All the Things We Never Knew by Liara Tamani

Author:Liara Tamani
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

That’s All She Wrote

CARLI

Monday after school and I’m at basketball practice, where I’m supposed to be learning new defensive plays. But I can’t stop running the scene of Rex leaving my room through my head. How he looked at me like he didn’t know me. How I looked back at him, with all the anger I felt about my parents’ divorce, their custody battle, basketball, my life. How Mom put her hand on his back and said, “I’ll walk you out,” and I let her, without even telling him good-bye.

“Jordan, if Shannon gets the ball at the top of the left key, go and help Carli trap her,” Coach says, and points to the left corner of the free-throw line. Jordan walks down to the corner from right outside the three-point line, smacking on gum.

I haven’t told Jordan about the breakup. Rex and I haven’t officially said we were over, but what we had definitely feels broken. No more rise-and-shine texts from him every morning. No more staying up late talking to him on the phone every night. No contact at all since he left my house on Friday.

“Carli, get your head out of the clouds and come up here to trap!” Coach yells. The whole team’s eyes widen in surprise. Jordan’s mouth is literally hanging open.

Coach never yells at me. Everybody else, yes, but never me.

“Shannon cost us the championship last year, and I’ll be damned if I let her take it away from us again this year,” Coach continues.

Shannon is this sophomore from Langham High. Yeah, she can ball, but she ain’t all that. Plus, she’s always looking at me funny and trying to copy my style. Been on varsity since she was a freshman, like me. Tall, six-foot-one to be exact, like me. Okay, maybe she can’t help either of those two things, but she wears number twenty-two. Now, everybody and their mama know that’s my number. And one time she slipped me a note after a game that said, “Hey.” Hey? Like, she couldn’t have opened her mouth to say that? I swear I can’t figure out if the girl likes me or wants to be me. But either way, I can’t stand her.

“You good?” Jordan whispers after I get to the corner.

“Rex and I broke up,” I whisper back.

“Okay,” Coach says, “now if Shannon gets the ball on the right key, Carli, you drop back down to the block. Jordan, you slide over. And Meagan, you come up to help Jordan.”

“Are you serious?” Jordan asks as we switch positions.

After practice Jordan and I go to Baskin-Robbins in Rice Village. Once we get our ice cream, we sit outside at a hot pink bistro table, backs against the red brick building. It’s eighty degrees. Houston sure knows how to flip the switch on the weather, but nobody’s mad at it today. Everybody and their mama are out walking and shopping and eating in the sun.

Cold sweetness dissolving on my tongue, I explain, “It would be everything spending senior year with Rex, but leave my mom? I can’t do that.

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