A/N - It was pointed out to me that the Sprite reference might not be as well known as I'd thought. So, if it doesn't make sense to you, go check out the Sprite dunk commercial, it has Grant Hill in it (1995), that's the visual I have. Hope that helps - Nothing was changed in the update of this chapter, just this note - 3/19/21

Chapter 6

Ships and Dips

That summer was spent much like the last, with the addition of the many quick trips to Disneyland. They had developed their own little plan during the spring, when their schedules weren't so busy. Pop over to Disneyland —they had found a nice secluded nook they could apparate to where no one would notice their arrival or departure— find a different ride each time, and go on it multiple times until it was time to leave for the day. They slowly worked their way around the park, going on all the rides they desired, then doubling back to their favorites.

Cody knew he shouldn't be nervous, but he couldn't help but wonder if Professor Detwiler was going to stop by again. He found playing the guitar to be a great way to release nervous energy, so he found himself doing that a lot more as the calendar progressed through July. He had also been able to establish a good habit of meditating in the mornings —his nighttime efforts were still spotty— which he felt was helping as well. He also enjoyed being able to converse with his new pet snake, Key, who set up home in the courtyard of the apartment complex. There were plenty of cracks and small holes for her to hide and hunt mice at the same time. The stress built the week after his birthday, but when July turned to August and the Professor never showed up, a wave of relief finally settled over him.

August turned to September and with that came the start of another school year. Cody, Jamal and Victor didn't exactly look forward to school, but they looked forward to being the oldest group of the middle school, the big boy on campus, so to say. They were likely to be captains of the middle school wrestling team, and were especially looking forward to a chance to atone for missing the District Tournament last year. This really was their primary focus for the year, and though it wasn't always at the forefront of their minds, it came up rather frequently in their conversations.

'How is school going so far this year, Cody?' Jennifer asked her son over dinner one night.

'Not bad, Mom.' A rather innocuous start to a conversation. Cody went to drink from his water, Jennifer timed her next question to be right in the middle of a swallow.

'So, who is Stephanie?' She drew out the first word, but shot out the actual question quickly.

Cody choked on his water, shot some out from his nose, and began hacking up a lung.

'Are you going to be ok?' The question wasn't out of sincere concern, she was relishing this moment. Drawing attention to the coughing fit was just adding salt to the wound.

'Yeah, just down the wrong tube.' He breathed, finally regaining his breath.

'So, you still haven't answered my question.' She taunted.

'Why would you even ask me about some random girl? How'd you even come up with that name?' He was practicing his evasion techniques. Maybe she just made a lucky guess, and he wasn't going to give any information on this topic to his mother for free. She would be insatiable for more details.

His worst fears were realized —maybe not worst fears, but for a teenage boy this was pretty high up on the list— when she pulled out a handful of carefully folded lined notebook papers. These meticulously creased notes each had Cody's name written on the outside in some different writing style: block, cursive, bubble, overlapping letters; all with different patterns, shadings and colors. Cody shrunk in his chair, sliding his back down so his eyes were level with the table top. He would've preferred to be able to disappear at the moment.

'You should probably start cleaning out your pockets before throwing your clothes in the hamper.' She said.

'There's no privacy around here.' He mumbled, barely audible.

'You are more than welcome to do your own laundry. But as long as I keep doing it I will clean out pockets. I'd rather find money, but these are almost better than. She seems like a nice girl.' She continued in a sweet tone, only adding insult to injury.

'Ugh, do we really have to talk about this?' He was still grumbling.

'No, we don't have to, but I won't rest until I get some answers. I'm guessing you'd rather I get them from you than from your friends. So, you can get it over with and tell me, or we can drag out the pain and suffering.'

'Fine, she's just in a couple classes with me.'

'Just in some classes? She appears to discuss more than just class in these.' She said disbelievingly, pressing a finger on the stack of notes.

'Yeah, well, we usually dance a couple times at the school dances. And she started coming with her friend Sierra to the wrestling meets towards the end of last year. The notes are just a way to pass time in class. It's more about trying to not get caught passing them, then anything that we write.'

