‘Come on,’ Ashley interrupted, handing me a ball as the boys walked off the court. Mitch said ‘Hi’ as he walked past. I couldn’t help but turn around to catch another glimpse of Trent before starting some warm-up drills. I wondered why I hadn’t really noticed him before.

The coach walked over to me and said, ‘Hi, I’m Suzy.’

The first thing that stood out about her to me was that she was wearing thongs. Then I noticed her glasses and her green eyes. ‘Hi, I’m Phoebe,’ I said, feeling silly. I’d had the same coach since I was eight years old.

‘Nice to meet you Phoebe, and thanks for coming out. Can you go over to the scoring desk and write your details down for me before we get started?’

‘Sure,’ I said, hoping I could remember my new address. I’d started to notice that things like that weren’t coming so easy at the moment. I was forgetting all kinds of things.

The seven of us girls walked out onto the court and moments later we were in the thick of our own half-court scratch match. Unlike the first time I stepped onto a court with Ashley and Hayley, they were feeding me the ball rather than making me hustle. Still, the other girls on the team were good and even though I got possession of the ball a lot, no one was paying me any favours when it came to scoring. But I did get to put up a few shots, and some of them dropped, even a three-pointer.

When the session finished, Suzy approached and said, ‘You did well tonight, Phoebe. Where have you been playing?’

‘I’ve played with Sturt since I was eight,’ I told her, wiping down my body with a towel as I caught my breath.

‘Really,’ she said and I started worrying that I wasn’t good enough for her to believe me. Then she said with a big smile, ‘That’s great! I look forward to seeing you next week.’ She leaned down to adjust the knee brace wrapped over her jeans.

Although I knew I’d done all right in the tryouts, I felt out of place as Caroline and Hayley talked with their longtime teammates, including Ashley and Matilda. I collected my phone and house keys from the bench and said, ‘I’ll see ya tomorrow,’ to my classmates.

Caroline said, ‘Yep, see ya in the morning!’

Hayley gave me a thumbs up. ‘You did good!’

The sun was setting as I walked home across the football oval. I gazed up at the red, pink, orange and yellow sunset that reminded me of a giant bruise. It took me a while to notice the squawking of cockatoos because I was too busy thinking about Trent McLean’s smile, shoulders and murntu. My chest felt tight, in a good way, thinking about him.