C H A P T E R N I N E |:| N U M B E R O N E F A N
a month after and a year before
August 24, 2007
The morning starts with me helping my mom clean the house. After we eat breakfast, my mom washes the dishes and I get the broom to clean the floor.
"Mom, what is your favorite holiday?"
"New Year," my mom answers automatically. "Why the sudden interrogation?"
"Nothing. I just remembered the time we were cleaning the house after the July thing party."
My mom chuckles and washes her hands. "It's called the Fourth of July, Massie."
I just hum and continue my way towards the living room as I clean it.
"What's yours?" My mom follows me and fixes the pillows at the cushion.
"Easy. Christmase," I say with a smile, remembering the time when I greeted Christian happily on the 25th of December last year.
"It's called Christmas, honey." My mom chuckles again, clearly not getting my point.
"No, Mom, it's Christmase. The day Christian and I met. The day I met my best friend. You know, Christian and Massie together, you put the words together. Christmase!" My attention is now fully on Mom, explaining how I came up with the great idea.
As I tell her all the crazy stuff Christian and I did at his house, I don't notice my mom picking up the broom I left and continuing to clean the house.
"And then, he threw his popcorn at me! But I didn't back down, I threw more popcorn at him! Ha! Now that will teach him a lesson, but noooo! He —" I follow my mom around as she nods her head, listening to me rant.
∞ 🏀 ∞
"So, how was it?" I ask. It has been a very long day and my mom finally lets me go and play at Christian's house.
Christian looks at me pensively, not saying anything. For that second, I think I can hear my heart breaking from the sad look on his face that means only bad news.
He slowly removes his pout and turns into a big sloppy smile. "Of course I did great; you should have seen the way coach called my name as part of the team!" He jumps on his bed, looking so carefree and blissful, and I sit on the chair beside his table.
"Well, I'm sorry that I couldn't see your try-out since no audience was allowed. But I'm very proud of you, Mr. Anderson." I hug him and pat his head.
"You can call me the future Michael Jordan," Christian says and smirks at me. He stands up tall, looking almighty.
"Okay, I don't know him and I know nothing related about basketball. All I know is that I'm your number one fan," I say with a grin, matching Christian's.
"Now, let's go to the public library because I have been waiting for ages to get my hands on my favorite book." I grab Christian's hand and two helmets on the table simultaneously.
"Race you into the garage!" Christian shouts and quickly takes a run, leaving me behind with two helmets in my hands.
My mouth is hanging open like a fish out of water at his outburst. "There wasn't even a countdown! Unfair!" So I run as fast as my legs can carry me because shouting at Christian won't really change any facts. Plus, the only response I hear is Christian's evil laughter which isn't helping my case.
There are lots of twists and turns like encountering Yanny at the telephone table, almost hitting my toe at the end of the stairs, and almost slipping when I hit the floor mat at the front door. When I arrive, still fully alive, at the garage, I put my hands on my knees, panting.
"Okay, one minute," I say, raising one finger in the air.
"60, 59, 58, 57, 56 ..." Christian is currently counting my time and I wipe the beads of sweat that is forming on my forehead. I need to start getting fit. Maybe in the future, I'm too young to spend my life exercising and not enjoy my youth.
"...5,4,3,2,1. Let's go! The earlier we go, the earlier we can come back," Christian says as he finishes wearing his helmet. I quickly wear mine and then ride my bike towards the public library.
"Unh, huh, oh-kay, ah-aren't yah tie-yad aftah the trah-out," I try to say as I try to catch up with Christian, "eh-nd ruh-ning?"
Christian slows down a bit as he turns his head to look at me. "No. I took a short nap during the car ride on the way home, why, are you?" he says wryly.
I give him a look and continue biking. We usually ride our bikes when we want to race or feel sporty enough. Once, we got so bored that we just drew his room's garbage can with lines, making it look like a basketball net. Now, every time Christian throws his trash at it, he calls my name and makes me watch him shoot at the net–every single time. Yes, every single time, and I'm not sure if it's good for his ego.
"Okay. So I'll just be fast and grab the book then we'll go back. Twenty seconds!" I say as I open the library door and fast-walk towards the second row and grab the book that I was looking for. I smile and hop happily towards the desk to log out the book and give her my card. Thankfully today, there aren't many people inside the library so there isn't a long line for the check-out.
After receiving my book, I look around for Christian, who is now missing. I roll my eyes; this is not the first time Christian has wandered off.
I walk slowly through each section of books, wondering where he went, because I know that he isn't a reader like me. At the same time while looking for him, I unconsciously start to scan each book that I pass by, wondering which book to borrow next.
"Christian, there you are—" I say but quickly stop immediately when I see him talking to someone.
"Well, it was nice meeting you here, Chrissy." My stomach is now experiencing bad weather but I ignore it and continue towards my best friend.
"Nice to meet you too, Christian," the girl says.
Chrissy is pretty, but not the supermodel kind. She looks imperfectly beautiful. She has freckles below her eyes and she is wearing a ponytail. I stop checking her out, not wanting her to think of me as a creep.
"Mase, you're here! Well, Chrissy, this is Massie. Mase, this is Chrissy."
"Hi!" Chrissy says chirpily with a weird accent.
"Hello." I smile back at her and I can't help but notice how she looks so pretty wearing a white sundress. White was never my color.
"Sorry for being rude, but I have to go or else my mom is going to explode when I stay longer than I should." Chrissy smiles apologetically and makes her way towards the exit, but not before waving goodbye.
"I like her," I confess, walking our way towards our bike. It feels nice to be out in the sun again, because I'm more of an outside type of person than indoors.
"Yeah, me too." And for the first time, I catch Christian's ears turning red.
I want to say something about it but I turn my attention and run quickly to the wishing well that is located front of the library. I take out a penny from my pocket and look excitedly at Christian, who wears a blank face. We always throw pennies at the well every time we go to the library.
Christian shakes his head, but takes a penny from his pocket. "Okay, one, two, three."
We both throw our pennies into the well, watching them slowly fall through the water, and I make my wish silently as I close my eyes.
I open my eyes and look at Christian, but his eyes are still closed. I look back at the water and see my smiling reflection. Even though I look pretty ugly as I am sweating under the sun and my hair is sticking out everywhere since I let my hair down today, I still smile at the image of Christian and I.
I wish for more memories together with the boy beside me.
∞
A U T H O R ' S N O T E :
This chapter is dedicated to one lucky fan who voted and commented on my previous chapter, I'm going to dedicate this chapter to a fan once I finished this whole story :D
- nitapan14, thank you so much for supporting me on this story with your very lovely comments that make my day!
And the title being "Number One Fan" was totally coincidence, I didn't plan it at all but it's a nice match, don't ya think so?
Okay, so this chapter will explain a lot of things from what you have read before! :) And I'm here to make sure you got them *teacher voice*
This is how Christian's basketball journey starts. This is how Christian and Massie first met Chrissy. This is Massie's wish from the very first chapter posted.
Gotcha?
Questions of the Chapter: (feel free to answer one or all of them)
1. Do you celebrate on certain date when you and your best friend met? Me and my best friends don't actually remember the day we met because it was a long time ago.
2. What do you think of Chrissy in this chapter? How about Massie? Or maybe Christian?
3. In the perspective of you were younger, like eleven or twelve, and you had one wish, what would it be? Mine would be to be able to catch all of my favorite television shows on time, because there is always one show that I miss and my day is completely ruined when that happened.
This A/N is so long so if you got to read until this part, feel free to show me some love by voting this chapter or comment down below because we can both just rant out all of our thoughts.
:)
edited by flourish, thank you so much! :)