'Oh, I'm sure that's what it's about. But that's ok. Like I said, she seems nice. Is she cute?' Oh, this was too fun, she just couldn't resist. Why did she get so much satisfaction watching him squirm? Maybe it was because it was so hard to make it happen anymore. She had to marinate in this moment.

'Mom!'

'It's ok, I'm sure Victor and Jamal will tell me.' It really wasn't even fair, she held all the cards right now, literally and figuratively.

'Yes, of course she's cute. Is that all?' Maybe she would relent.

'No! Of course that's not all. . . But it will do for now. Just don't think I'm going to forget about this.' Just a little twist of the knife.

'Oh, I know I'd never be lucky enough for you to forget this. Forget to pick me up from a wrestling tournament in the Valley, sure. But forget about a girl that you can tease me about, you might as well be an elephant. Great, can I have those back?' He asked.

'Not after that comment you can't, an elephant, really?'

'You know I was talking about their brains and not their size. You are beautiful, mom.'

'That's better, now you can have them back, but you really should take better care of them, don't want those things falling into the wrong hands.' She added with a wink. Cody just rolled his eyes. He knew this was only the beginning, and he was filled with dread thinking about other forthcoming conversations.

'I'm afraid it's too late to avoid that tragedy from happening.' He said, defeated.

'Oh, don't be so dramatic, Cody. I still love you.'

'Thanks. Love you too, mom.'

The boys were hanging out one evening doing nothing in particular. Cody strumming on his guitar, while the TV was turned to a baseball game they were only half paying attention to.

'Cody, how come that hair that comes across your forehead never moves? I've noticed during wrestling, no matter what happens, it always stays there.' Jamal inquired.

'Because I've permanently stuck it there.'

'Why'd you do that? Don't you want to mix it up every once in a while?' Victor asked.

'I guess I wouldn't mind, but I don't want to. Do you guys remember my scar from when we were young?'

'Yeah, I think I remember.'

'Looked like a lightning bolt or something.'

'Right, well it really hasn't changed since then. You would expect it to fade and become less noticeable, but it hasn't. So, back in those elementary school days, when kids started making fun of me for it, I kept my hair down to block it. But still my hair would move and it would show through sometimes. As I would comb my hair I would wish for that patch of hair to stay there. Then it started happening, I would notice I would have to wish it unstuck to be able to wash my hair in the shower and stuff. That's how it is now, it doesn't move unless I consciously think about moving it.'

'It's the Force again.' Jamal added with certainty.

'Yup, never would've made sense before. But that makes perfect sense now, you really want it to stay, so it stays.' Victor chimed in.

'Yeah, I put it together sometime after I learned about magic, but I hadn't given much thought outside of the bathroom.'

'Show us the scar again, I remember it, but not really that well.' Victor said curiously.

Cody put his hand over hair that was above his right eye, then pulled it back.

'Whoa. Yeah, that is bright. I mean, it looks like it could've happened this week. Not something that should've been healing your whole life.' Jamal observed.

'You have no idea how you got it?' Victor asked.

'Nope, my mom says I was born with it. The doctors were stumped too.' That was the story that he was told when he was young. After learning about magic and his adoption, he and his mom had discussed different possibilities of how the scar was formed, but they were all just theories. They decided to stick with the story they had been using as long as he could remember.

'Well, it's no normal scar, that's for sure.' Victor said.

'Maybe that's how you got the Force in the first place. Did the other wizard have a scar?' Jamal added.

'I don't know. I didn't ask, and I don't think he saw or noticed my scar either. You think that might be something? Everyone who gets magic, gets a scar to go with it?' Cody wondered.

'How else could you explain it getting into your body? We obviously don't have much to go on, but nothing is really out of the realm of possibility.' Jamal posited.

'No, I guess not. Oh well, guess all it means is I'm gonna have the same hairstyle forever.' Cody said, resigned to his fate.

'Don't get too down on yourself, at least Stephanie seems to like it.' Victor said grinning wildly.

'Oh, shut up!' Cody retorted. Jamal and Victor just laughed.

A few weeks later, after having dinner with his mom Cody was levitating some plates and he knocked over a glass that rolled off the table and shattered across the floor. After setting the plates down on the counter he began to summon all the shards of glass. He had a pile of glass ready to be disposed of when a light bulb went off in his head. Why couldn't he puzzle all these pieces together and make this glass whole again? This isn't some super complex item, it's all the same material and its shape is very basic.

