One Possession

Coach Mercer gave Eli one possession.

“You wanted a tryout. Here's your tryout.”

The scholarship players looked up from their water bottles. For a year, Eli had filmed practices, washed pinnies, and made sure nobody forgot the equipment bags. Nobody had asked whether he could play.

He borrowed a jersey with a crooked number and stepped onto the practice court. The shot clock showed fourteen. His team trailed by one.

Across from him, senior guard Mason grinned. “Try not to trip over the ball, camera guy.”

Eli glanced at the far corner. In his notebook, that corner appeared on thirty-seven pages. Mason always abandoned it when a ball screen came from the left.

“Jules,” Eli said to the reserve forward, “set it left, then slip.”

“That's not our play.”

“It was. Before your ankle healed.”

Jules stared at him, then moved.

The screen came. Mason stepped high. Eli sent the pass low, exactly where Jules's hand was already waiting. Two points. No dramatic dunk, no half-court miracle. Just an open layup that made the gym go quiet.

Coach Mercer checked the clock, as if it might explain what had happened.

“Again,” he said.

Mason set down his towel. This time, he crouched into a proper defensive stance.

Eli tied his borrowed shoes tighter. In the doorway stood the campus reporter who had come to write about the coming season. She crossed out the first line of her notes.