Half the Battle: The Heroes of Everything Series

By A.M. Alvarez

How far are athletes willing to go to achieve success? And at what cost?

Half the Battle: The Heroes of Everything Series follows a young basketball player named Thora, as she experiences the recent loss of her parents due to a tragic accident and is forced to face a new reality without them. As she begins navigating t

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Aug 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781636764580

Book preview

PART 1:

LETTING GO

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PROLOGUE

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There are two things I can’t enjoy anymore after my parents died: the silence of the locker room as we all lace up our basketball shoes before a game, and hearing Coach Hugo’s pep talk where he says some shit like, leave all you got on the court like it’s the last game you’ll ever play because it damn near could be.

To be honest, I don’t care about the last game I’ll play, and I don’t care to use that as motivation. At least not anymore. I need to get out there and show everyone I’m okay. I’m sick of the sorry looks I get from other parents and the suffocating hugs. It bothers me most when people say, I can’t even imagine… as if it’s never going to happen to them.

Today’s the first game of the league playoffs. Lucky for us, we’re the last seed (aka the team that barely made the playoffs), so that means we play the number one team. Whoever made up this system can really go to hell.

We’re up against the Legnix Thunders at our home court, which is supposed to be an advantage but, honestly, I wish we were playing anywhere but here. I can’t help but feel my parents’ presence, and although I know I’m just psyching myself out, the silence in the locker room isn’t exactly a distraction. By now, they’d be sitting in the front row, closest to the court, right across our bench. My baby brother, Jaxon, would be on my dad’s shoulders chewing on a foam finger or sticking it in my older sister, Berlin’s, ear as she refreshes her Instagram feed every ten seconds. Typical teenager. My mother would be eating nachos and inevitably getting cheese all over the camera. She was perfectly feminine but careless about it; it was fascinating to watch.

All right, all right, Duelers. Let’s huddle around! Coach Hugo comes storming into the locker room like he’s in some sort of rush. Sweat bleeds through his tan, button-down shirt and the game hasn’t even started. He looks like a nervous wreck. It’s kinda funny.

I stand up behind everyone as they all take a seat. I know this would bother Coach Hugo but I’m too anxious to sit and ever since, well… you know, he stopped being so hard on me. I hate that.

He goes over Legnix’s offensive and defense on the whiteboard. I don’t have to pay too much attention since I already know they play a motion offense, which is basically a lot of pick n’ rolls and they play a one-to-one defense but keep their center, Stacy, down at the post. Stacy is six foot five which is way too tall for a high school junior. She’s sturdy, too. Running into her feels like running into a brick wall when I don’t look up soon enough while driving in. I guess she can take some of the credit for my three-point average though, which is at an all-time high.

Here it is. Win or lose today, Duelers, I want every single one of you to leave this game knowing you had nothing else to give. Like it’s your last game. Or like it’ll be the last game your parents will ever watch.

Duelers on three! One, two…

I walk out of the locker room before I could hear them shout Duelers like a crowd of dying animals. Truth is, I walk out because I can’t get this damn golf ball feeling out of my throat. It’s been two weeks since my parents passed away and I’ve played another game since then. But this one’s different. I promised my mom she’d see me win a championship before I graduated high school like she did during her time. My mom was the star athlete of this high school years ago. There’s a banner with her on the wall with 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 DL CHAMPIONSHIP underneath it. She’d smile and cup my face into her hands. She believed in me, something nobody seemed to do anymore since they’ve been gone but I’m going to prove them wrong. By the end of the championship series, a banner of me will be right beside my mom’s with 2027 DL CHAMPION and then maybe I won’t be remembered as the girl whose parents died.

As I stand here in the hallway that separates the locker room and the gym, I realize I need to get this over with. I peek out the tiny window of the door that looks out to the gym. Of course, Legnix’s visitor’s side is overpacked. I mean, people are sitting on the stairs and overflowing onto the ground. They’re an all-time favorite in nearly every city in the league. It’s all just hype, though.

Our home side of the gym is full for the most part with empty spots here and there. I don’t care much for spectators though. I look over to where my parents would normally sit. My heart sinks into my stomach when I see their seats replaced by the Dueler football players.

I wish they were just late to the game. Maybe Jaxon was throwing a fit in the car or my mom forgot the camera at home, so they had to go back. But I know they weren’t coming back. I had to keep telling myself this like it was some sort of reminder. It felt silly having to remind myself my parents are gone forever.

I continue searching the bleachers until I see Aunt Naan at the very top. Of course, she’d choose to be away from the crowd. Especially with the kind of sorry looks and not-so-secret whispers that flow through the gym when she’s around.

She looks like my mom but the twenty-something version, which is gut-wrenching. Berlin is sitting beside her. This time Jaxon replaces her phone. She holds him tightly, which I’m sure frustrates Jaxon as he tries to wiggle his way out of her grip. I don’t blame him. Berlin has been terribly affectionate since we lost our parents. Almost like she wants to squeeze the pain out of everyone. I wonder if she just needs somebody to do that to her.

