Sumon

“GET DOWN HERE, YOU’RE GOING TO BE LATE,” my mother yelled from the kitchen downstairs. I stumbled around the room, trying to get the other pair of my socks on. Answering her will get me another reply so I ignored it and doubled up my speed. The fact that it was my first day of school at Monroe High as a senior didn’t bring about as much excitement as it should have. Being in the Jaguars’ Jungle was an accomplishment in itself. Being the head of the girls’ basketball team, another accomplishment. But after three years of doing the same thing and being the same girl, it was starting to get a little boring.

I fixed my skirt one last time and smoothed my unruly hair back in a messy bun. Another perk of being a senior, I didn’t have to do anything with my hair. I skipped downstairs just as my wonderful mother was about to yell again.

“Good morning,” I said, kissing her cheek before grabbing a plate. She insisted on fixing me food in the morning, twice every week. It was only twice a week because I begged her not to do it every day. Being an only child of a stay-at-home mom, who’s ALSO a caterer, had its pros and cons.

Some mornings, I woke up late and had to get ready and be at school in thirty minutes. There was no eating time in that length of minutes. I just grabbed what I could at school most of the time. But the food was always there. Mama was always catering for someone. She got more clients than a criminal lawyer.

I was almost always late. But like I said, being a leader and knowing the principal personally had its perks. I would add being a semi-nice person, but sometimes that didn’t work. So, three things worked in my favor. Oh, and I was also a girl. Yay.

I saw that she made pasta and some beef sauce that tasted so yummy. Playing basketball religiously kept me from getting as round as my mother, but it was a battle because she fed me religiously. Win-win situation? I think not. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that she was trying to fatten me up. I cleaned my plate in a few minutes and grabbed my black bag off the chair. She looked at me in surprise then down at my plate.

“How much did you take? You don’t eat, Sumon.” She got in full mama mode by placing her hands on her hips.

“Enough. I’ve got to go. Bye ma!”

I ran out with my bag before she could say something else. My car, a fairly old but well-taken care of Honda CR-V, sat in our driveway waiting for me. It was my father’s car and it naturally became mine when he passed. My mom and I lived on the Old Road, in Gaye Town. It was closer to school but not enough to make me wake up at seven in the morning. It still didn’t stop me from waking up at seven in the morning. If it was possible for someone to go to bed really late and wake up super early without being tired, sign me up. 

One of my neighbors, an older woman that sold in the Old Road market waved at me from her little porch opposite my house. I could never get her name right, so I just called her Auntie. She was holding one of the most adorable babies I had ever seen in her lap. Her daughter gave birth a few months ago. To her second child. Not that it was any of my business.

“Our senior! Let God be with you this year oh baby!” She called, with a warm smile on her face.

Her joy just soothed my heart and I couldn’t help the grin that came on my face. “Thank you, Auntie. I’ll see you later.” I waved and drove on to the road, purposely avoiding the time on my dashboard. I was already late, so I didn’t even bother. Whatever happened, happened. 

The traffic got stuck at Kailondo junction and I groaned loudly and for the hundredth time, really wished for my car to miraculously grow wings. It never happened but that didn’t stop me from wishing.

Somewhere around 12th street, I remembered my phone that I left beside my plate. I only remembered because I wanted to play some music. No doubt, my mom was going to bring it later. I was always forgetting something. A trait of my dad’s. My phone wasn’t something that I really used. During my free time, I was either playing basketball at the back of my house or sleeping off the fatigue of playing basketball all the time. Or both. Yes, I play basketball in my dreams.

 I had no doubt that Fasa, my best friend at school, had a bone to pick with me about the same thing. I was always missing calls because once I set it down, that was it. Remembering to pick it up was the hard part. Why hold a phone when I could hold a ball in my hands?

I parked beside the fence and checked the time. 8:10 a.m. Not bad. I was still going to get a lecture from one of my not-so-busy school administrators who were always loitering in the hallways. I walked up to the gate and saw another student trying to sweet-talk the securities to let him in.  

Mikael Roberts. Captain of the boys’ basketball team, former vice-president of the school, my mortal enemy, etcetera, etcetera. He stopped talking when he saw me and smirked. 

“Late again, I see. You’re a creature of habit,” he said.

He was impeccably dressed, but I think everybody else will probably be. I was also not ready to say that he looked really good. He did though. So very much.

“If I were you, I’d be much nicer to me. If you want to go in early,” I retorted, walking past him and smiling at the guard at the gate. He opened it wider and I entered, leaving Mikael staring after me in shock.

“Enter before he changes his mind,” I said, gesturing with my head at the guard and trying not to laugh. He walked in hurriedly and shook his head as we walked down the hall together. 

