Fighting For Freedom

Chapter Eight Part I (edited)

Jessie

I slept in super late the next day. When I woke up, I'm still confused, but I feel a little better. Hopefully spending time with Jay and then the doc will help clear things up a little more. I hang around the house until it's time to head to the park to meet Jay. I tell Cameron and Amy that I'm headed out and of course Cameron wants to know where I'm going. I let him know that I'm meeting Jay at the park to play some basketball and he gives me this weird look. Whatever, I head out. When I get to the park, Jay is just finishing up a pickup game with a few other people our age. When he sees me, he motions me over to his little group. Most of them are heading out, but a couple stay behind.

Jay says, "Hey Jessie, glad you made it."

"I told you I would." I say with a smile.

He smiles and says, "Yeah, I know but...anyway, I would like to introduce you to Izzy and Dean Palmer, known to most around here as The Twins. Twins, this is Jessie, aka Trouble." Jay chuckles.

Izzy holds out her hand towards me and says, "We actually met at and after school briefly, everyone calls me Izzy and him dumbass."

I laugh and take her hand, "Nice to meet you again, Izzy and it is nice to meet you, Dean."

Izzy looks to be about five foot five or so with these hypnotic gray-blue eyes. She has long, blonde hair and an amazing tan with an athletic build. I remember her from the lunch room that first day, she is amazing. Dean on the other hand, is about five six with the same grey-blue eyes, with a buzz cut, and muscular build. He looks more like a football player than a basketball player to me, but what do I know.

Jay speaks up, "Izzy is the captain of the girl's school team and Dean is on the guy's basketball team, as well as the football team."

Izzy kind of gives me the once over and then says, "So you are the one that finally put Ben in his place, huh. When I heard about that I thought maybe... I imagined you would be much bigger. Jay said that you have a pretty good feel for the basics, let's see what you've got. You and Jay against Dean and me. What do you say?"

"I don't know, I never even touched a ball until Jay had me shooting around with him."

Jay looks at me and says, "It will be fun. What do you say?"

"Why not."

So, we spent the next couple of hours playing two on two with them, stopping occasionally to show me tips and it was actually fun. Izzy said that I would be a great addition to the team, but I told her I wasn't sure. We all made plans to meet a couple of times a week until the school held tryouts. They said that this way, I would be ready for tryouts. As we stood there talking, I looked up and saw the doc sitting on one of the benches overlooking the courts.

Izzy said, "Looks like we have enough daylight for one more game, how about it?"

I glanced at the doc and she just nodded like she knew what I was asking, which was weird. "I'm game, if Jay is."

He replied, "I'm always game." So, we played, and when we finished Jay asked me if I wanted to join them for pizza.

"Maybe next time, I already have dinner plans for tonight. I guess I will see you all at school."

Izzy smiled and asked, "Do you like to hike or ride mountain bikes?"

Jay looked at me and smiled, I'm not sure why, but I replied, "Honestly, I don't know. I haven't done either before."

They all looked at me, confused, "Let's just say that I didn't have a lot of opportunities for that sort of thing in South Africa."

She smiles and nods before saying, "Well maybe we can get together sometime, and I can show you some of the trails around here. I love mountain biking because of the adrenaline rush you get on the downhill trail."

Jay laughs and says, "Yeah, Izzy is an adrenaline junkie."

She blushes and then we all said our goodbyes and I headed up to where the doc was sitting. As I approached the bench where she was sitting, she looked up at me with that Hollywood smile of hers. I couldn't help but smile back at her and said, "I hope I didn't keep you waiting to long."

She replied, "No, not at all. I see you are making some friends."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well you looked like you were having fun. You also look like you are picking up the sport of basketball quickly. I really enjoyed watching you play."

"Really? I feel like I have a long way to go before I am ready to try out for the high school team. What would be great is if there was a wrestling team. I know I'm good at that."

"Jessie, I honestly think you will be able to do anything you put your mind to."

"Thanks, Doc. Shall we get going?"

"Sure, let's go."