Falling on the Court

Chapter One

[Present Day]
Sixteen Years Old

Levi looked and felt like a mess as he hurriedly combed through his hair with his fingers and shoved his computer, notebook, pencil case, and lunch into his backpack. He wasn't late for school, he just really liked being early.

His school started at 8:15, which forced Levi to wake up a little too early for his liking. He woke up at 6:45, mostly because if he didn't, his mom would beat his ass, but he also liked the extra time that he could spend with his cat, Wolf.

Wolf was everyone's personal alarm clock. At 7 a.m on the dot, he would be yowling so loud that no one could ignore him, and if you did ignore him, he would be scratching your door down.

Another reason why Levi woke up before 7.

Levi glanced at the clock, which read 7:34, and sighed, getting to his feet. Wolf blinked up at him with judging yellow eyes before he slowly went back to his breakfast.

"I have to go, Wolf." He said to his cat, who definitely was not listening. "I'll see you in like ten hours."

He was completely ignored. Levi smiled to himself as he lifted his backpack over his shoulders, made sure he looked somewhat presentable in the mirror, and then exited the house.

It was approaching winter, red, orange, yellow and brown leaves scattered around the street. Levi shivered as a gust of cold wind blew over him, and he picked up his pace, arriving at his school, Woodcreek High in fifteen minutes or so.

There were very few people and cars about, which was expected since there was still twenty minutes until the first bell rang.

Woodcreek was an old but quite wealthy school with around 900 students. It was known for its amazing basketball and volleyball team, the latter being something that Levi was very invested in. He had tried out and was accepted into the volleyball team when he was a freshman - something that rarely happened - and he had managed to claw his way up onto the starting lineup by his sophomore year.

"Hey, Levi!" That was Sidney Banks, a 16-year-old junior - like Levi - who was a benched middle blocker on the volleyball team. The two of them did nearly everything together. Obviously, they had other friends aside from each other, but the two of them shared so many classes with each other that they became very fast friends once they found out they were both interested in volleyball.

'Just like Soren and I,' Levi thought bitterly as he smiled at Sidney.

"Hi, Sid." Levi had to frustratingly tilt his head upwards to look at him. Sidney was one of the tallest players on the team, as many middle blockers are, standing at an impressive height of 6'4 and still growing. Which was infuriating since Levi barely even reached 6 feet tall.

"How's it going?" Sidney asked him as they entered the school.

"You ask me that every day, and my answer will always be the same. I am fine." Levi sighed.

They reached Sidney's locker first. Unlike the rest of his belongings, Sidney's locker was extremely messy, loose papers randomly crumpled and reading material strewn about.

"Do you even study?" Levi pushed Sidney out of the way and picked up Sidney's math textbook, which barely even looked touched.

"I mean, no," Sidney shrugged. "But I get pretty decent grades anyway, so it should be fine."

"Lucky shit," Levi scoffed under his breath.

"I think you're the stupid one," Sidney took the textbook from Levi's hands, slamming his locker shut and locking it. "I mean, who studies when there isn't even a test or exam any time soon?"