He closed his eyes and envisioned the glass in its unbroken state. His meditation practices had made tapping into the Force much easier, and he quickly had the image in his head and felt the flow of the Force through his arm to his outstretched hand. He let it flow for a few moments, picturing the glass fusing back together. He opened his eyes to see the perfect glass cup sitting on the kitchen floor as if it had never fallen. He was broken from his meditative state by his mother's call.

'What did you break?'

'Nothing.' He answered.

'Ha, good luck trying to pull that one on me, our doors aren't soundproof, you know.'

'Well, come take a look.' He said. She entered the kitchen and obviously didn't see anything broken as she scanned the floor. Her bewilderment was clearly evident on her face.

'I know I heard the sound of glass shattering. What'd you do?' She lowered her eyebrows at him as he shot back a mischievous smile. He walked over to the counter and tossed the repaired glass to her. Then he picked up a plate and tossed that to her. Now both her hands were full, and before she had time to clear them, he quickly tossed another plate and a glass, one to each side of her. She had to choose which one to try and catch, and even that was going to be difficult. She was able to pinch the sailing plate between her arms, but the glass cup was left falling until it reached its destination, the floor, and it was sent shattering in all directions. She scowled at Cody, as his shoulders were bouncing in humor.

'Ok, funny boy. You want to let me in on your little joke?' No levity graced her words.

'Hold your horses, it's gonna be fine.' And he closed his eyes, opened up his palm and seconds later the glass was reformed into perfect condition, grasped in his hand. A huge smile grew on his face before he had even opened his eyes. Jennifer's jaw dropped, along with the dishes she had been holding— Crash.

'Good thing you can fix all that. Now, hurry and pick it all up so I can actually move. I can't take a step without my feet getting embedded with shrapnel.' She ordered her son. Without closing his eyes this time, he was quickly able to assemble the two plates and one glass that his mom had dropped.

'Thanks. Next time you don't have to be so dramatic in showing me your new Jedi tricks.' She said, irritated.

'Where's the fun in that?'

'The fun is I don't have to worry about broken dishes ever again.'

'Borrrrring.' He intoned.

This is what he had been working towards. This was the moment he had dreamed about ever since he witnessed his first District Tournament Finals. The arena was pitch black, save for the single spotlight that appeared to be hovering like a UFO, about twenty feet above the mat, creating a cone of light that only illuminated the wrestling circle. There were no distractions for the crowd, the only things that existed were the circle and the two combatants thereon. Oh, and the referee, but fortunately for the crowd this was one of those referees that didn't make his presence known, he was easy to ignore.

The introductions of all the finalists were complete, Cody's was the fifth match of the night, Jamal's was the fourth and Victor's the sixth. He didn't like holding still as his match approached, so there was a lot of pacing, interspersed with some jump-roping. He would get into his wrestling stance and dance around, practice taking shots and visualizing the takedown. They all basically warmed up in similar manners, it was the mental preparation where the three friends differed significantly.

Jamal liked to zone out and sing to himself, though it wasn't audible enough for anyone to hear, and he would never reveal what song, or songs, he was singing. And he wouldn't articulate the words well enough for even the best lip reader to identify the words. The darkness of the gym this evening suited him as he paced and jumped around with his head to the floor waiting his turn to be called.

Victor liked to smack himself silly. He would start at the bottom of his legs and just start slapping, progressively getting stronger and louder as he would work his way up his body. If he didn't make pink hand prints on his skin as he went along he didn't feel that he was slapping hard enough. He would typically finish off by smacking his head and face; that he didn't concuss himself was a miracle. He claimed it was all in order to psych out his opponent, but Cody and Jamal were convinced he was addicted to the attention the spectacle drew from the fans. Cody regularly had people tell him that they missed part of his match because they got distracted watching Victor "warm up." There was another set of people that would ask, "is Victor ok?" To which they would always answer, "no." Accompanied by a wicked smile.

