Basketball is and always has been a major part of my life. Every game I play always feels like I’m playing the first game of the season. But there is always the one thing that comforts me. When I hear every sound on the basketball court I feel a sense of calm wash over me. The touch of a basketball makes the *thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump* of my heart go back to a steady normal pace. The squeaking of the shoes was like music to my ears mixed with the beat the basketball made when it hit the floor and then the *swoosh* you hear it make when it goes in the net. But for some reason today wasn’t like the rest. The sounds, the basketball in my hands, didn’t calm me, it sped my heart up. It felt like someone was playing the drums inside my chest. This is probably one of the reasons why I had my accident.
     It was around the end of November. That day I had my brown hair in a high ponytail and the red and black uniform I had on clung to my body because of the sweat. We were about 4 points down. The buzzer was counting down to the end of the game. My heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to explode out of my chest drummed on a table when someone was impatient. Our team was in possession of the ball. We were fighting our way to the basket trying to score. But every time we got close, the other team would block our players and we would have to send it back to the top of the 3 point line to start another play. The other team was running us dry. Every play we tried to make we would lose more and more energy.
     Then one of my teammates, Kennedy, made a bad pass to someone on the other side of the 3 point line and #32, a player on the other team, jumped up caught it and took off. Although the girl was fast our team was faster. One of my other teammates, Alana, passed her in no time and got into position to steal the ball. It was close but she finally hit it with enough power to get it out of the girl’s hands and race after it. Little did she know that the basket she would make wouldn’t count towards our possible win. I turned around to run down the court so I could help if I needed to when all of a sudden a girl stuck out her foot and I tripped.
     Now usually when you trip you just get right back up again. That’s not what happened with me. When I tripped I ended up twisting my ankle to the outside. When I hit the ground the pain was excruciating. It shot straight through my ankle, through my leg, and through my whole body it felt like. I lay on the ground with my mouth open, either stopped mid-gasp or frozen when I was about to scream. I don’t remember exactly. No one really noticed I had stayed on the ground until after the sob escaped from my mouth. I heard the ref blow the whistle and call out,
     “Stop! No shot! No shot!” My team was annoyed at first, but when they saw me lying on the ground they stopped grumbling and stared at me. I wasn’t embarrassed, you see people cry sometimes. Finally my mom ran onto the court along with the coach, who lifted me halfway up and helped me walk to the bench. I sat down while my coach got the ice, still crying, trying to calm myself down.
     A few minutes later after the ice was on, we realized that my ankle was swelling, a lot, which meant I needed to see a doctor and I couldn’t play anymore of that game. I tried to put up a fight saying that it really didn’t hurt that bad, but it did, and I needed to finish the game. I was overruled by my mother and my coach. Not being able to walk because of the pain a brother of one of my teammates picked me up and carried me out of the gym to my car. The next day we went to the doctor and after all the xraying and poking and prodding he asked,
    “What happened?” I then told him what had happened in little detail. But even in little detail the story was enough to make my mom exclaim,
     “Are you serious?” I looked at her with an annoyed look and said,
     “Yes mom. I am completely, 100% serious.” That was the moment that she started to pace around the room most likely plotting fantasy revenge against the referee who didn’t see the girl trip me. Or maybe it was revenge on the girl who tripped me. Or maybe it was both. I never really asked.
     “Well,” said the doctor, “you’re probably going to have to be in a boot and on crutches for the next week and then a few months of physical therapy.”
     “Months?” I questioned.
     ”Yes.” He said. “Months.” I wasn’t too worried about the boot, although it ended up being torture, but the physical therapy I was not happy about. In my head that meant less free time for basketball. But I didn’t complain, well to the doctor at least, and I did my week in that torture chamber they call a boot and did my few months of physical therapy which turned out to be not so bad. I met a lot of cool people and learned some stuff too.
     Now I’m still playing basketball and everything turned out pretty good. But to this day I still believe that, to some degree, me tripping over that girls foot was partially my fault. Maybe it was because I was so focused on trying to win that I wasn’t paying attention and accidently tripped over her foot. Or maybe she tripped me on purpose. I guess I’ll never know.