Chapter 28

I hurried into the gym, rushing enough that I nearly slipped on the recently polished floor on my way in. I’d told Li at lunch that I didn’t think I could make it to the tryouts because I had practice at the same time it was going on.

I still made a try for it, asking Coach if I could be late to practice so I could see my friend try out for the basketball team, explaining that I’d been helping her get ready for it and really wanted to support her. To my shock, Coach had said yes, although in a very Coach Holloway kind of way, adding that I needed to hurry my ass back when the tryouts finished and put in double the work once I did.

I honestly hadn’t expected it, but I also wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead, I hustled my ass to the gym, hoping I hadn’t missed anything.

Luckily, they were still stretching and warming up when I got there. I climbed the bleachers, settling into a spot with a good view of the court. Li stood out among the other girls, not just because of her height, but something about the way she held herself, like she was trying to fold in on herself despite being nearly six-foot-four.

I’d seen her when she’d let her guard down a little bit, when we’d been practicing for tryouts, and she’d almost ... grown. It also made it easy to see when she pulled back into her shell, trying to hide from everyone.

When she caught my eye, I flashed her a thumbs-up and my biggest grin. The tiny smile she sent back looked more like a nervous twitch, but I’d take it.

“Ladies!” the basketball coach yelled, waving them over to her. “Circle up!”

I couldn’t hear what she said to them, but she would say a bunch of stuff then point to one end of the court, clearly giving them instructions. After a couple of minutes of this, the group broke up into lines, apparently to do dribbling exercises.

Li’s first runs weren’t great. She was hesitant and that made her a lot less smooth than she normally was.

“You’ve got this, Li!” I shouted.

A few heads turned in my direction, including the coach’s, but I didn’t care. Li needed to know someone was in her corner.

I’m not sure if it helped, or even if she heard me, but she did start to relax and do better as the drills continued.

They moved on to passing exercises. She did a lot better on these, including a particularly nice bounce pass through the two players assigned to block it that had the coach making a note on her clipboard.

The shooting drills came next. This was what we’d worked on most. She was really good with layups and close shots, but her mid-range had been really weak. She started with layups, her long strides eating up the distance to the basket.

She made each one without a problem.

I got a little tense when they moved to the mid-range jumpers. Her first attempt clanked off the rim and I worried she’d let it get in her head. Instead, she looked up at me in the stands, took a deep breath, squared up, and released. The ball arced through the air and dropped straight through the hoop.

She made the third of her attempts, too, bouncing it off the backboard and into the net.

The three-point drills were really rough, and she missed all three, but I didn’t think they’d hold that against her. She was a big body to put under the net, and wouldn’t be way out on the three-point line much.

They ran through more drills – defensive slides, rebounding exercises, full-court sprints. Li wasn’t always the best, but she held her own and was near the top on the ones she wasn’t the best at.

Then, it was the moment of truth. The coach split them into teams for a scrimmage. Since everyone had to try out every year, she was up against people who’d been on the team last year.

Which meant Li was up against Taylor Stine, the senior who was on last year’s varsity team and played the spot Li was trying out for. She wasn’t nearly as tall as Li, only about six feet even, but she had a lot more experience than Li playing actual, organized games.

They lined up against each other for the tip-off. When the whistle blew and both girls jumped, Taylor got there first, tipping it to her point guard who took off down the court. A quick pass to the wing resulted in a jump shot that bounced off the rim.

Li grabbed the rebound but held the ball too long, letting two defenders collapse on her, one of whom grabbed the ball, resulting in a jump ball.