Cody had his own way of firing himself up. As Jamal's match began —he was always one weight class above Jamal, meaning he would always wrestle directly after him— he would take off his hoodie and t-shirt and pull up the straps of his singlet. He would then strap on his headgear and put back on his t-shirt and hoodie, and throw the hood over his head. He liked to glance at his mom, sometimes she would catch his eye and she would scowl at him and punch her fist into the open palm of her other hand. It usually made him chuckle, the image of his mom trying to look mean, and the idea of her encouraging violence, to a degree. For some reason he liked being broken from the focus, at least for a moment, until he completely flipped that light hearted feeling on its head. He would then eye his opponent, usually on the other side of the gym, and he would envision that person a predator of the worst kind, and his family the prey. He had at some point developed a habit of pretending he had a younger sister, and that this predator was going to harm her, or worse, and he was her only protection. Those thoughts would bring his blood to a boil and adrenaline would begin to coarse through his veins. At that moment he was like a smoldering volcano ready to erupt.

That was the state he was in as he glanced out to the mat, where Jamal was putting the finishing touches on his opponent, he had him locked in a bow and arrow cradle, and it was only a matter of seconds before both of his opponent's shoulders were flat on the mat. This had been nearly a foregone conclusion for Jamal —he had beaten his opponent at least twice during the regular season, none of the matches particularly close— and he had grander aspirations for this season. While Cody had lost his only match against his fellow finalist, his goals for the season were a tad bit less lofty for the season. This was his goal, win this tournament, anything else after would be gravy.

He jogged over to his coach, gave Jamal a high five on his way by, stripped off his hoodie, t-shirt, sweatpants and shorts; he liked layers to keep his muscles loose. He pointed to the scoring table to check in as he walked to the center of the circle, wrapped the green velcro band around his ankle and took his stance with his right foot over the green dash on his side of the inner circle. His opponent approached, took his place with his foot on the red dash, they shook hands and as soon as they broke the referee called out, "wrestle."

They immediately tied up, one hand wrapped to the back of the other's head, pushing and pulling each other, trying to get the other off balance. Cody quickly changed direction, lowered his level and took a hard shot at the left leg of his opponent. He had timed it perfectly and before his opponent had time to sprawl, he had lifted the one leg and was quickly scooping the other while driving his opponent to the ground. A chorus of "Two" rained down from the crowd before the referee was even able to make his call.

'Takedown. Two points.' yelled the official, as he held aloft two fingers from the hand that had a green wristband to match Cody's green anklet.

The control over the match didn't last long as his opponent quickly escaped and cut the lead to 2-1. They grappled back-and-forth, one took a shot and the other countered, neither could score another takedown until 30 seconds left in the first period. His opponent trapped Cody's right arm and executed a flawless fireman's carry, landing Cody on his back. He was in no danger of getting pinned, but he also couldn't get to his stomach, resulting in three more points being scored by his opponent, ending the period with Cody down, 6-2.

At the beginning of the next period his opponent got the choice and elected the bottom position. Again, he quickly escaped and received a point increasing his lead to 7-2. On their feet it was the same battling back-and-forth, though there were many close calls neither was able to get the upper hand. Time was ticking away and in desperation Cody rushed a head throw. As he had not set up the move properly, his arm passed over his opponent's head, leading to an easy take down, two more points. The period ended with Cody now losing, 9-2.

From the corner he could hear the distinct voice of his coach yelling at him, "don't get desperate Cody, wrestle your match!" During matches his coach was fairly quiet, choosing to pick his spots, as opposed to the constant barrage of instructions other coaches typically shouted. It had the desired effect, any instruction given during a match was treated as gold.

Cody chose the bottom position to begin the third period, and got away quickly. Now, losing by six points he knew he had to make up for some lost time, and quickly. He set up a shot, but his opponent was already in defensive mode and the attack was easily thwarted by his opponent, and they ended up back on their feet.

Barely over a minute remained, Cody knew he had to do something big, he tried to set up another throw that would end up with his opponent on his back. Again he telegraphed his move and ended up underneath, giving his opponent two more points, and now an almost insurmountable eight point lead. For a brief moment he laid his forehead on the mat as he felt the match slipping away; and then at that moment he heard again the booming voice from his coach,

"Cody! Move!" There wasn't a soul in the arena that did not hear those words.

