Teenage baller Kaden Hastings has a fit when his family moves to California. He can handle the new medical diagnosis that slowly eats away at his life, but when his parents separate him from his teammates and girlfriend to move him to California to...
I follow Kaden up the driveway to our house. He goes straight to the basketball hoop and shoots a power lay-up. I can barely dribble my ball after running all the way home from the school, but somehow he has plenty of energy.
That's right-he's been doing this for five years. I should have done that too. I am in shape, but we just ran two miles.
"You're not gonna play?" Kaden calls.
"I need a break," I say over my shoulder as I go through the door.
Mom is in the kitchen getting dinner ready. "Hey! Where's Kaden?"
"Driveway." I point back at the door and sag down into a kitchen chair.
Mom sets a container of strawberries on the counter and sits next to me. "Oh, honey, you look exhausted. I wish you wouldn't overdo it like this."
"Don't worry, Mom. I'm fine."
"Do you have homework?"
I nod, remembering the piece of paper where I copied everything down. Thank god for online textbooks, or I don't know what I would be doing. I dig in my shorts pocket for the list of assignments. Homework in every single one of my classes, except for P.E.
"You might want to get started on that before dinner," Mom says, like she was following my train of thought.
She's right, but I just need a break for a while. The front door opens, and Kaden comes inside with Dad.
"Hey, there he is," Dad says from the kitchen doorway. "How's your training going?"
"Really good," I lie. Kaden avoids looking at both of us. I know he's better than I am, but it still bugs me that he beats me one-on-one every single time. Maybe because Kaden doesn't act like he will make Varsity. If he isn't confident in his ability, then how can I even hope to get in?
"Glad to hear it," Dad says. "It sure will be great to have you both make Varsity."
"Yeah." I turn back to Mom. "How much time do I have 'til dinner?"
"Oh, maybe forty-five minutes?"
I go into my room and wake up my computer. Take a seat and study my homework list again. How am I going to finish all this? I'll be doing homework all night, and I still won't have time for everything.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
If I save my math for lunch time tomorrow and blow off Spanish since I have almost one hundred percent in that class, I might be able to pull this off.
I hit play on my media player and hop online. "Give It All" by Rise Against blares out of my speakers. I find my AP U.S. History textbook in my list of bookmarks and go to chapter five.
This song is awesome. I drum my hands on my desk, unable to concentrate on social studies. I can't study right now, so I pause my music, get up, and take a seat at my trap set. Pick up my drumsticks, start at the beginning of "Give It All," and play hard.
Everyone can hear me. I give it forty seconds before someone comes to complain about the noise. It'll probably be Dad. He'll come up and lecture me for wasting my time on something that doesn't matter. How am I going to keep this up?
I get to the first drum fill in the song and pound on the snare drum-my stick snaps in half. Whoa! My first broken drumstick. I hold up the stick to examine the damage to it.
My hand is red.
Somehow the pointed end of the broken stick stabbed the palm of my hand. Oh my god, that looks bad. It should really hurt. The blood pools into my palm, flows through my fingers, and drips onto my snare drum. What did I just do? This is serious. I hold my hand up in front of me, get to my feet, and leave my room. The shock finally wears off. My hand burns.
Dad and Kaden are still in the kitchen, talking loudly about conditioning drills. Kaden spots me come down the stairs, and his eyes shoot to my hand. "Holy crap, Logan, what did you do?"
Mom turns away from the sink. Her eyes fall on my hand, and her face turns three shades lighter. "Oh my god!" She grabs my shoulder and pulls me to the sink. Blood runs up my arm and splatters into the sink. I start to feel lightheaded just from watching myself bleed all over.
Mom turns on the water, grabs my wrist, and shoves my hand under the spout. The freezing cold water washes the blood down the drain and instantly numbs my hand, making it throb.
"I can't believe this," Dad says. His face turns red.
I stare down at the bloody water. "It was an accident."
Mom nudges my hand out of the water to look at the cut, a jagged puncture wound which starts bleeding again. It burns under the skin. Mom shoves it back into the stream of water and says, "Kaden! Go get the first aid kit!"
"Where is it?" he asks.
"The cupboard in your bathroom!" Mom shouts, and he disappears up the stairs.
Dad comes over and pulls my hand out of the water. "Jesus, Logan. Your dominant hand. This will take at least a week to heal. What were you doing playing those damn drums?"
"Don't you dare start," Mom says.
Kaden rushes down the stairs and slams the kit on the counter with a loud snap. "Are you okay?"
I try to say I'm fine, but the words get caught in my throat. Tryouts start next week.
Mom fumbles with the first aid kit, pulls my hand over, and pushes a square piece of gauze into my palm. It feels like it's on fire. "Hold this. It should stop the bleeding." She turns the water off and crosses her arms.
I sway into the counter as my hand pulses against the gauze. Mom nudges me into the closest chair at the kitchen table.
Kaden sits next to me and grabs my elbow. "How did you do that?"
"I'm not sure," I say. "But I broke my drumstick, and it stabbed me."
"Jeez, and I thought I was accident prone." Kaden lets out a laugh, but then his eyes go wide. "Sorry."
"Don'tworry. I'm okay." I'll heal in time for tryouts, and in the meantime, I havethe perfect excuse to cut back on gym time and focus on schoolwork for a while.A little break from basketball is just what I need.