It’s time. The buzzer rings loudly through the gym, signaling the start of warm-ups for each team. My teammates begin lining up behind me, ready to run out the doors and into the gym at our music cue. I have two hours to forget I’m the daughter of dead parents. I don’t have to listen to how sorry everyone is for my loss. Right now, I know I have a promise to keep to my mother, and that’s to win a championship.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

CHAPTER 1

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There are six seconds on the clock. Enough time to get the ball and shoot the game-winning three.

I hate playing against the Legnix Thunders. They’re undefeated but not for the right reasons. I mean, they have athleticism and good chemistry on the court, but they play dirty. From jersey-pulling to sticking their foot out in front of me if I was outrunning them. It’s ridiculous they’re getting away with it.

In the last play, Legnix’s point guard (Becca, or Becky, whatever everyone is calling her) ran closely beside me down the court. As soon as I took a step back, she fell to the floor, pulling onto my jersey and taking me down with her. I lost the ball and it rolled out-of-bounds. I stood up and realized the ref was standing right beside us the entire time, but he refused to make eye contact.

Did you seriously not see that? I yell at him and throw my hands up. He squints his eyes at me like refs do as a warning. One more word, and that’s a tech.

Thora, let it go! Coach Hugo yells every time I call out a ref. Truth is, I really don’t think they ever see a thing. Legnix is sneaky like that.

I’m trying to ignore the burning scratches and bruises aching all over my body from the cheap shots they take each time I drive in. I take this as a compliment. They clearly see me as a threat.

We’re down by three points in the last quarter. Coach Hugo calls for a timeout with the ball in our possession. Even though the ref didn’t catch the foul, he at least had some sense by giving us the ball back.

Everybody, sit down and close your eyes, Coach Hugo says to us over the audience’s cheers and cheerleaders’ chants. This guy is really trying to coach us through a meditation exercise in the middle of a time-out while the crowd roars with taunting back and forth chants from one side of the gym to the other. There’s no point in calming down. This is part of the game. Plus, I play better under pressure, but Coach Hugo doesn’t think so.

Thora, it’d be nice of you to join us, Coach Hugo walks over and whispers to me.

I’m good, I say, turning him down. He doesn’t push, but I know he wants to like he always did when my parents weren’t dead.

The buzzer finally rings, and I can’t get up any faster. I skip the last team huddle and walk straight onto the court. I don’t care for the hype and team chants. I just want to win this game, go home, and go off into the next game of the championship playoffs with a win.

The referees begin frantically blowing their whistles at the teams to get back onto the court, like they have somewhere else to be.

When the game first started, I scoped out the refs. I’ve been studying them all season long to see what calls they make and most importantly, what calls they don’t make.

There’s Taylor, who puts more of her focus on calls in the paint. Then there’s Miguel, who honestly has a good eye everywhere on the court. Some of his calls are bullshit though, and I want to say the other half is just luck. But maybe he’s just that good. Lastly, there’s a new ref on the court. I don’t know her name, but I can tell she’s more of an observer. She hasn’t blown her whistle all game long and I am worried she might just be deciding whose team she wants to favor, like all referees do but never admit.

The new ref stands outside the sideline at half court with her whistle hanging from her mouth and one arm in the air, waiting for everyone to set up on the court. Memory, our shooting guard, finally takes her place beside the ref, calling out Falcon! Falcon! This basically meant Warrior-1 formation and I’m taking the game-winning shot.

I take my place at half court, standing between Jessabelle, our power forward, and Katie, our other shooting guard. They stand taller than I do. Being only five foot four means most people on the court are taller, although I feel like the biggest player on the court whenever I put this Duelers jersey on.

Katie, Jessabelle, and I set up close enough together that our shoulders are touching.

Don’t let them in! I yell as our defenders try making their way between us. If we let them in, they’ll most likely just tangle us all together, so I push my defender off and wait for the signal.

The whistle blows, but we don’t move until Memory’s hand slaps the ball.

We’re in motion.

I run around Jessabelle, who skips the pick she’s supposed to set on my defender and instead, she gives her a hard enough shove that my defender is now on the floor. I run past as fast I can without looking back.

Memory throws the ball at my chest before I’m able to set up at the three. I have two dribbles to get close enough to the three-point line to take a comfortable shot. If she wasn’t so anxious, she could have waited a split second more, but no; Memory doesn’t control her emotions, they control her. Thankfully, I’m way faster than anyone else on the court so as I approach the three-point line, I take two steps forward, setting up my feet, and line up the ball in my hands and shoot.

Brick.

It bounces off the back side of the rim. The buzzer sounds once more at the seventh second and the game’s over.

Just like that, I fail at the one thing I came here to do. I see my dad’s head drop in my mind and my mom slowly claps her hands with a tight smile like they always did after a loss. I look up over to where Aunt Naan is sitting and they’re all staring at me with faces I can’t read. I wonder if they’re thinking I’m some burnt out basketball player. Maybe Aunt Naan was right when she said I should take this year off, but there’s no way I’m doing that. I need to continue my mom’s legacy. I promised her she’d see me win a championship, and now that she is gone, that promise is more important than ever. She can’t be forgotten.