And move Cody did, he was looking for a reversal in the current situation, since he hadn't had much success from his feet. He stood up with no intention of actually getting away, he just wanted to begin the next chain of moves on his terms. As he was brought back down to the mat he quickly executed a sitout that was rapidly countered, just as he had anticipated. He quickly followed with another sitout, and this time his opponent was just slightly delayed in his reaction which gave Cody the window he was looking for. Cody's left hand grabbed his opponent's right hand that was wrapped around Cody's waist, and Cody began to roll, tucking his right shoulder underneath himself. This was a move that he had been drilling regularly over the last few weeks, knowing it could potentially be a mechanism of beating an otherwise superior opponent. It was a move typically reserved for the most desperate of situations, that moment was now.

The momentum of the roll combined with Cody tugging on the arm around his waist had his opponent flailing over Cody's back and landing onto his own hip. Instead of continuing to roll with his opponent Cody committed the ultimate wrestling sin, he reached back. His right arm blindly flailed, while his left hand held tight, eventually his right arm found what it was looking for and scooped up his opponent's head. Sections of the crowd erupted in yells of "stick him!" While shouts of "just hold on" came from the opponent's fans.

This maneuver was only going to garner Cody five points, and that would still leave him three short of victory. There was not enough time to even consider abandoning this hold to try and accrue more points. There was only one objective left, and that was to go for the pin. He was now in a sitting position, his right arm around the head and both hands grasped onto his opponent's triceps. He was trying to keep his body perpendicular while his opponent was chasing him in circles trying to wrap a leg over the top to keep their bodies parallel.

Time was ticking by, twenty seconds were left in the match, and the way things were looking, it was going to end this way, spinning in circles.

'Put him to sleep!' It was Jamal's voice, and he remembered the finishing move they had practice weeks ago that literally could put you to sleep. It meant he'd have to loosen his grip a little bit and risk his opponent getting away, but at this point there was nothing else to lose.

Still in a sitting position, he let his right arm loosen around the head and slid his grip up closer to the shoulder. Then he positioned his left hand on his opponent's triceps just above the elbow. In one swift motion he pushed that arm across his opponent's own chin, flipped his hips by swinging his right leg under his left and turned his chest onto that arm that was now smashing his opponent's face, turning it sideways. To say this was an uncomfortable position for his opponent would be an understatement of all understatements. Cody was essentially forming a tripod, his two feet dug into the mat on his toes, his posterior pointed to the sky like a stink bug. All of Cody's weight was pressing down on his opponent's arm, which was smashing his face and compressing his neck. If you had everything just right it would cut off the blood supply and the subject would pass out in short order; usually things were over before it got to that point.

Cody couldn't hear anymore, he was deaf to the sounds of the crowd that were raging. The only sound he could hear was the "slap" of the referee's hand hitting the mat. He lifted up his chest —his opponent gasped for breath— and he slid his right arm free. Then from his knees he flung his head back and closed his eyes while clenching and pumping his fists in triumph.

He walked to the middle of the ring, tore off the ankle band and waited to shake the hand of his opponent. The referee raised his hand to both sides of the arena, he jogged over to shake the hand of the opposing coach, and then sprinted across the mat and leapt into the arms of his coach, hitting him in the face with his stomach, knocking him back a couple of steps. His coach held him there in the air with his fists to the ceiling for a few seconds. He looked over to the stands where he knew his mom was located. Through the darkness there was no way he could see her, but she had just broken a hug with Dominique, happy tears in her eyes, and she was looking at him saying,

'You did it!'

Jamal, Cody and Victor each won the District tournament for their respective weight classes. Jamal was the only one who went on to place at the Regional, second place. He then proceeded to take fifth at the state tournament, the first member of the team to place at that tournament in four years. They celebrated after each tournament, as they all reached the goals they had set for themselves.

The trio of friends didn't often spend time at the park they once nearly referred to as a second home, but on this late spring day, that is exactly where they were. They were shooting hoops, while reminiscing of the days they used to spend here.

'Do you guys ever wish we tried playing basketball? We used to be pretty good.' Victor asked.

'No we weren't.' Cody said.

'No, I don't wish we played basketball. The team sucks, and who knows if we all even would've made it.' Jamal added.

