28

AFTER DAYS OF HARDLY TALKING to anyone, I suddenly couldn’t shut up. But I didn’t talk to Eric, or Mom, or Dad. And I definitely didn’t talk to Kirsten.

Instead, I talked to my teammates.

Or, anyway, I talked at my teammates.

We had an away game at Groveland that afternoon, and I did all the normal talking—calling out screens, calling out offensive sets as I dribbled the ball up court, calling out plays as I inbounded the basketball, etc. But I didn’t stop there. I followed teammates up the court and told them to step toward open spots on the court, or to pass the ball to the cutter, or to take a dribble to improve their angle before making an entry feed to the post.

When they turned the ball over, I yelled at them to get their head in the game as we ran back on defense.

When Coach Wight called a timeout toward the end of the second quarter, I interrupted him and pointed to the marker board he was holding. I told him that the play he had just drawn up wasn’t going to work because Groveland was in a zone defense. My finger dripped sweat on the marker board and I realized I had just talked over a coach. But I didn’t care.

I didn’t care because now that I had started talking I couldn’t stop.

I didn’t care because, unlike everything else that was going on in my life, I knew what to say. I knew the right words and terms and strategies. I knew how to fix what we were doing wrong.

All everybody else had to do was listen.

Which they didn’t do. My teammates were silent the whole time I spoke, but they weren’t listening. They couldn’t have been. Because by halftime we were losing by 18 points. My teammates and I sat in Groveland’s weight room—that’s the room we were given for halftime—and waited for Coach to enter. (He liked to give us a chance to collect our thoughts before giving us his halftime speech.) Only I couldn’t hold my tongue. I announced what each player was doing wrong, and what they needed to do differently if we wanted to get back in the game. As I lectured Nick Little—“If you understand what it means to cut someone off before they flash across the lane, why don’t you do it?”—another voice finally cut in: “Lay off, Duncan.”

I stopped talking and found the owner of the voice.

Adam Pilsner.

We were the only two standing.

“Is this all because you found out your girlfriend was giving you sloppy seconds after banging your dad?” he said.

Some players chuckled.

“If you ask me, the guy’s always been a perv,” Adam continued. “What were you telling me at lunch, Jake? That Mike’s old man installed double mirrors in the girls’ locker room just to spy on them while they changed?”

Jake Nichols sat next to Adam, and he didn’t confirm or deny that he’d said these things during lunch.

“That’s hilarious, Adam,” I said.

“According to Nikki, he’d watch her stretch before gym class and like the whole time he had this humungo boner.”

More laughter.

“Shut up,” I said.

“You had your turn to speak. Now it’s my turn,” Adam said.

“No—now it’s my turn.” It was Coach Wight.

I didn’t know how long he’d been there, but if he heard any of Adam’s comments, he didn’t say so. He just told us to take a seat with the rest of our team and then began his halftime pep talk.

This time, I didn’t interrupt.