Growing Like a Tree

CH-3

After those swimming lessons ended, I rarely saw Chase up close. I watched him from a distance, unable to help how curious I was about him. We went to the same school but were assigned to different classrooms. He was infamous at school for fighting and swearing. Everyone knew his name. However, when he wasn’t caught up in some kind of drama, he was practically invisible. Listening to my classmates talk, I found out that he didn’t have any friends even though his parents were wealthy and influential. Not even the kids who liked to suck up to people wanted to pretend to be his friends. His family was prominent, but he was a social outcast.

His cousin, Bradley, was his known arch enemy. They fought like wolves whenever they came face to face. He got top grades in his class and would have been a teacher’s pet, but he was always getting into fights. He was always alone and spent most of his time during breaks at school on the basketball court, dribbling or shooting by himself. When he got chased off the court – usually by a group of kids who wanted to play but wouldn’t share the same space as him ─ sometimes he would dribble by himself in some obscure corner until it was time to go back to class. A love of basketball was what we had in common. That would be the glue that bound us together.

I had never told anyone about what I saw in the community center storage room, but whenever I saw him, it would come to mind. I thought about all the fights he got into and wondered if he hadn’t made a sound back then because he was so used to being hit.