My story started on a basketball court. I was a tall, skinny thirteen
year old, who preferred basketball hoops and circus tents to gossip and giggles.
Every rest hour and free time would find me shooting hoops, playing horse with the
boys. Having grown up with a father who played basketball weekly and older cousins
who were always throwing around a ball, I was no stranger to the art of basketball.
It was there on the court I met him. I knew his brothers and his older sister – I
adored his older sister, for she was just like me. We even had the same first name
and last initial. He had blond hair and brown eyes – from an early age, I had a
weakness for blonds. I loved the way he looked in his red and black Michael Jordan
shorts, but I loved more how easily we bantered as we passed the ball back and
forth.
At thirteen, I knew I liked him. I knew he would be the right type of boy to date,
that if anything would make me closer to my bunkmates, it would be him. But I wasn’t
yet old enough to be forward about it. So my interest became surreptitious. When
you’re a thirteen year old girl who holds few of the same interests as most other
thirteen year old girls, there’s only one way to make yourself feel included: a
crush. When a boy is the story, everyone wants to know the details.
I never invited myself places to where I knew he would be; I just always showed up
on the court. We could be ourselves on the court, free of the hormones and the “Does
he like me? Will she let me touch her?” that seemed to overwhelm so many of our
fellow campers. We would count off the letters when I almost always beat him at
horse: H – O – R – S – E. Even when we played an actual game, I would always steal
the ball from him – I was fast, and that was my secret weapon – I could steal balls
from anyone and often did.
Thirteen year old girls are quick on the draw when it comes to potential boy drama.
Soon, they were asking me if I liked him. They were following me to the basketball
court to giggle and watch while he and I lobbed the ball towards the hoop.
I never really wanted it to go anywhere. Sure, I fantasized about what it would be
like for him to kiss me. But I wasn’t ready for that. I just liked playing ball with
him. I liked his sneakers. I liked that he was always kind toward me, nodding at me
when we saw each other off the court. When my bunkmates teased me about him, I just
smiled and let their imaginations do the rest.
The other girls in my group were kissing boys behind the canteen, holding hands,
sneaking glances during lines in the dining hall when boys and girls intermingled.
They’d meet at the salad bar and make plans for free time after dinner. Dating back
then was not nearly as advanced as it is now with text messages and the three day
rule. I never subscribed to such notions then, and I still don’t now.
One night, as I slept, I felt someone wake me. As I woke, I saw him sitting on my
bed with his best friend. I didn’t know what to do with his presence. When boys
snuck into the girls’ bunk, it was for one reason and one reason only. I wasn’t
ready for that, and as a thirteen year old girl and fourteen year old boy, it hadn’t
occurred to us that we could spend the night talking and only talking.
So I sat up, in my flannel pajamas, well aware of the teddy bear next to me and the
animal poster above my cubby. I sat up and talked to him for a moment or two,
wondering if he was supposed to kiss me that night or if I was supposed to kiss him.
As was inevitable, we ran out of conversation without a ball passing between us, and
he soon left my bed for some of the prettier, more mature girls in the bunk.
I never did kiss him. He left the next summer, banished for smoking weed with the
same best friend who sat on my bed. I left the summer after that, tired of the
triviality of fourteen year old girls and their crippling cliques. Yet whenever I
think about basketball, of the court I used to play horse on, I always think of him
and wonder where he is now.
Jess Gill
is here.
