Chapter 2: Practice Makes Proximity
1586 Words
***
Monday smelled like disinfectant and old basketballs.
Maya pushed through the gym doors at 3:15 PM sharp. Yearbook had given her a “behind the scenes” pass for the season. Official reason: document the team’s journey to playoffs. Real reason: she got to be in the gym when Elias was.
The boys’ team was already running drills. Coach Rivera’s whistle cut through the air every 30 seconds. “Again! Feet faster! You’re not dancing, Torres!”
Elias was at the front of the line. Same routine as always, three dribbles, pull-up, sprint back on defense. Sweat darkened his gray practice shirt by the second minute.
Maya set up near the bleachers and lifted her camera, not photos yet, just watching. Framing shots in her head first, that was her process.
“Photographer girl.”
She turned, Coach Rivera was walking over, clipboard in hand. He was in his 40s, former college player, voice like a drill sergeant but eyes that noticed everything.
“Yes, Coach?” Maya straightened.
“You’re here for the yearbook feature, right? Torres interview?”
Maya’s stomach dropped. She hadn’t asked him yet, she was still working up to it. “I… was going to ask after practice.”
Coach nodded toward Elias, “Good, ask him now, he’ll say yes if I tell him to. Kid doesn’t know how to say no to authority.” He blew the whistle. “Torres! Water break! Photographer needs five minutes!”
Elias jogged over, wiping his face with his shirt. Up close he was taller than he looked in the stands, and sweatier, and his eyes were that same sharp blue, but softer when he wasn’t in game mode.
“Five minutes?” he said, not to Maya but to Coach.
“Make it count,” Coach said, already walking away. “And Torres smile in at least one photo. You look like you’re being interrogated in last year’s book.”
Elias sighed, then looked at Maya. “So, Interview.”
“Right,” Maya said. Her notes app was open on her phone. Questions typed out, she’d written them last night after replaying the hallway conversation 20 times. “Just… basic stuff, for the senior spread.”
He grabbed a water bottle from the bench, “Shoot.”
Maya cleared her throat. “When did you start playing?”
“Five. My uncle had a hoop in his driveway, bent rim, I spent all summer trying to make shots on it.” He drank, Adam’s apple moving. “Why?”
“Yearbook needs context,” she said quickly, lie, she wanted to know. “Favorite moment so far at Lincoln?”
He didn’t answer right away, he spun the basketball in his hands, looking past her at the empty court.
“Last year’s regional semifinal,” he said finally. “We were down 6 with 40 seconds left. I hit a three, then stole the inbound pass, then hit another three to tie. We lost in OT, but for 40 seconds it felt like… like everything was possible.”
Maya lowered her phone. She hadn’t written that down. That wasn’t a stat, that was a memory.
“You remember the play exactly,” she said.
“I remember everything I mess up,” he said. Then he smiled, crooked. “I remember the good stuff too, just less.”
The whistle blew again, coach yelling., “Break’s over, lovebirds!”
Elias stood, “We done?”
“One more,” Maya said quickly, too quickly. “What’s your plan after graduation? College ball?”
He paused, the basketball stopped spinning. “I got offers, division II mostly, my grades are good enough for D1 but…” He shrugged, “My mom works nights. I’ll probably stay local, save money, play where I can help out at home.”
It wasn’t the answer everyone expected from the star player. Everyone assumed Elias Torres was going to some big school, but he was saying “local” like it was a plan, not a backup.
“Thanks,” Maya said, “I mean… that’s really responsible.”
He laughed, short and surprised. “Responsible isn’t a yearbook quote, Maya.”
“How do you know my name?” It came out before she thought.
He tossed the ball up and caught it. “You’ve been in the stands every game since freshman year, same seat, same camera. I notice patterns.” He started walking backward toward the court. “Plus you’re the only one who asked me about assists instead of dunks.”
Coach blew the whistle again and Elias was gone, back in the drill line, back in game mode.
Maya stood there with her phone still open to blank notes. She’d asked four questions and learned more about him in five minutes than she had in four years.
Jess found her after practice, dropping her backpack on the bleacher with a thud. “How’d the interview go? Did he flex for you?”
“He didn’t flex,” Maya said. She was deleting bad photos, but really she was replaying him saying “I notice patterns.”
“Did you get the cover shot?” Jess asked.
“Not yet.” Maya looked up, the team was doing sprints, Elias was at the front again, jaw set, driving hard. “Coach said I could come back Wednesday, game film review. He said Elias might do more photos then.”
Jess raised an eyebrow, “Wednesday? You’re gonna be here every day by Friday, aren’t you?”
“No,” Maya said, yes.
Wednesday came fast, film review meant the team sat in the little classroom attached to the gym, lights off, watching plays from Monday’s scrimmage. Maya sat in the back with her camera, allowed to take “candid” shots.
The lights went down. First play on the screen: Elias missed a layup, the room groaned.
“That was stupid,” Elias said out loud, no one laughed. He was serious, he leaned forward, elbows on knees, watching himself miss the same shot three times as Coach replayed it.
“See your feet?” Coach paused the video. “You’re landing wrong. You’ll blow your knee out doing that.”
Elias nodded, didn’t argue, didn’t make an excuse. Just nodded and filed it away.
Maya took a photo, not of the screen, of him. Profile view, lit by the projector, looking younger and older at the same time, focused, honest.
After, when the lights came up, he caught her looking. “You get the stupid shot?”
“The honest one,” she said.
He held her gaze for a second too long. Then Coach clapped his hands. “Alright, let’s run it again on the court. Torres, you’re demonstrating proper footwork.”
Maya stayed behind as everyone filed out. She was packing her camera when Elias walked back in, alone.
“You didn’t have to come back,” he said. “Coach told me you’d be here.”
“Yearbook,” she said, still her safe word.
“Right.” He picked up a ball, started dribbling without looking down. “You wanna take pictures of me doing footwork drills? That’s gonna be thrilling.”
“It’s honest,” Maya said, echoing him.
He stopped dribbling. “You said that about the photo.”
“I meant it.”
For a minute neither of them talked. Just the sound of the ball hitting the floor, thump, thump, thump.
“You really watch all the games?” he asked finally.
“Every one since freshman year.” She answered.
“Why?” He asked.
Maya opened her mouth, closed it. “Yearbook.”
Lame, she cringed internally.
Elias didn’t call her out. He just nodded and started the drill again. “Show me your camera.”
“What?”
“Show me what you saw, the honest photo.”
Maya hesitated, then walked over and pulled up the photo on her camera screen. Him in the dark, face lit by the projector, expression raw.
Elias studied it, didn’t smile, didn’t joke. “You make me look… human.”
“That’s the point of photos,” Maya said quietly.
He handed the camera back. Their fingers brushed, he pulled away immediately.
“Wednesday practices are boring,” he said. “Just drills and film but you can come if you want, for photos Or… whatever.”
“Whatever?” Maya replied.
He shrugged, suddenly looking 17 instead of the poised captain. “I don’t know, just, you’re not like the other girls who ask for pics after games.”
“Is that good?”
“I think so.” He spun the ball again. “My ride’s here. You need a lift?” He asked genuinely.
Maya blinked, four years, four years of him not seeing her and now he was offering her a ride home.
“I’ll take the bus,” she said.
“Next time,” he said, not a question, a statement. “Next time I’ll drive you.”
He left then, dribbling the ball out of the gym. The sound echoed long after he was gone.
Maya looked down at her camera. The photo of him was still on the screen, human, focused, tired and real.
She whispered to the empty gym: “Senior year. Last dance.”
And for the first time, it didn’t feel like she was just a year book girl, she thought.
***
- Writer
