Chapter Eleven
Nola
Seven years ago
In my rare moment of team camaraderie, I had seemed to become…
friends with Farrah and Brittney. Farrah, I think, tolerated my presence—or was simply indifferent—because her face didn’t light up the way Brittney’s did when she saw me.
Like an easily overstimulated dog, smiling wide, tail wagging.
She could flip to frustration or anger quickly, and then she was onto the next thing, her attention never staying on anything long.
It was honestly scary and endearing at the same time.
On the night before knock out rounds began, Brittney had me play ref as she took on Katie and Lucy in a two versus one, something I definitely didn’t remember advising, and yet she’d actually outscored them.
Watching her play felt like the closest to watching my own highlight reels my parents recorded over the years.
Brittney was fast and agile on her toes, helping her pivot directions on offense and defense, her aggression was hungry as she plowed through screens to get under the net, and she was hitting about two-thirds of her three pointers.
She wasn’t just good. She was nearly as good as me.
I thought maybe her performance was a fluke, fueled by rage and determination to prove our teammates wrong.
But she quickly shut me up in our first game in the group of sixteen.
Even though she wasn’t starting three, she still hit a double double, contributed twenty points, and ten rebounds off the bench.
Quickly making sure Coach had her starting with me in the next round.
After that game, I moved my stuff into her and Farrah’s room, more as a request from her and not a diss to my former roommates—even though they were assholes—and I might as well have said we got matching tattoos.
“Does your face hurt from smiling all the time?” I asked, coming back from a vending machine run. Something I usually did alone and in the quiet but Farrah was the only one actually asleep before 10pm and Brittney was still up watching YouTube videos.
“Does your voice creak every time you speak for the first time?”
“I’m not an asshole or anything.” I replied defensively. Why was I explaining myself?
“Never said you were.” Brittney shrugged like she couldn’t care less, and it only made me want to say more.
“You were definitely thinking about it that first day on the shuttle.” I knew I never owed anyone an explanation, my dad was the best teacher at that, but Brittney was kind. It was weird how much she oozed openness. The same energy she radiated kind of made me want to give the same back.
“I mean, you weren’t radiating friendship and team bonding that’s for sure.”
“I get motion sickness,” I whispered right as we approached our door. I was getting an itchy feeling to not go in, to keep the conversation going, to actually speak to someone who I knew nothing about other than her obnoxious smile and chaotic energy.
Brittney must have felt my inability to move because she faced me, back against the wall, and slid down to the hallway carpet, a smile on her annoying, pretty face.
I also ignored the way my throat went dry at the sight of me towering over her.
I slid down next to her and played with the stud in my earlobe.
“Let’s run that back please.” Brittney faced her body toward mine and I did the same. Is that what sleepovers felt like? Confiding in the dark and talking nonsense? I’d let her braid my hair if she asked, God knows I was over the same ponytail I’d always worn for games.
“I get motion sickness on buses so I have to sit alone. I’m afraid I’ll…you know…”
“Have you done it before?” Brittney grimaced.
I nodded. “Thank God I made it to a bag, but it was a close call. That’s how my best friend and I became close.”
“Oh, so you bought her friendship,” she stated with a straight face.
“What? No I didn’t.” My face burned with her judgement.
“Ugh, I’m kidding! But damn, I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Because bus rides are the heart of everything! You talk to people you wouldn’t have before, you try a snack someone’s dad made, it’s just the best part of basketball.” Brittney declared while opening a wrapper of sour candy.
“I think the best part is winning.” I countered matter-of-factly.
“Of course you do, Nono.”
“Nono?”
“Yeah, I just came up with it. I think it means no fun.”
“I am fun.”
“Said no one fun ever.” Brittney rolled her eyes.
“Who died and made you fun police?” I took sour candy from her hand right before it entered her mouth.
“My siblings.”
“How many do you have?”
“Four.”
“Huh?!” I nearly choked. “There’s four of you?”
“I am choosing to take that as a compliment, but yes. I’m in the middle of two sets of twins. Amir, Aaliyah, me, Colette and Celeste.”
I ran through the names in my head in my best effort to commit them to memory. “Wait. A, B, and…C?”
Brittney nodded. “It started because of Aaliyah and Amir and then just…stuck around.”
“How creative.”
“Says the one with your dad’s name.” Brittney mouthed yikes before she ate her candy.
“Touche.” I laughed, opened the ginger ale, and took a sip.
“Any siblings for you?” Brittney reached out her hand, eyes on the ginger ale and I passed it to her.
“Uh, my mom and my stepdad had a daughter five years ago.” I winced because I already heard it coming.
“Aw, cute! What’s her name?” I watched Brittney drink my ginger ale, throat bobbing greedily. She closed her eyes like she was in the middle of an ecstasy spell. I forced myself to look away and stare at a spot on the wallpaper.
“Olive,” I mumbled.
“Be forreal, Nono.” Brittney lightly shoved my shoulder and giggled. She grabbed another candy from the bag but I beat her again and snatched it from her fingers as it entered her mouth.
At her look of shock, I winked at her.
“Unfortunately, I am.” I smiled back. “But yes. We both have our parents’ names.”
“How creative.” It was Brittney’s turn to mock now.
For once, I took it on the chin because dare I say, talking to someone else was easy.
And it wasn’t because it was best to be nice to me because of who my parents were or how well I played.
Brittney made this easy. She made me feel like I’d been missing out on friendship and being emotionally vulnerable for a long time.
I’d only been able to achieve this level of ease with my childhood friend, Daya.
Now In had swept Brittney Lee, making me think the impossible was possible.
