Short Story Rough Draft

David Lee

Mrs. Belden

Honors English 1

October 8, 2014

Friend or Foe

Call me David, David Lee. Maybe you’ve heard of me. Not to brag, but I am the star basketball player at Roseville Area High School. Today is THE Game. It is us against White Bear Lake High School, our cross town rival, think Army vs. Navy. To make matters worse, my arch enemy, the hideous Bryan Blaze is their star player.

Inside of my school, I see waves of posters that say “Beat the Bears”,“Go Raiders”, and my personal  favorite, “Let’s go hunting for some bears.” All of the walls are painted our home colors, white and black. Even all of the classrooms are painted black and white to support us. I arrogantly walk into the team locker room where all of my teammates are already waiting for me. Our respected coach is going over the offensive plays as I listen to my jam on my beats. Then coach leaves us to let us focus and have some time to think about the game. I angrily reflect about what happened last year. I can still remember the bitterness so clearly. I quickly say my prayers asking God to guide me successfully through the court as I hear the buzzer roar. It’s showtime! As I look onto the court, I see waves of people all wearing our home color black and the opposing White Bear orange. There he is, Bryan Blaze, my rival. Just being in his presence causes a rush of hatred to fill my body. We win the tip off and I get the ball, and shoot an easy jump shot to put us on the board. White Bear gets the ball and for some reason Bryan is dribbling the ball up the court straight towards me. He is 6’7 250 pounds of pure muscle and he plays center. Why is he coming at me like he is playing guard? As he gets to half court he taunts me by saying, “David Lee, come out, come out wherever you are.”

This guy is really getting on my nerves. Let the battle begin.

    I go at him violently moving my hands like I am slapping somebody. He drives to my left, and I quickly follow behind. He goes up for the layup, but I strip the ball away from his hands. I grab the ball and sprint to the other hoop, but I awkwardly trip and fall. The ball goes out of bounds and it is my first turnover. White Bear Lake takes it out of bounds, and the selfish Bryan Blaze calls for the ball and drives all the way up the court passing all of our players. The last hope of defense is me. He runs full speed towards me and I put my feet together to take a charge. He runs into me and gets called for a charge. He immediately comes up to me and curses at me. We hear the high pitch sound of the ref blowing his whistle as Bryan gets called for a flagrant foul. I go up to the line for my 2 free throws. All I could think of was the shame of losing to Bryan Blaze. I couldn’t bare the thought of losing to this team. I took my first shot, but it hit the rim and missed. I screamed inside of my head, and I took my second shot.  It was an air ball. BUZZ! It’s the end of the first quarter and we are down by ten points. Our fan section is as silent as a funeral, but the away section is as loud as a world cup stadium.

The second quarter starts and my coach foolishly decides to bench me. As soon as the game resumes, Bryan is a machine and he sinks four 3-pointers in a row. Their entire team is on fire and scores 12 points in a row. Our coach thankfully calls a timeout. During the time out, I couldn’t stop staring at Bryan. I mean, there was this thought in my mind questioning, why I hated him so much. I mean the only thing he has done to me was block my shot last year that led to being a blow to my ego. Other than that, I thought, there was no reason to envy him.  I made up my mind and decided to talk to Bryan after the game. I came in after the timeout, and I myself  started to go on a roll. To close the half, I score twenty points in a row and cut the deficit to five points.

After the halftime, we come out of the locker rooms and the crowd gets rowdy. As we warm up, I walk over to Bryan. “Hey, I’m sorry man” He responds by saying, “No big deal, its all part of the game.” I say, “Well, see you man.” He replies by saying, “Okay, see you to.”

Now, I feel as though all the weight on my shoulder has disappeared. Now, my thoughts were to just enjoy the game instead of trying to beat Bryan. The ref blows his whistle to indicate the start of the second half. This time, the White Bear’s guard is taking the ball up court, not Bryan. This told me that maybe, he didn't have much hatred towards me than before. The White Bear guard, quickly gets a block from Bryan and makes a jump shot. Our center, Joseph, quickly takes it out of bounds and inbounds it to me. I walk slowly up the court and pass the ball to our other guard Ben, and he makes an easy jump shot. From there, it went back and forth, layup after layup, jump shot after jump shot and by the end of the third quarter, we were only up by five points.

The buzzer and it was time for the fourth and last quarter.

As soon as the fourth quarter starts, White Bear Lake comes out strong scoring 10 points in a row to give them a five point lead. Then I get the ball and make a 3-pointer to cut the lead down to two. Then, just like the third quarter, we go back and forth for the next 2 minutes. The score becomes 54-52 with us trailing. With one minute left., our coach calls out a play which would give me an opportunity to shoot a three pointer. I get the ball and pass it to one of our players, then I cut back to the 3-point line and wait for the ball. My teammate passes me the ball and I have a wide open three. I shoot the ball and the ball goes in the basket. Now we are up by one with 40 seconds left to play. Bryan gets the ball in his hands. He fakes to his right to try to get his defender moving and he shoots a jump shot with the defender running at him. The ball goes in the air and hits the top of the backboard, then goes in the net. Now White Bear is up by one. There is 17 seconds left and I have the ball in my hands, I quickly dribble up to half court and call a time out. As I come out of the timeout, Bryan wishes me good luck on the next play, and I say thanks, but you better guard me tight. I get the ball from out of bounds and Bryan is guarding me. It’s last year all over again. I could still remember so clearly. “We were down  by 1 with 10 seconds left. The ball was in my hands and I had Bryan guarding me. The crowd were all on their feet eager to know what would happen next. I faked Bryan out and I saw an open lane so I just ran in for the layup. However, Bryan was right behind me all along and he blocked my shot so hard it went to the stands. The buzzer screeched and the game was over. After the game I felt so bummed, and angry at Bryan and I started to hate him.” However this time, things were going to be different. This time, I was going to make the shot. I faked Bryan to my left but he doesn’t fall for it. I keep dribbling, but the clock ran down to 3 seconds. I heave the ball in the air as hard as I could.The ball bounces off the rim and hits the ground. The buzzer roars and the away side is all cheering. As soon as the game ends, Bryan rushes towards me and tells me that I played well. I tell him that his defense on the last play was outstanding.  He says thanks and he asks if I would want to go get some Canes with him, and I definitely say yes. Even though we just lost one of the biggest games in our season, I am not mad or frustrated a single bit like last year. That reason is because at least I made a new friend and all the weight from hatred came off of my shoulder to make life easier.