“What kind of arrangement do you even have with them?” He said as we scanned the class listings together. My name was right below his on the same list and I tried not to roll my eyes. 

“It’s not an arrangement, It’s called being nice. You should try it sometime.”

“They can’t eat nice, now can they?” He laughed.

“Stop poking your nose where it doesn’t belong, nosy.”

He was about to answer me when the school’s dean yelled at us to get to class from his office. A not so subtle welcome back to hell. We hurried to class through the open hallway that led to the senior high building. It was freshly painted and the blue and white paint shone in the sunlight. I ditched him when I saw some of my teammates waving me over. 

The 12th Gr class was a marketplace in terms of the noise. It was like a trademark but every year, they got the award for ‘Well-behaved Class.’ How did that even work? I rolled my eyes and headed over to my friends. They were seated at the back of the class. 

“Let me guess. You either lost it or you left it at home,” Fasa said, sitting beside a vacant chair and looking very pissed off. Yvette and Sylvia whispered to each other and erupted into a fit of laughter. She ignored them and focused on me.

“I forgot it. You want me to chain it to my wrist?” I retorted and hissed. Everything was getting on my nerves this morning. I couldn’t wait to ball some of it off. Unfortunately, I still needed to set a schedule for the New Year. Here’s another perk of being a leader. I didn’t have to do the paperwork. 

“If that will help. You’ll probably forget your hand at home too.” She forgot that she was mad at me and leaned on my desk. 

“Please don’t bug me today, I’m in a mood.” I peered over her shoulder to look into Mr. Gray, our sponsor’s office but it was empty. Looks like I’m not the only one who isn’t ready for school today.

“Speaking of moods, which one were you in when you came? Because you managed to walk in here with Mikael,” she said, looking at him at the front of the class.

I looked at him with a frown and he was already staring at me. When our eyes met, he looked back at one of his friends that were talking to him animatedly. He smiled in response and I had to tear my eyes away. I didn’t need guy drama this year. Please go away, pending admiration for this male specie.

“Yeah. Saw him outside. It’s no big deal. Another topic please.” I called Yvette over, avoiding Fasa’s scrutinizing gaze. What? I hate him, but I couldn’t say that I didn’t like him either. Yes, these situations do exist.

“Please do the schedule for the team by the end of the day. I want to meet with everybody tomorrow,” I said to Yvette and she nodded. There. Burden off me.

Mr. Gray walked in and everybody found their seats in seconds. He made us do introductions. Each person had to stand up and say their name and the grade they expected in Geometry this year, the subject that he’s teaching. By the end of the first row, he added the question of who their crush was. Just because he could.

When it was Mikael’s turn, he stood up in front of his seat. “Mikael Roberts. I expect an A because I’m going to work for it. And my crush is the only girl who hates me in this school.”

The class laughed and I hissed my teeth. The nerve of him.  He couldn’t live without the attention on him. The whole class laughed when Fasa said that her crush was Mr. Gray. I stopped paying attention after that and stared out of the class windows. I thought about my dad and the one thing that he said to me his whole life. ‘Tough love is the best love.’ 

He usually said it after he would wake me up at five to train before getting ready for school. He didn’t live with us but he was always there. My first memory was me at three years old, running to him with a basketball in my tiny hands. It was the only thing I’d ever known. He loved basketball so much that everything that I owned when I was little had something to do with the game. My overalls, my sheets, even my favorite teddy bear had a basketball in its hands. My mom put her foot down on the wallpaper and decoration of my room but he managed to get a basketball-shaped beanbag in it. 

It was my favorite place to sit. Mom always said that he was trying to pass his passion onto me. And maybe he was. But it worked. After I admitted that I wanted to be a basketball player at my school career day program at seven years old, he knew that he had succeeded. From that day, I ate, drank and breathed basketball. When I got a chance to watch TV, it was basketball games. It got to the point that I started having dreams about it. I never told my mom because she was always searching for an excuse to put a stop to everything.

The night that he died, we played our last game. I hadn’t been the same since. The passion that I had when he was alive doubled. I missed him so much that I felt like I had to play for the both of us. At one point, my mom got so scared when she heard me playing ball with myself in the yard and talking to him that she took me to a doctor.

I laughed as I remember the horrified look on her face. A note landed on my desk from the person sitting in front of me and I opened it. It said, “Are you alright?” in Mikael’s sketchy handwriting. Then I realized that I had been crying. I swiped at the tear stains on my cheek and nodded in his direction. I hoped that nobody else saw. This was why I didn’t like thinking or talking about him. It brought out the soft, little girl in me. I was not that girl anymore. I was a baller. Ballers didn’t cry.

He sent a little smile my way and turned around. Mr. Gray was writing on the white board so I took out my copybook and followed suit. The year had officially begun.