The Brighter Side of Things

Chapter 17

"You're kidding!" I gasped in disbelief.

"Will I bother to scour through the secret nooks of this school if I were?"

I didn't budge from my position. He said he didn't get my logic sometimes. I could say the same for him.

Another sigh before he extended his hand to me. "Come on. Lunch time's almost over. Meet her at least."

Right. I took his hand and he pulled me up.

"Really, Felicity. How would the right people find you if you keep hiding yourself?" He shook his head, leading the way out of my fortress.

I didn't have an answer to that. I was preoccupied by the fact that my hand was still in his. North only let me go as soon as we stepped out of the library where a girl approached us but the warmth of his touch lingered like a low current buzzing under my skin.

"Hi, Ate Seven. I'm Jade." I shifted my gaze towards the girl. Though she was a few inches shorter than I was, confidence oozed out of her as she stuck out her hand and I shook it. "I heard you're looking for female basketball players."

We ended up back inside the library to talk and North stayed quiet, listening to the conversation. It seemed that Jade contracted a virus and was absent for a full week, missing the club applications. Just like me, she preferred basketball over all the other sports. Since St. Matthew's didn't have one, she signed up for academic clubs her whole grade school life instead.

"I heard you're the only girl who tried out," she mused, a hint of envy in her voice as she looked at me squarely in the eyes. "I wish I were there to witness it. I bet you did well since you made it to the official team. If I were in your shoes, I would have done the same."

I shot North an uneasy smile, not knowing how to handle Jade' kind words. I had been so used to sarcastic laudations followed by snickers as soon as I had turned my back. To meet someone who actually looked up to me was new, for lack of a better term to say. It filled me with warmth and I was sure my cheeks darkened—my version of blushing. "Uhm...thanks?"

"Just so you know, I signed my name on the sheet," Jade said, scrunching her nose. "But someone doodled something over it. I decided to look for you instead. Kuya North helped me."

I liked this girl already. Middle-school students wouldn't normally come up to seniors for a casual conversation. Let alone approach a campus heartthrob like North. It looked like Jade didn't get easily intimidated nor star-struck.

I wanted someone like Jade in my team. "Meet me at the gym after class."

🏀🌞🏀

I told Jade to meet me at the gym so we could play one-on-one. It would help me assess her skill before endorsing her to Coach Anj. Previously, I had told interested applicants to immediately show up for club activities. Only to be scolded by Coach because said applicants avoided the ball like the plague, whined a lot, fixed their hair ties often in the game, got tired easily, asked for substitutions and had more minutes in the bench with the boys than on the court.

"We need basketball players, Seven, not cheerleaders," Coach Anj stressed, clearly frustrated by my first recruits. "We're building an all-girls basketball team, here. Not looking for a random girl to be your partner. There's a reason why I told you we only needed one.other. female player right now. Because we need girls who share the same passion for this sport. Look for people like you."

Pondering on Coach's advice made me recall Mama's journey to becoming a chef of her own food business. The lot who turned her down just because she didn't finish high school or didn't have formal training in culinary arts. There were people like them everywhere who liked to steal dreams, snuff out flames of passion. Mama's experience was the motivation I needed.