Page 79 of Courtside

“How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Sage answered as she rolled down her window to enter the gate code for the apartment complex. “Staying busy with the team and classes.”

“Any news on the job hunt?”

Sage grimaced. She knew that it was irrational; her mom’s questions about her post-graduation plans were completely reasonable. It was totally warranted for her to be curious and concerned about her kid having a concrete plan. But Sage couldn’t help the way her skin crawled when her mom brought up the topic.

“Nothing yet,” Sage admitted reluctantly. “I honestly haven’t had time. We’ve been traveling almost every week. My advisor has some ideas, so my plan is to hit the ground running when the season wraps up.”

“Hm.” Sage could perfectly imagine the pursed-lip expression that probably pinched her mother’s laugh-lined face.

“What, Mom,” she asked, rather than waiting for the lecture that was inevitably coming.

“I just want you to make sure you don’t miss out on a perfect opportunity because you’re waiting,” she said. “Did you get a chance to look at the postings I sent you? The one with the baseball team looked really good. Starting at sixty-thousand, Sage. Can you imagine?”

Sage sat in her parked car, her head tilted back against the headrest. “Yeah, Mom. I’ll give them another look though.”

“Good.” In the background, she heard the click of the back door opening. “You know I love you, right?”

Sage closed her eyes. “I know. Love you too. And I’ve got to go.”

“Okay, well call me when you have more time to catch up.”

“Sure, Mom.”

“Bye, Sagey.”

“Bye.”

Sage hung up the phone, exhaustion making her whole body feel impossibly heavy. She dragged herself and her luggage out of her car and up the stairs to her apartment, barely making it to her bed before she collapsed into a heap, powered off her phone, and fell asleep.

* * *

After an indulgent three hour nap, Sage dragged herself to the couch and grabbed her laptop.

Her stats from last night’s game were absolute garbage, so she logged onto the team drive and queued up the tape that they’d already uploaded.

The idea that she hadn’t done her job well because of something as trivial as being faced by someone from her past grated on her, and she was determined to redo the stat sheet before practice the next morning.

With a cup of tea in one hand, she focused on the game playing on her laptop in front of her.

The team looked good. Really fucking good.

She tapped out the stats on the tablet, tracking the plays with the attention she’d been missing the night before. A few times she paused to watch a play again, not because she’d missed something, but because an idea or an adjustment crossed her mind.

Finally, she paused the tape and ran into her bedroom, tracking down a barely-filled notebook on the bookshelf where she kept her school books and textbooks. Grabbing a pencil from her bag, she went back to the couch and flipped to a blank page.

Before she could second guess herself, she started writing. Sketches of plays surrounded by words as she tapped into a well of thoughts and ideas she hadn’t even realized were there.

She knew basketball. She’d lived and breathed basketball. She shouldn’t be surprised that she had a lot to say on the subject, but still, when she flipped the third page and hadn’t yet reached a stopping point, she couldn’t quite believe it.

An hour later she’d finished correcting the game stats and had somehow filled ten pages with various notes and ideas.

It was getting dark, so she packed up her stuff and changed to go shoot on campus, needing to expend some of the nervous energy that filled her body.

Twenty minutes later she was alone under the buzzing lights, her muscles warming up as she moved around the basket. She felt the beginning of sweat on her forehead, and lifted the hem of the old t-shirt with cut off sleeves that she’d thrown on to wipe it away.

Already, she was coming back together.

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