Gemotions

He stared at the basketball with an odd feeling, the familiar leather strangely foreign. Liam, normally so confident on the court, found his hands trembling as he dribbled. Coach Miller's words echoed in his ears, “Liam, we need you at point guard. Your scoring will be a plus.”

He swallowed hard, the muscles in his throat suddenly tight. Point guard? That wasn’t his game. He always excelled as a forward. He’d poured years into mastering the position.

His breath hitched as he watched the other players warm up. They moved with a practiced ease, their passes crisp and precise. He felt a pang of loneliness, a sense of being adrift in a sea of unfamiliar faces and movements. The weight of his own inexperience felt heavy.

He bounced the ball again, the sound oddly loud in the sudden quiet of his mind. He was good at what he did. Now he needed to start again.