Why is it difficult for me to catch my breath? Okay calm down, Riley. You're just overwhelmed because there's a lot of people here, and you're new. That's it.
Tucking my hair behind my ear, I walk away, heading towards the benches. While setting my bag next to someone else's, I hear someone yelling "Hey, newbie!" from behind me before I feel a hand patting my back.
I turn around to see a girl with golden brown frizzy hair and blue eyes, along with three other girls standing quietly behind her. They seem to be studying my every movement, looking me up and down. I shift, not really knowing what to do with my hands, clearly uncomfortable from the attention. It feels like I'm being thrown into the spotlight with no idea what to do or how to act.
"My name's Sadie. And this..." she points to a pretty brown haired girl with blue eyes "is Natasha."
"You can call me Nat" Natasha says, a warm welcoming smile on her face, she seems really sweet. Her kindness makes me relax a bit.
"I'm Cassandra." A girl with pink hair says. She's way taller than I am. I mean, they're all kind of taller than me to be honest. It kind of intimidates me, especially since this is basketball. "You can call me CC." She adds.
"CC" I repeat, frowning. The name's kind of odd, but if that's what she wants me to call her, so be it. They seem like they're trying to be my friends, so I'm pretty sure I'll get used to calling her that.
"Yeah, it stands for 'Cassandra Coleman'." The last girl, a blond with dark green eyes says, looking excited. She smiles widely and it's so contagious that I can't help but smile too.
"My name's Jennifer. It's so nice to meet you! We rarely have any girls here. They're mostly boys." She says and makes a disgusted face. The other girls laugh and I can't help but join them. They all seem very sweet and I'm glad they came up to talk to me, or else I would've been super nervous to initiate conversation.
"It's so nice to meet you guys. My name's Riley." I introduce myself, smiling. I'm trying to make a good impression. They smile back, nodding.
We start walking towards the court slowly. "You'll get to know every single one of those assholes soon enough. They're all just so-" She gets cut off by Sadie yelling "Hey, watch out!"
Huh?
I feel something hard crash into me, sending me to the floor. The wind knocks out of me and my head hits the ground, hard. I feel a sharp pain in my ribs, along with painful throbbing in the back of my head.
"reckless.." Jen finishes her sentence.
"Oh my goodness, are you okay?" I hear CC say, concern evident in her voice. The rest of the girls lean over me, watching. They help me up and I'm really grateful for their help. When I stand up, I feel a bit dizzy but I guess that's normal for someone who's almost had a concussion.
"You shouldn't have done that, buddy." I hear a familiar voice, and turn around to see Aiden. I guess he's talking to whoever ran me over. He puts his hand on my shoulder and I shrug it off, rolling my eyes.
"What is it with people, crashing into me today?! I was only walking, and slowly at that! Both times!" I huff angrily.
I turn around to look at the other asshole who doesn't watch where he's going, and I see him again. With his disheveled black hair and his sparkling green-hazel eyes.
"Are you okay?" He asks, worry evident in his voice.
"I'm fine." I mumble.
"It's because you're so short." Aiden states and I frown, a little offended.
"So you just run over short people on a daily basis? Is that what you do for fun?" I ask suspiciously, narrowing my eyes.
"Not really, baby doll. Only the lucky ones." He winks and I scrunch up my nose.
Even though it might not seem like it, I'm starting to warm up to him a little and I do find his sarcasm sort of funny.
"Never call me 'baby doll' ever again." I warn, only half joking. Who calls a person they just met 'baby doll'? He just laughs and shakes his head, obviously planning on calling me that from now on. Rude.
"Isn't she just cute?" He says, ruffling my hair, as if I'm his pet puppy or something. How dare he? Doesn't he know hair is sacred to a girl and whoever touches it without permission might not get to live to see another day? Does he not understand how happy I am that my hair decided to actually look good for once? What an asshole.
Hazel eyes joins in on the laughter. Wait, are they laughing at me or with me? I hope that they're laughing with me, at least for their sake.
"I'm sorry for runnin' into you. I didn't mean it." Hazel eyes apologizes. My heart skips a beat and I mentally scold it for doing so. Why is my heart beating so fast right now? It must be because I just fell, isn't it?
"It's okay." I reply, knowing full well it's not okay. The throb in the back of my head is persistent, so I reach over to see if it formed a bump and wince, feeling a stabbing pain in my ribs. He must have hit me way harder than I realized.
Noticing this, hazel eyes gets closer to see what's wrong, a frown prominent on his face. He touches my ribs with his fingers. His touch is so soft but it sends shivers up my spine. I back up quickly, hoping he didn't notice and secondly, because I think that if my heart beats any faster it might explode.
"What's wrong?" He questions, still frowning.
"Nothing, I'm fine." I reply, waving my hand, dismissing him. I'm lying though, my ribs are burning and it hurts to breathe. I don't really think my breathing issue is due to the pain, tough.
"Ri, I don't think you're fine." Sadie jumps in. "I don't think you can play today."
For once in my life, I actually agree that not playing basketball would be best for me. She's right, I can't run like this.
"I think you should go see the nurse. Put some ice on it." Jen says, pointing to my head. She's also right.
"Yeah. Fine." I mumble, nodding. Disappointment takes over me. I didn't go to the party just to come here and now I can't even play. Perfect.
"I'm coming with." Hazel eyes adds.
"Uh, no you're not." I say abruptly.
"Yeah, I am." He fires back.
Not saying another word, I walk away towards my bag when I hear Nat saying "I can go with her."
"No, it's my fault, none of you should miss practice because of it." Hazel eyes insists. Why does he want to come with so badly? Maybe I judged him too harshly earlier when I called him an asshole. Still though, I don't really need him to come with me. It's totally unnecessary. I can handle myself.
"I don't need a babysitter, okay?" I snap, walking away. A few second later, I hear someone running behind me and I know for a fact that it's him.
Rolling my eyes i start saying "I'm fine going al-" when he interrupts me.
"I'm not going with you." He states. I look at him, confused. What is he doing then?Is he tagging along just to start annoying me for fun?
"What are you doing, then?" I ask.
"I happen to be walking next to you, going to the nurse's office, just like you, to get something. Probably some ice for my knee. I did fall too, you know." He says simply. He's one of those smart mouths, isn't he? The corner of my lips turn up into a smile.
"So, 'Ri', what is your name exactly?" He asks.
"Riley. Isn't it obvious?" I say, feigning annoyance. I'm actually very amused.
"You could be called Richard for all I know." He shrugs and I scrunch my nose for the third time today.
"Hilarious." I respond. "What's yours?"
"Trevor Daniels" He replies.
Looking back at it, who knew such a simple name would cause so much trouble.
The rest of the walk to the nurse's office is filled with, weirdly enough, comfortable silence. My heart beating a mile a minute the whole way there.