I fake to the left and dribble to the right, around my opponent, unobstructed to the basket. It’s a gorgeous layup, off the board and through the hoop. For zero points. Come on, Lexi! We need points!

“Come on, Lexi.” Mom reaches back from the front seat of the Land Cruiser and shakes my leg. “We’re here. We’re at the campus. You okay?”

I gasp and clutch at my seatbelt, struggling to breathe. “I’m fine,” I say finally. “Bad dream. Annoying dream.”

This is my first college visit—to Virginia Tech, in the middle of nowhere in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Why in the world would anyone put a university out here? I’m filled with a vague sense of dread as we rumble past a huge “Home of the Hokies” sign outside the football stadium and pull into a spot by a massive indoor arena. What the heck is a Hokie, anyway?

Dad grins at me in the rearview mirror. “Ready for this?”

I shrug. Ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.

“Now, now. How about some enthusiasm?” Mom is smiling, but her tone is sharp. “Tech has made you a very generous offer. I expect you to show some gratitude.”

I nod and force a smile. She’s right, of course. Tech is an awesome school, and lots of kids would kill to be in my place. But knowing I’m acting like an ungrateful brat doesn’t make me feel any better. It also doesn’t make me feel any more grateful or any less bratty. I don’t want to be here, staring down a path to four more years of scorecards and stat sheets. The tightness in my chest intensifies.

The assistant coach who greets us is sweet, bordering on perky. “Laurel Jackson. You can call me Laurel.” My dad doffs his Wizards cap at her. In case she missed it.

Laurel leads us straight into the arena, and my heart skips a beat in spite of myself. It’s enormous. Two guys are jumping rope at the far end, and the tappity-tap of their feet and the hard plastic ropes echo through the cavernous space.

“This is where all the magic happens.” Laurel makes a wide, sweeping motion. “Cassell Coliseum seats a little over ten thousand people—not that the women’s games fill it up, but …” she gives me a hopeful smile. “If we can win a championship or two, we could probably come close.”

A door slams behind us and three girls walk in.

“Ah, look who it is.” Laurel ratchets up from cheerful to positively beaming. “Here’s someone you might remember.”

One of the girls does seem familiar, and as she comes closer, I recognize her. Of course, Madeleine. I forgot she came here. We played together at Grand View. We rarely spoke off the court, because (a) she was a senior, and even though I was a varsity starter, I was still a lowly freshman, and (b) she was a heck of a lot more popular than me, always talking about parties and guys and crazy weekends at the beach and stuff I know almost nothing about even to this day.

Why do adults assume that kids who went to school together are all friends? Don’t they remember what it was really like? Based on my Veronica Mars binge watching, I’m thinking things haven’t changed that much since Lauren was my age. Does graduating somehow wipe clean those memories?

“Hey, Lexi. Good to see you.” Madeleine gives me a quick hug. “This is Jolene Renner and LaMaurianna Watson.”

“Everyone calls me Mo,” LaMaurianna says. She glances at Lauren, who gives her a nod. “We have something for you.” She pulls out from behind her back a Tech t-shirt. It’s orange and maroon and has my name on the back with the number eleven—the same as my high school number.

“Oh my gosh, that’s so nice.” I take it and hold it up for size. “I can’t believe you did this. You shouldn’t have.”

They really shouldn’t have. I don’t deserve this. This whole visit is basically me barreling down a track to nowhere because I don’t know how to stop the train.

All three girls—even Madeleine—give me genuine smiles that make me feel even worse. “Hope to see you here next year,” Jolene says.

“We gotta run, but Coach will give you my email address if you need anything,” Madeleine says. She gives me another hug before they take off.

Lauren grins. “Ready for the tour?” She takes us around and shows us the Coliseum and then leads us to a whole other building they use just for practice. She takes us through the workout rooms, the locker rooms, and a classroom set up to watch film. My mom’s eyes shine, and I know exactly what she’s thinking. Watching video of my every shot would be so much more thorough than simply recording them on stat sheets. Yay.

Finally, we wind up outside the head coach’s office, and Lauren checks her Fitbit. “We’re a few minutes early to meet with Coach. Can I get you anything? Do you have any questions?”

“What’s a Hokie?”

“Lexi.” My mom shakes her head.

“It’s a legit question.”

Lauren laughs. “The name comes from an old fight song. But Hokie is actually a type of stone. You’ll see it in a lot of the buildings on campus.”

“A stone?” I raise my eyebrows and nod. “Interesting.” It’s not. It’s the most boring thing in the history of things.

A door behind Lauren opens and Coach steps into the room. I’ve seen him on TV, but he looks even bigger in person. “Alexis?” He shakes my hand.

“Lexi.”

“Of course.” He offers a sweeping wave, urging my parents and me into the room. “Let’s chat.”

Coach gets right to the point, explaining what he wants to accomplish with his team for the next few years and how he plans to get there. “I know you play forward now, but we’d need you as a point guard.”

“Oh?” My stomach does a little twirl. “Interesting.” This time, I mean it, though I kind of wish I didn’t. Changing to point guard would be a challenge, and I have to admit I rather like the idea of directing the offense. If I decide to play.

Coach leans forward. “Lexi, you’ve received our scholarship offer. I don’t expect you to make a decision on the spot, but if you commit within the next sixty days, that scholarship will be guaranteed for your four years here at Virginia Tech, even if, God forbid, you injure yourself during your senior year of high school and can’t play a single game.”

“Wow. Thank you.”

“That’s wonderful,” my mom says, and Dad nods in agreement.

“What if I suck?”

“Excuse me?” Coach appears startled. “I don’t believe I—”

I feel my mom’s eyes shooting darts, but I can’t help myself. “What if I stay healthy, but I suddenly start to suck? Say I lose my touch and my three-point percentage drops way down—what then? Or what if I decide to quit basketball altogether?”

“Well …” Coach shuffles a small stack of papers on his desk and shifts in his chair. “The scholarship is contingent on you playing as long as you’re healthy, but I can’t imagine with your demonstrated skill sets that you’d—”

“I apologize, Coach.” Mom lays her hand on my arm and presses down hard. “Lexi’s a bit nervous about all of this. It’s a big step. And she’s prone to thinking about worst-case scenarios.”

I want to point out that neither losing my touch at basketball nor deciding to hang up my high-tops would be the worst-case scenario. Did she not hear Coach just pose the possibility of a career-ending injury? Surely that would be worse. But the look in her eyes tells me not to go there, so I bite back my words, take the deepest breath I can given the fact that my chest once again feels as though a sumo wrestler has plopped down on top of it, and offer what I hope passes for an apologetic smile.