I line up behind my teammates in front of our bench to high five our opponents for good sportsmanship. I can’t meet anyone in the eyes though. I can’t believe I missed that shot. If my parents weren’t dead and everybody didn’t know about it, I would be getting chewed up by my teammates and some of the players at Legnix. I almost prefer everyone chewing me out about how I missed a wide-open shot so I wouldn’t be the one beating myself up for it. Instead, every Legnix player passing by shakes my hand and pats me on the back. Even their coach whispers, stay strong, kiddo, as if that’ll make any difference in my life.

As we head back into the locker room, I slip my jersey over my head and toss it into my bag. I just want to walk off and out of the gym right now and ditch whatever Coach Hugo is planning on lecturing us about. I’m not in the mood to hear what he’s about to say. Probably something like it’s okay, which it’s not, and we’ll win the next one, which I’m not so sure about anymore. Thankfully this championship series is a double elimination, so we still have about one more chance at this.

That was a good shot, Memory says as she takes a seat next to me. She scoots herself as close as she can beside me and I let her.

That was a good pass, I lie, sort of. It wasn’t a bad pass, just not an ideal one, but I know now isn’t the time to coach her. Knowing Memory, she’ll take it to heart and somehow spring this loss onto her and I couldn’t do that. She’s the only person I’d call a friend on this team.

Coach Hugo’s assistant, Coach Marie, sits on the other side of me. She doesn’t say anything right now, but if this happened months ago, she would have been chewing me out about missing a wide-open shot. That’s what I like about Coach Marie. She’s a tough-love sort of coach, whereas Coach Hugo is the exact opposite. I don’t know how they can have any partnership. She reminded me of my older coaches: sort of mean but in the good kind of way.

Coach Hugo sits in the center of a semi-circle we created. I look around and everyone is staring at the floor or off into the pale lockers.

Well, that wasn’t an ideal way to end the first game of the playoffs but… he takes a long pause while chewing his bottom lip. He looks thoughtful but the sad kind of thoughtful. We hardly see any emotion on Coach Hugo’s face these days. I guess you can say that about everyone though. We have one more try to get to the top, Duelers. Let’s just take this loss, stick it into our back pockets, and move on.

He went on bringing up our weaknesses of the game without saying a word about that last shot, even though that’s all I can think about. I go through it in my head over and over: hands out, left foot first, catch, second foot, jump, shoot, follow through.

A part of me wants to blame my uneven footing at the shot, or the fact I didn’t follow through enough. It was too rushed. Maybe it was Memory’s pass, but no, I should be able to catch a bowling ball and still make a wide-open shot. That’s what I train for.

We do one last chant in the locker room before we’re off. As I put my fist into the middle of the circle, I think about how proud my mother must have felt to be a part of this team once. I feel guilty for not feeling anything but defeat. I’m the only one on this team that isn’t going to be tackled by their families when they walk out that door. The only one without a mom to hold onto my shoulders and walk out with. The only one who doesn’t have to hear their dad’s lie about how amazing they did.

I’m the daughter of two dead parents, but that’s not all I am. I’m a basketball player and a future league champion. This isn’t over yet, and I’m going to do what it takes to carry on my mother’s legacy, land a scholarship, and get the hell out of here.

CHAPTER 2

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The next several days are going to be absolute hell. The only thing I hate more than losing is bye-week. I know the last thing I need right now is a week off from basketball games. I mean, sure, practice takes the edge off, but games are a complete escape. At least I won’t have to face my teammates’ parents giving me their condolences.

Despite losing our first game of the league playoffs, I know basketball is the only way out of Etern Valley. Nobody ever made it out of this place without sports scholarships. And somehow, most people are okay with staying in this hellhole, but not me.

I only have another year to win a championship and land a scholarship, and I don’t mean one of those half-ass junior college ones that recruit to fill bench seats. I need to be committed to a school by the end of my sophomore year like all the seriously talented athletes are. I’ve been dreaming of going to Mysteinberg University, the top women’s basketball team nationwide. They win championships like the sun rises and falls each day, effortlessly.

Every Saturday morning, I’m abruptly awakened by gardeners roaming all around our house at 7:00 a.m. sharp. After trying to go back to sleep for thirty minutes, I push the blankets off me and land my feet onto the cold, wooden floors. I’ve started this new ritual before getting out of my bed that Coach Hugo probably has some fancy name for that ends in -tion. I take three deep breaths while counting in my head. Three. Two. One. Stand up. Counting down to the hard parts of the day seems to help, and I use countdowns because the end is always inevitable.

As I stand up, I’m quickly reminded of last night’s game by the burning sensations running down my arms from the now partially open scratches from Legnix. I look at my legs that are covered from the knee down with bruises. I make sure to throw on a long sleeve and gym pants to cover the wounds before packing my bag for the day.

I walk down the stairs, pretending like everyone is still somehow sleeping, but I know they’re not. Aunt Naan has been quite the insomniac since moving in together. I’m not sure if she’s always been that way,