it's almost like you never left (Paige Bueckers)

Chapter 18

Flashback | The next day

"Wakey wakey eggs and bakey!" Aaliyah says, gently shaking me awake.

"Ughhhhh" I groan.

"C'mon we gotta show USA who's boss today" She yells. Suddenly, all of the memories of last night came flooding in. I had to play basketball in front of the best high school players in the nation. I needed to push those thoughts away though because we still had Croatia and Argentina to play, playing Argentina first. Apparently there's going to be college scouts here too so I definitely need to show up.

"You're right we need to lock in!" I say. I hop out of bed and throw on my red undershirt with my red Canada jersey over. I throw on some black warm up sweats with the Canadian maple leaf on the left thigh. I topped it off with my white warm up shirt that displayed 'Team Canada' across the front of it. I put my Kobe's in my bag along with deodorant, extra socks, hair ties, and basically anything an athlete would need.

"You ready Li?" I call out from the bathroom. I had just put my hair into a ponytail and was making some adjustments.

"Yeah, 1 more minute." She yells back. I had finished my skin care and everything so I leaned against the wall by the door, scrolling through tiktok.

"Ready?" I say, noticing her walk up out of my peripheral vision.

"As ready as I'll ever be." Seems like she's in a good mood. We exit the hotel and head towards the elevator. It was 10:12 am currently and we needed to be there by 10:45 but me and Aaliyah always like to be early.

It took us about 9 minutes to get to the gym and we walked in at around 10:23. I saw my coach and a couple of teammates and they waved us over so we started walking.

"Are you ladies ready for the game?" Coach asks us.

"Definitely." We say confidently, looking at each other. We waited around until 10:40 and by then the rest of the team had arrived. We started walking to the court we were playing on and right when we walked in we saw the light blue and white colors of Argentina, swarming the court. We set our bags down in a provided locker area and headed out for warm ups. We stretched and ran a little to get our blood flowing and then we started our warm up drill. It was basically 3 passes and you could either end with a shooter on the arc, down to Aaliyah in the post, or you can try to hit someone cutting for a off the pass mid range.

Right when warm ups ended we all headed to the bench to have the starting 5 get announced. I got ready to be called out and started to look out into the stands for my parents. I saw my dad and give him a small wave since he was already looking at me. I look to see who else is there and none other than Team USA walking in with their hoods up, hoping to be unnoticed.

The starting 5 were called and we all got into a huddle. Coach had said her words of motivation so now it was up to me, being one of the team captains, to hype up our squad.

"Okay guys we got Team USA up in here scoping us out. They know how good we are and we need to show them that today. Play your best and always give 110%!" I say putting my hand in the middle. Everyone follows in pursuit.

"Together on 3." I yell.

"1,2,3" I yell.

"Together!" Everyone yells, including me. We break and the starting 5 lines up on the court. Their team was definitely shorter than us but we can't underestimate them.

TWEET

The ref blows his whistle and throws the ball in the middle of Aaliyah and Argentina's big. Aaliyah tips it back and the game has begun.

Paige POV

Being an athlete can have its ups and downs, kind of like a super power. An up is that you relate to all other athletes so it's easier to read their body language. A downfall is that athletes have tons of emotions so you might get surprised with one. Athletes all over the world deal with stress, lack of confidence, haters, etc. So being an athlete can help understand what other athletes are going through.