His Number One : The Sequel to Chemistry

Chapter 33

It's been almost three weeks since the night of the shooting and surprisingly, the emotional toll that it took on Kaylin was much more positive than it was negative. Of course initially after hearing the news about her brother's lower body paralysis, she experienced a heavy sorrow that neither her family, or even Tyler, could cover. This led to Kaylin requesting some alone time from her friends in order to spend some much needed quality time with her family.

As for Anthony, he had found himself back where he started. Mrs. Jones thought it'd be best if he came back to live with them until he became familiar with his new situation. This left him less independent; something that took awhile for him to get used to.

With Kaylin placing her focus solely on her family and school work, the crush that she had on Tyler immediately fell off of her list of priorities, leaving their commencing relationship at a sudden halt on the night that Anthony was shot. That night at the hospital marks the very last moment that they've held a conversation lasting longer than 30 seconds. Tyler instantly began to realize that she wouldn't show up for lunch anymore. He went on to investigate the reason behind it and found that she was rushing out of the building as soon as the lunch bell rang, and rushing back in with two minutes to spare to go home to help her family. She was even late to class some days, but that didn't seem to stop her. On top of that, he's also began to notice that she'd go straight home after basketball practices contrary to in the beginning of the year when they'd wait for each other outside of the gym. But the thing that bothered him the most though, was that whenever he tried to text her, she'd either respond so late to the point where all interest in the topic was lost, or she wouldn't respond at all.

All Tyler could do was hope that this "close-to-home" phase would pass over time and get, if not his potential girlfriend, then at least his best friend back.

Ultimately though, this turned out to be a positive experience for Kaylin because it lead her to realize that she had turned into this prideful monster that obsessed over insignificant things. Tyler was a good example of this, and an even greater example was the "title" that she held concerning her place on the women's basketball team.

She sat on the wooden bench of the locker room, looking over at Aaliyah in a way she's never looked at her before. Instead of this burning sensation that would run through her mind that she forever rejected as "jealousy", she felt a sense of...admiration.

For a long time she's denounced the saying, "no matter how good you are, there's always someone better than you" simply for the fact that she's never met anyone that played basketball better than her. But finally she had, and she didn't take to kindly of it. This was their last practice before the beginning of the play offs, and now was a better time than any to make up for it.

"Hey," she greeted as she approached the young girl. Aaliyah had her braided hair in a ponytail behind her and it swung the opposite way as she looked up from packing her duffle bag to see who had confronted her. She immediately tended back to what she was doing once she realized who it was. Kaylin decided to continue anyway. "I know we got off on a really bad foot earlier this season, and that was mainly my fault. So I just wanted to let you know that I'm sorry. I was petty and childish, and if I'm going to be honest, a little bit jealous."

Aaliyah finally reacted to Kaylin's presence once the latter portion of her speech was spoken. Her reaction was a small grin.

Kaylin grinned back. "I mean, you came in here and you showed the team captain up! I ain't never even done that before!" she continued with a small chuckle. "You have something special, Aaliyah. I have skill, but you...you're gifted."

The girl took a moment away from packing to look up at her captain. Kaylin couldn't even say two words to this girl before, and now she's presenting a whole speech. It was a bit for Aaliyah to take in, and at first, all she could really muster was a simple, "Wow".