Enemies to lovers•Paige Bueckers

03

Narrative

Maddy

At the tip off, River pass the ball to me, I go slowly to the three point line, I drive to the basket and pass the ball behind my back to Mimi and she scores the first 2 points of the game. We were winning by 8-0 and they coach ask timeout.

—Okay, we are starting strong, Maddy you are doing a great job guarding Paige— our coach starts drawing in is board —So if we do this we will find Maddison wide open for the three, let's go girls!

We come back to the court, Paige goes with the ball to mid range and shots, she scores, somebody pass me the ball and I start doing coach play. River takes a charge in Paige and I get wide open in the corner and scored a easy 3.

The first half as a bit easy, we are winning by 35-23, and I already scored 17 points and 4 assists.
I don't start in the 3 period because I played almost all first half.

They start strong at the second half and after five minutes we were losing by 7.
Coach Moore puts me at the end of the period but I can't reduce the advantage.

The fourth period started and I scored about 14 points in 3 minutes and we were winning again. But they put Paige and she as scoring easily, almost 2 minutes to the end of the game and we are tied, I go driving to the basket and I get a and one, but when I get up my right knee was terrible I couldn't walk without feeling pain but I need to win this game so I pretended that nothing happened. I scored the free throw and now we are winning by 3 Paige finds Azzi alone and she scores a three pointer and there's only 23 seconds.

I go with the ball and I was facing Paige, our center charged Paige and when there were only 4 seconds left, I throw a triple, I can launch but the girl who was defending me hits me in the knee that was hurting making me fall to the ground clinging to the knee. Something is wrong, very wrong.

—Fuck!— I scream grabbing my knee —My knee! It hurts— my eyes are full of tears. I fell that everything around me stopped, my screams of pain are the only thing I can hear.

Paige is the first person that goes helping me, I was grabbing my knee and I started crying. My coach and our physical therapist go to help me. Paige and Zoe help me get up and take me out of the court.

After around a hour I go back to the locker room with help of our assistant coach. I need to go to a hospital, I was just grabbing my stuff.

At the hospital, the doctor tells me that I have a "Rupture of the ACL" that means that I have to have surgery and that I can't play the rest of season. But I can't go to North Carolina, I have to have the surgery here. In Connecticut. And have physical therapy here to, because in my city there's not someone "qualified" for this.

—So I have to be stuck here all season?!— I say angry, I obviously don't want to have to be in Connecticut, particularly I don't want to be in UConn.

—Sorry but we don't have this type of help around ur campus, and here is the best physical therapist in the country— I roll my eyes. I really don't care if is the best I just don't want to be here —I have to go to the hotel to speak with the team.

—Just a question— the coach stops walking and looks at me —Did we won?

—Obviously, by four— I smile, at least it was worth it.

The next day, all my team show up here, they would go back to NC later this day.

I didn't talk much and they understood why, a thing like this can destroy a person. And is happening to me. After a long time the team had to go. I'm going to be alone, for all season, without my friends, I'm just with some random coach. But this 5 days in the hospital, I'm alone.

I just can't believe that I am injured, in the first game of the season. I felt tears coming down my face.