I’ve never noticed how even when Ashley has no idea what’s going on, she’s still totally enthralled in something.  She’s lives off of the adrenaline from the people surrounding her. That’s what she’s doing now, she’s on her feet cheering along with the rest of the crowd. She’s sitting with Shannon and the rest of my friends, my mother and father a few rows behind them eagerly watching as well. My eyes travel back to Ashley and when her eyes catch mine, I feel the wind get knocked out of me momentarily, just for a millisecond. She stops cheering and smiles at me, everything is happening in slow motion, my tunnel vision goes into full force and I can’t manage to pull my eyes off of her. She’s so downright gorgeous that it is painful, she can even somehow make me forget what I was doing.

What was I doing?

“Carlin! Shoot the ball!”

Oh Right. Thanks Coach

I take a juke to the right to fake out my defender, fell for it. That’s what they get for putting a sophomore on me. Shoulda went with the double team. Not that it would have stopped me.

I step back to my original place and let the basketball fly, getting knocked on my ass from the defender trying to block my shot. It doesn’t even matter because the ball goes in without making contact with the rim and before I can get back up I’m being toppled over by my teammates.

Did I mention the buzzer went of a second later?

And that we were down a basket?

And I hit the three?

Well now you know.

After about 30 seconds of my sweaty teammates on top of me I was finally allowed to stand up.

The other team didn’t even stick around to shake our hands. Classy.

“Carlin, nice shot. You make it that close again and I’ll bench ya” my coach says as he puts his arm around me when I walk over to our stuff

I’m still slightly out of breath from the game and the adrenaline pumping through my veins is something I can’t ignore. These are the best moments, sure the feeling will be gone in a hours and the memory may be forgotten in a few years. What it feels like to pull through when everyone is counting on you. What is high school basketball anyway? What significance is this one game going to have on the rest of my life? Will I sit back in five years and recount this very moment as the greatest moment of my life? Of course not, I most likely won’t even be friends with anyone on this team still. It’s not like I haven’t made a buzzer shot before, I’d already forgotten what that specific time felt like.  I’d never taken advantage of any of my adrenaline rush’s in the past, so what makes this one so different? What is making me want to not waste how good I’m feeling?