'Of course Jamal doesn't. He never would've met Sierra playing basketball.' Cody teased.

'Well, if I never meet her you never meet Stephanie, so you're welcome.' Jamal responded.

'You two talk like you've actually done anything. You barely talk to either of them and you're acting like they are your girlfriends.' Victor laughed.

'It's not like you and Christina are together anymore.' Cody said.

'No, but at least we've gone out.'

'You've broken up more times than you've gone out.' Jamal accused.

'That's not even true, we've only (officially) broken up twice. We've been out way more than that.' Victor said.

'You've only broken up twice? Ha, and I can dunk.' Cody let the sarcasm drip.

'Hey, you've never actually tried! Jedi can leap better than regular humans. We've seen them be pretty acrobatic.' Jamal said enthusiastically.

'He's right, dude. You've never tried, have you?' Victor asked.

'No, I haven't.'

'Well, I'll bet you can. But you better think you can before you try. You don't want to Sprite yourself.' Victor chuckled.

'Do it, man! I know you can.' Jamal encouraged, and he passed the ball over to Cody.

Cody took some time to collect his thoughts, and to visualize what he was wanting to do. He spent some time accessing the Force and focussing on sending it to his legs. He slowly began his approach to the hoop, took a single dribble as he neared the free throw line, gathered the ball and leapt. As he ascended he brought the ball over his head with both hands, preparing to throw down the hammer dunk. No sooner, he was eye level with the rim, a smile grew, he was actually going to pull this off on his first attempt. . . he passed the rim, now he was looking down at it, eyes growing wide with surprise. He looked up just in time to be eye level with the top of the backboard, and that quickly went below him also.

Soon he had completely cleared the entire apparatus. He ridded himself of the basketball as he hit the apex and began his descent. His arms whirled at his side as he tried to keep his feet under him. As he fell, thoughts raced through his head, the first thing he focussed on was floating; float like a butterfly, he thought. Then he thought about creating a soft landing —a foam cushion came to mind— so he tried to focus the Force towards the ground in an attempt to lessen the impact.

He felt like he might have slowed down, but he wasn't going to count on that, so when his feet hit the ground he bent his knees to absorb some fraction of the fall, and went immediately into a somersault that carried for multiple rotations. Eventually, his momentum petered out and he sat on the grass —thankfully he had cleared the blacktop— with his legs spread and outstretched. Jamal and Victor ran over to him on the ground.

'Um, Cody, you missed your dunk.' Victor said. Jamal punched his arm. 'Ow! Hey!'

'Shut up, you idiot. You alright, man? Jamal asked after reprimanding Victor.

'Yeah, I think I'm good.' Cody responded shakily.

'Your first tries are always an adventure, but that was next level. I was thinking you were gonna clank it, but man, Mutombo wouldn't even be able to swat you.' Victor said, Jamal was shaking his head at his friend.

'Man, do you even care that he just did like a fifteen foot freefall?' Jamal asked incredulously.

'Of course I care, but he's obviously fine. A little shook up, and that's reasonable, but nothing's broken. I just want to see my white boy dunk. I mean, after what he just pulled, dunking is going to be easy. My advice, scale back on the Jedi jumping strength.' Victor said with mirth.

'Gee, thanks, Vic.' Cody deadpanned. 'Alright, give me the ball.'

The next attempt went just as he had planned in his head for the first, a thunderous rim rocking two handed slam. They spent the rest of the afternoon throwing Cody alley-oops, and watching him throw down all different varieties of dunks. He even outdid Jordan by taking off from the three point line, had the tongue out and everything.

'Now do you wish you played basketball?' Victor asked.

'Who says I won't. I could tryout tomorrow and the coach couldn't keep me off the team.' Cody replied confidently.

'Two problems with that: they aren't playing basketball right now, so no tryouts tomorrow.' Jamal said.

'And what's the second problem?' Cody asked.

'Hello. . . Coach Williams.' Jamal intoned.

'Oh.' Cody gulped.

'You weren't actually thinking about it, were you? I mean, if coach found out, you'd be dead, and they'd never find the body. You know how much he hates basketball.' Victor said.