“Suddenly, I’m regretting this plan,” I mumbled as the professional piercer let us behind the register and toward dentist office looking chairs. My feet would still be planted outside of the tattoo and piercing shop if it weren’t for Brittney’s hand covering mine.
Our gold medals dangled from our necks; our teammates long gone in the opposite direction in search of churros. I should be with them, hunting for my next fuel of sugar, or with my parents who, without question, had flown from the Northeast to come watch every round of our tournament.
Instead, I’d stupidly agreed to matching nose piercings with Brittney if we took home gold.
And it’s not that I didn’t think we’d win, but more like I couldn’t say no to the annoying girl with adoring eyes.
Not when she could say please with eyes wider than I’d imagine possible, or the way she constantly threw her body into me as if she didn’t know how much muscle mass she packed.
With a power so strong she could send someone non-expecting onto the ground.
But not me. I always caught her.
“Nola Young, you absolutely cannot go back on your word.”
“I never said I would,” I muttered, trying to focus on our conversation, or the weight of gold against my body, and not the way Brittney and my palms fit so easily into the other.
“Good. I’ll go first, prove there’s nothing to fret about, and then it’s your turn.”
“Fine.” Our hands parted as Brittney sat in the piercer’s chair, and I watched her breathe calmly through the disinfecting process.
“This is my favorite part,” Brittney whispered as the piercer turned away to take out the jewelry and needle.
Of course she liked the anticipation before something happened.
I had eight days to study the row of jewelry lining her right ear.
Gold studs and hoops sitting in places I didn’t even know could be pierced on one ear.
The opposite was just as busy, but there was a bar at the top.
“Do you want me to hold your hand?” I asked out of nowhere, shocked by my own neediness. Who was I? What had this girl done to me?
“Nah, all good.” She winked. “But I’ll be sure to hold yours.
” The piercer moved in for the kill, steadily shoving a silver needle into Brittney’s right nostril, and she fucking took it like a champ.
The only sign of discomfort is the wince in her eye and the watering that began to spill over—otherwise she was unaffected.
Then it was my turn. Every action the piercer took with Brittney felt like it would last five years to me. From the disinfecting to the unwrapping, every single piece of movement from the piercer seemed to be in slow motion.
“My mom might kill me for this one. But on the other hand, my dad would love this,” I said to break the silence. The piercer was about to lean in when I felt a hand slide into mine again.
“Tell Olivia Young she can see me if she has a problem.”
“Please don’t make me lau—ow, shit!” I yelped as the needle went through my nostril and back out with the jewelry sticking out.
“You did amazing!”
“You don’t have to lie,” I breathed.
“No, I mean it. When my brother Amir got his nose pierced he literally squealed like a child.” The piercer threw away the used supplies and headed to the register, leaving me to sit in shocked pain, and the feeling of Brittney’s hand in mine.
I threw my card down to pay for us even though it was Brittney’s idea, and then we were back out into the world.
“Speaking of family, are you getting dinner with your parents tonight?” Brittney wondered, our bodies sadly not touching as much as I wanted them to be as we walked down the busy street.
“Yeah, and then I’m flying back with them.”
“And then back to the real world we go.”
“Does this not count as the real world?” I inquired.
Brittney shrugged. “We can be friends here. There’s no school rivalry, no top two lists to fight over, no bitchy teammates, it’s actually…pretty nice.”
I internally wilted at the thought because Brittney was right.
I didn’t want to acknowledge it, but she had contributed more in the finals game than I had.
She was good, and I could already see the next four years: back to back championships, constant prying, and playing into our school rivalry.
We were going to be neck-and-neck until someone pulled away to prove they were the best.
There was no world that existed where the two most promising players in the nation played for the same team and ended the day with matching nose piercings.
No world where we could stay up late talking about our families and eating our favorite candy, covering everything as if we were trying to memorize as many facts about the other.
“The only time we’d run into each other at the vending machine was if we were staying in the same hotel.”
“Hey, we could always make the Olympic team.” I said matter-of-factly.
“Damn from the U19 tournament to the Olympics, you want it all.”
“Don’t you?”
Yes.
I raised my shoulders as if there isn’t a resounding yes sitting on my soul.
I’d do whatever it took to be the best at basketball.
At least, I thought I would. I only chose to befriend people I didn’t see as my competition, and I almost never opened up given who my parents were.
Both Olivia and Nolan raised me on trusting my gut, and there was not one thing about Brittney that was untrustworthy.
She wore her heart on her sleeve and had truly gotten here on her own merit.
In just a short eight days, I felt safe with her.
“I see you’re letting the theater camp effect take over.” She stared at me, giving me a chance to study her face. I was only interested in staying friends, but it was hard not to admire the cupid’s bow on her lips, or the amber flecks in her eyes.
“What the hell is the theater camp effect?”
“I’ve watched my siblings go through it, but it’s that feeling when a production is ending.
Everyone knows you only have a limited amount of time together, but when the end comes, you want to delay it as long as possible.
So you sing a little louder, or you linger longer on that final bow. Anything to stop the inevitable.”
“And how do you know what I’m thinking?”
“Because it looks like you want to ask me for my phone number.” Brittney grinned, and I couldn’t help but mirror her.
“Let’s see how we do in our first years as rivals.” I decided for us, scared to want anything more, or worse: offer less, and watch disappointment change her features.
“I’ll kick your ass.”
“In your dreams.” I smiled.
“See you on the court, Young.” Brittney shook my hand, addressing me as only opposites would.
“Let’s see who balls harder, Lee.”