STEPS AND HOOPS

Isla sighed for what seemed to be the millionth time as she looked out the window of the car. The sky was dark and stormy, but the rain was only showering, in opposition of how angry the sky looked. Ignoring the drizzling rain, the way it splattered against the window and dribbled down, she found the trees as they sped by in tune with the speed of the car, of much interest instead. Isla finally looked up to the sky, through the window. Maybe the sky was in tune with her sadness, but trying to compensate her too. She reached over to mess with the radio but stopped herself short. Her mother spared her a glance, and turned her attention back to the road. Isla had spoken no more than five words to her, ever since they left her country and the town she grew up in, leaving her father behind and all of her friends, memories and basically everything she loved. Now they were heading to the town where her mother had grown up. Worse, in a different continent, thousands of miles away from everything she has known her whole life. Ever since the divorce between her parents, Isla had grown more distant from her mother, mostly because knew that the cause of divorce between her parents was as a result of her mom reuniting with her high school sweetheart, the one that had made her to run away from her own country and hometown to New Zealand where she had met her father. And also because her mother had insisted on keeping her in custody, just to make her the stepdaughter of some stranger. Her father had not objected to it, which made her slightly irritated with him also. He did not bother to fight for her custody and Isla almost hated him for that, she was a daddy’s girl. Isla sighed again and looked at her phone. “At least the only good thing about moving here is that I can finally see Jamal again.” She muttered under her breath and laid back in the car seat, closing her eyes shut. Willing herself to go back to the last week of June, when she had first met him. Her mother had suggested she traveled to the states all by herself. Her mother’s childhood best friend had picked her up from the airport and driven her right through this same road they were on now, and straight to the high school where she would be starting her junior year come fall, and also where the basketball camp was holding. “For basketball camp and tryouts.” Her mother had said but Isla had known that was an excuse to get her out of the way while the parents were working through the divorce and plans for relocation. The first day of camp was mundane, she had worked through the usuals, which was very different from where she came from. So aside the occasional confusion and getting lost over what to do, she was fine. Fine as long as she kept to herself and just carried on with activities she was required to partake in. Not until the first day of mixed practice, on the last day of training first week. She had seen it in the pamphlet that had been given to her on the first day. The last day of every week’s training was to be mixed training with the male team, but she wasn’t really looking forward to it. Partly because at her former school, the male basketball team consisted of a bunch of assholes that were misogynistic and would play around with the ball instead of actually training with the girl’s team, and also because she did not want to actually deal with more humans. Isla had walked into what she guessed was the school’s main basketball stadium with zero motivation to actually train that day, hoping the day will be done as soon as possible so she could slack off and maybe binge watch shows to waste her weekend. So far she had done a good job being alone and no one really bothered her, no one has been a b***h so far. “Nice shot Sam!” She heard a deep rich baritone voice call out on the court and she directed her attention there, just in time to see a boy throwing a basketball into the net, from the sideline. The ball went in through the net smoothly. Subconsciously, her feet moved towards the court. The boy who had thrown the ball, high-fived his friend,-who she just noticed-, and grinned. By now, she was close enough to notice his dimples and from where she was, she could tell he had a perfect dentition, he was tall, very tall. About six feet and six inches, if she wasn’t mistaken. His hair was long and braided, falling sideways to his face, some getting into his line of vision, that he used his hand to push back out of his face. She could easily tell that he was mixed race, his skin colour was caramel and God! He was totally good looking. Still grinning, he threw the ball to his friend. She wondered if he was the Sam. “That is Jamal Noah, captain of the male basketball team.” Her unspoken question was answered and she jolted out of her thoughts and spun to her side to see a girl, that was taller than her, smiling amusedly down at her and tilting her head towards the unbelievably handsome tall boy on the court. Isla glanced quickly to the court and back to the girl by her side. “Hi, I’m Aubrey.” The girl stuck out her hand and she accepted it, shaking it firmly. “I’m Isla. Isla Ariki.” She replied and Aubrey nodded. “I know.” ‘Ahhh, the new girl thing’ Isla thought. Like she knew what she was thinking, Aubrey corrected her thoughts immediately. “My mother is your mother’s best friend. She asked me to make sure you were settling in well but you’ve been keeping to yourself ever since you came and I figured to let you get accustomed to the whole new environment thing before I introduced myself to you.” “Ohhhh,” was the only thing Isla could afford to reply and for some reason felt very stupid in the face of this really pretty girl. She looked at the taller girl’s face searching for some resemblance to the woman who had picked her up from the airport and brought her here but had found none. The girl in front of her had auburn hair, with piercing green eyes and lots of freckles on her face. Isla had never seen anyone with more freckles than her before, but Aubrey had more, even more than the ones that dusted across her nose and cheekbones. Aubrey had freckles all over her face, including her forehead. Isla found the freckles to be the best feature she loved on the girl, weirdly. “I’m adopted.” Isla let out an uneasy laugh. “Are you a mind reader?” She asked the redhead with a small smile. Aubrey grinned widely and shrugged before asking, “I hear an accent, are you from Europe?” Isla shook her head in a negative response. “New Zealand actually.” Aubrey nodded thoughtfully, “makes sense.” Isla looked towards the court again and saw that both teams were pooling onto the court, the boy with the dimples was no where to be found again. Aubrey traced her gaze and slid her hand into one of Isla’s. “Come on, practice is about to start.” Aubrey said and tugged the hand she held, pulling her towards the court. ** ** ** The sound of a car horn pulled her out of her thoughts and Isla opened her eyes slowly to see that they were in front of a huge gate with stone walls. The corners of her lips curled down. “She sure have a thing for rich men.” Her mother pretended to not have heard the snide remark. The huge gate started to open up and Isla held her breath, not really ready for whatever life was behind the huge gate and high stone walls.