'I know, I know. And I'm not doing anything, it was just a funny thought.' Cody replied.

'Good, 'cause coach wouldn't be able to get to you before we beat the crap out of you anyways.' Victor joked.

This was the last dance of their middle school career. They didn't do nearly as much standing around as they once did, and as a number of their classmates still did. There wasn't exactly a line of girls waiting to dance with them, but according to Cody there was no shortage of girls that were wanting to accompany them on the dance floor. It was possible that the boys enjoyed these dances since they served as a bit of an ego boost, and what eighth grader couldn't use a bit more confidence.

Cody found himself dancing with Stephanie, she was a good dancer, and they had developed their own little style and he really enjoyed his time with her. It wasn't just the dancing either, there was rarely a moment of silence when they were dancing, the conversation flowed easily even if they didn't discuss super important topics. Oddly, once they were done dancing, those conversations didn't continue, at least not nearly as fluidly as they did while dancing; perhaps the movement of their bodies loosened their lips and minds. They seemed to do most of their communication via the written format when they weren't dancing.

'I don't think I ever thanked you for coming to all the wrestling matches.' Cody said.

'You didn't have to, I wanted to go.' Stephanie replied.

'You actually like watching? I know it's not for everybody.'

'It took a little getting used to at first. But once Sierra explained all the rules to me, it made it easier to follow, and a lot more fun. You should see Sierra when her brother is wrestling, she is like a mad woman, I wish I was exaggerating.'

'I'll have to pay attention to that next year, but she's not the only one. We have a saying that goes, "the only thing scarier than a wrestler cutting weight is his mom when he's wrestling." '

'Or a sister. I swear one of these times she's going to have an aneurysm.'

'I don't think I know what that is.'

'Oh, it's when a blood vessel starts bulging out where it's not supposed to. Sierra has this vein across her forehead that looks like it's going to explode when she starts screaming and forgetting to breathe— Oh you didn't actually want an aneurysm explanation.'

'It's ok,' he laughed. 'I learn something new every time I talk to you. So, you are like Sierra's emotional support friend.'

'Only when her brother is wrestling, the rest of the time I can just enjoy it. It's so exciting, I love how it's never really over. Your last match was a perfect example, by the third period most people thought he was going to win, but no one could stop watching 'cause you never know when something amazing is going to happen. When you flipped him over our whole section jumped to our feet yelling and screaming, it was such a rush and I was just watching. I can't imagine what you were feeling.'

'Honestly, nothing, it was such a blur. Everything was moving so fast, I barely had time to think about what I should do next, let alone to think about how I felt.'

'Well, you were amazing. I don't know if I told you, but I was super nervous before your match.'

'You were nervous?'

'Yeah, I think it was that spotlight. It just enhanced the atmosphere. Weren't you nervous?'

'Right before, no. But on the drive to the arena, oh my goodness, I think I dry heaved my breakfast, lunch and dinner from the last three days.'

'Oh, that is so disgusting.' She said, repulsed.

'I said dry heave, nothing actually came out.'

'Still, I didn't need that visual.'

'Sorry, but you asked if I was nervous.' He responded, still slightly chuckling at her facial expressions.

'A decision I am fully regretting at the moment. So, after you figuratively tossed your cookies, you weren't nervous anymore?'

'It was more like, once I got changed into my wrestling clothes. Walking in the building was kinda nerve wracking too, but once we got dressed and started warming up it was mainly just anticipation.'

'Well, I'm really glad you won.'

'Thanks, me too. So, what kind of thing makes you nervous?'

'That's easy, submitting my essays for the honors classes I want to take next year. I was a wreck, probably rewrote those things hundreds of times.'

'Really? You're already in some of those. I'd think you are almost a shoo-in.'

'It helps, but it's no guarantee. We are getting combined with some other schools next year, remember. There's sure to be more competition.'

'As smart as you are they'd be stupid not to pick you.'

'Thanks, I hope so.'

'So, any big summer plans?'

Their conversation continued with plans and interests and things they were looking forward to. They didn't even realize the last song had ended and they were dancing to a new one. That had become a regular occurrence during their interactions, dancing through multiple songs without either being the wiser.

Cody had no complaints ending the year on this note.