIGHTS! WOO!”
A mom sitting two rows in front of us turned around to give him the stink-eye. Her hair was colored in streaks and she had expensive earrings and was clearly a horrible person.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to cheer them when they huddle,” I said.
“I am cheering all the damn time,” he said. “I’m here for continuous support. Like a sports bra.”
Elijah’s bra-like functions were about to be tested. Lakshmi started out as a power forward, and it was clear from the outset that she was the only good player on our team. Unfortunately, the other team was filled with good players.
“Run, damn it!” I shouted, well aware of the fact that I would be no better if I were on the court. “Do the sports! DO IT! DO THE SPORTS!”
This time the mom in front of us swiveled entirely in her seat and glared at us. “Could you please cheer appropriately?” she hissed.
Elijah bugged his eyes out. “I’m sorry our exuberance is causing you stress.”
“It might help if you were less stuck up,” I said, and Elijah snickered. He was growing on me. She turned away from us. “They have pills for that sort of thing if you’re interested,” I said to the back of her head.
Halfway through the first quarter we were already down ten points. Our players were a bumbling mess, turning the ball over constantly, missing shots, and generally finding it difficult to move in a coordinated fashion. Lakshmi tried her best, driving through the lane, throwing up shots at the basket, and occasionally scoring, but it was hopeless.
“GOOD TRY!” shouted Elijah, clapping encouragingly, after one of our players missed the entire basket. He looked over at me, his blue eyes meeting mine just a second too long.
You could see the vein throbbing in Lakshmi’s neck from space as she tried to contain her rage. She collided with another player, stole the ball, and sprinted to the three-point line, launching a high arcing shot that swished sweetly through the net. She high-fived the rest of the team so hard that they came away wincing.
“WOO!” I shouted.
“YES!” screamed Elijah over me, waving and failing to get her attention once again. “THAT’S MY PERSON! I mean… THAT WAS A GOOD THING YOU DID! I AM PROUD OF YOU AND I SUPPORT YOUR ENDEAVORS IN ATHLETICS!”
“You can stop now,” I said, yanking him down by his arm, laughing.
“Sometimes the best thing to do is to keep going, even when other people are embarrassed by you. One of the rules of improv comedy.”
“Is that your life philosophy? Just keep going even if you’re being embarrassing?”
“I mean, what is being embarrassed, anyway?” he said. “It doesn’t really exist, does it? These people”—he gestured vaguely at the mom sitting in front of us—“does their opinion of me matter? Does it matter what the other cheerleaders think of me?”
“They think you’re a freak?”
“So? How does that hurt me?”
“Huh.”
I thought back to English class—he had a point. Elijah stuffed his hands under his legs and vibrated with energy, once again shaking the bleacher.
I looked over at Lakshmi’s dad. His expression hadn’t changed too much, but he was clapping solemnly for his daughter. He had his phone out and was taking some blurry shots of the action. I felt a twinge of pain, thinking of my dad. Lakshmi’s father might not have been a fountain of enthusiasm, but at least he showed up.
By halftime, the game was basically lost. Lakshmi had scored twelve points, which was half of our team’s total.
“She’s just awesome,” Elijah said, smiling. “She’s basically like an elf maiden, you know? Like a Lord of the Rings elf maiden? Basically super tall and immortal and really strong in combat.”
“That wasn’t exactly the first thing I thought of, but sure.”
“Definitely.” He rocked back and forth on his seat.
“Have you like told her how you feel?”
He tilted his head like a dog. “How I feel?”
“Your huge crush on her? Like… directly told her? Made a clear attempt at communication?”
“You think I have a huge crush on her?”
“Um… yes?”
“I can’t just be here as a friend for another friend?”
“No.”
“Like what you’re doing?”
I blinked, a little flustered. “That’s different.”
“Oh, I see.” He nodded, flashing his brilliant smile again. “You think that just because I enthusiastically support my friend—”
“Like a sports bra—your words—”
“Like a friendly sports bra, that I have some deep and unrequited love for her?”
“Pretty much.” I smiled.
“That’s interesting,” he said, raising one finger. “That is really interesting. So let me pitch a scenario to you.”
“Please. Pitch away,” I joked.
“We’ve got the Snow Ball on Saturday—”
“What’s the Snow Ball?”
“We don’t have Homecoming or Prom, so the school basically ripped off Harry Potter and created a winter dance instead. It’s this Saturday. There’s a big assembly tomorrow for it—where my improv comedy troupe is going to perform… AND”—he leaned in conspiratorially—“I could make a snow-posal.”
I groaned. “Wait, the dance is Saturday and you’re asking her tomorrow?”
“Well, she’s… maybe it’s a last-minute decision. Big gesture, right? Maybe I needed to gather my courage.”
I put my face in my hands. “Every part of this is a mess.”
“All right, sure. But I could still rent a limo—”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Just tell her how you feel. In private. I mean, you could go with the elf maiden thing. It’s really dorky, but at least it’s honest.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I see that.”
Lakshmi’s three-pointer was the high point of the game. The second half was a miserable slog. The Burnsville players double- and triple-teamed Lakshmi when she got the ball on offense, forcing her to pass the ball to wide-open players who missed their shots terribly. By the time it was over, the highlight was our jazz band, which had moved on to improvisation, including an extremely impressive three-minute solo by our drummer.
“NICE EFFORT!” shouted Elijah, mustering up the energy for one last enthusiastic cheer.
When the game was finished, the mom in front of us stood angrily and stuffed her phone into her purse. “You know,” she said, “there are times to cheer and there are times not to cheer, okay? And I think it’s disgraceful that people like you can come to a game and ruin it for everyone. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
“I’m never ashamed of myself,” said Elijah, continuing to grow on me. “It’s a medical condition.”
“If it helps,” I said, “I’m ashamed for him.”
She said nothing and stomped off. Elijah turned to me.
“I feel like we just had our own victory.”
Lakshmi was full of joy after the game.
“Son of a bitch,” she growled, kicking the bleacher with her shoe.
Elijah was about to high-five her and thought better of it. “I thought you were spectacular. You were just doing the basketball out there. You were out-basketballing everybody.”
Lakshmi huffed and removed her headband, shaking out her black ponytail. “It’s not fair,” she said. “I’m busting my ass out there.” She pulled her shoes off, wiggling her cramped toes. “How hard is it to pass the ball? Just pass the ball to someone who can shoot. Melinda’s the absolute worst. She’s out there, you can tell she’s thinking about slam poetry, the whole game she’s mumbling to herself. She’s mumbling her own damn slam poetry to herself. I’m standing next to her, and she’s like, ‘The whoosh of the ball, the glare of the lights, sneakers squeaking.’ What. The. Hell. Sneakers squeaking?”
“Slam poetry is a lot like improv actually,” said Elijah, once again, unhelpfully. “I really respect it.”
She blinked. “I don’t know that that’s helpful.”
“He’s supporting,” I said. “Like a sports bra.” I made a cupping motion with my hands.
She smiled weakly, then shook her head.
“I just want to win. One person can ruin a whole team, you know? I mean, granted, a lot of people on our team suck, but if you have one terrible person it doesn’t matter how good everyone else is. You can bring the whole thing down.”
Later that night, as I lay in bed, Lakshmi’s words reverberated in my brain.
One person can ruin a whole team.
I saw Melinda toss up an airball, mouthing slam poetry the entire time.
I saw myself kicking not one, but two goals into my own goal.
You can bring the whole thing down.
Huh.