She loved basketball, loved it from the bottom of her heart, and then some. It was her reason to live, her excuse to pick herself up and carry on every single time she had been beaten, crushed, defeated. Basketball was a sport, and that meant there was winning to be done, and losing to be prevented.
No… She had loved basketball. It had been her reason to live. It was no longer.
There was a thin line between love and hate, and she was dancing on a tightrope, on knife's edge.
Drinking from from the bottle in her hands, she felt the warmth coursing through her system, and she knew she was tipsy, maybe a little drunk? Yet she also knew she couldn't give it up. Not this sport that she loved. But she had been so apathetic for so long, let down her guard for so long, that she doubted herself. Could she find the passion again? How could she, when she had to rely on alcohol to focus on the court?
She sighed before focusing her gaze on the orange ball in her hands. Lifting it up, she spun the ball on her index finger expertly, then tossed it up and let it land on her knuckle, where it continued to spin. She smiled to herself and tilted her arm. The ball, still spinning, rolled down to her forearm, then back to her elbow. She flipped it up and caught it, still spinning, on the index finger of her opposite hand.
There was no denying it now. Even when she was tipsy, she was well aware she couldn't do this on her own, no matter how much she told herself otherwise. She couldn't love basketball again unless she went back to the times when she had just started out, the times of hardship and endless practice.
But if even Alex couldn't beat her anymore, who would be able to? There was no use, perhaps there was no one out there that was good enough?
Vixen, the renowned queen of L.A. streetball, stayed in bed that day and drank till she had run out of whiskey and the sun had set.
