What? Jordan was supposed to get MVP. She hit the winning shot. She’s the reason we even made it to the championship. She led the team when I was out with my gallbladder surgery. I didn’t even play the last few minutes of the game.

Jim places a gold statue of a girl shooting in my hands. This isn’t mine, I think before I turn and start looking around for Jordan. But I can’t find her and accidentally glimpse Shannon instead. I can’t. I just can’t, and I turn my eyes back up toward the empty stands.

REX

Look at you. Center stage. Holding your big, golden trophy. Just like you’ve never dreamed. Oh, but you like it, I see! Your nose way up in the air. I swear I hate you. You don’t give a shit about my dreams. You don’t care that I took a beating in the championship game because I was worried about you. You don’t care that I probably lost my chance to go to a top school because of you. You haven’t even looked in my direction. I mean, it’s bad enough that you weren’t there for me. But no words for me, either? Not even the silent, private kind? I swear you’re worse than my father ever was. Maybe he never loved me all these years, but at least he had the decency to not pretend. Why pretend? Why tell me you loved me? So I could give myself away? So you could take and take and take? Well, I’m gone.

CARLI

“Your ass doesn’t even like basketball!” Rex yells. I hear him before anyone else does. He’s standing down below, to the left of the stage, staring at me with a hate so fierce it shoots straight through me.

I want to scream, What are you doing? Shut up! but shock has severed the connection between my brain and mouth.

Palming the small, gold basketball with his right hand, Rex sharply points the base of his trophy up at me. “You’re such a fucking fraud!”

His words suck every sound out of the gym, and now all eyes are on him.

“Standing up there with that trophy when you know you hate basketball!”

Collective whispers and gasps from the crowd.

“Okay, I think that’s enough,” Jim says into the microphone, standing to my right.

But that doesn’t stop Rex. “How you gon’ be somebody’s MVP when you’re about to quit the team?”

Stop! Please stop! I plead with my eyes.

“Your ass ain’t even playing next year. You don’t deserve—” Rex’s coach yanks him by the elbow and starts to march him toward the locker rooms.

A loud buzz from the crowd. Phones out recording.

My forehead feels clammy and I want to throw up.