She doesn’t really care about sports. Then again, she doesn’t really care about a lot of things. Money, movies, cars, boys. She thinks love is a form of mental illness (she’s lost more than one friend to love), though she does like songs and poems about it. She’s never been in love herself, and she’s in no hurry to find it. She has friends, a solid core she’s known since she was a kid, some of whom she’s meeting up with tonight. Her circle has always existed on the true fringe, not where the burnouts smoke joints, not where the thespians put on shows, but where the rest of Samhattan can hardly see them, in the corners of the city that aren’t corners at all, the high school halls, even the bedrooms of the homes they grew up in. Still, Kennedy has never felt like an outsider. What she does feel, when asked by others (including the unnecessary therapists she’s been assigned many times), is content. When she considers her own worldview (that is, mindfulness over gratification), she feels warm. She likes who she is, she knows she needs work, and she’s excited to do it. She sings, she writes occasional poetry, and sometimes she intentionally does nothing at all. To Kennedy Lichtenstein, everybody is a rough draft, and as long as they come from a place of kindness, their story will be written well.

And basketball? Well, it’s all right. The sport itself isn’t a big deal to her. She enjoyed having a touchstone after-school activity on dreary days, but, like the rest of Samhattan High, the other players rarely acknowledged her unless it was with a deliberate degree of sympathy. She played her senior year, but only got into a game once, when the team was down seventeen points with forty-six seconds to go. She didn’t touch the ball in those forty-six seconds. Kit Lamb (who hit that baller free throw to win the summer league, that was fun) tried to get Kennedy the ball in her debut, gave her a soft enough pass she might be able to catch with her elbows. But the players from East Kent weren’t paying attention to the fact the Samhattan fans were cheering Kennedy’s first and only appearance, a show of solidarity she thought was pretty cool. One of the East Kent Carolers stole the soft pass and brought it the other way for a missed layup. It was nice of Kit to try.

The crowd gave Kennedy a standing ovation anyway.

Because Kennedy Lichtenstein playing basketball at all was a big deal to them.

Because Kennedy Lichtenstein was born without hands.

Hands, bare hands, have been a real topic lately. But hands are something she’s never known, and so, in a way, she doesn’t miss them like most people think she would. That said, every day she witnesses more efficient lives than her own, with the oft-taken-for-granted luxury of ten fingers. It’s all right, she tells people when they get personal enough with her to ask. She doesn’t begrudge anybody the caution they use when bringing it up any more than she would herself for asking someone born without eyes. Kennedy understands curiosity. And she doesn’t mind being one herself. Way she sees it: the way technology moves these days, she’ll be getting a set of bionics before she reaches twenty-four. That is, if she even wants them.