21-year-old basketball captain Dylan
They met at an off-campus basketball court at 8pm like they had agreed earlier during practice.
The lights were dim. Some of the lightbulbs on the lampposts outside the court were flickering as the town council had not looked into replacing them. The veil of night, along with the intermittent flashes of darkness, added a rugged feeling to the court.
19-year-old Timothy had only joined the basketball team his first semester in college but was eager to join the varsity team. He played forward in his high school basketball team and was always regarded as a straight shooter, but college basketball was a different monster altogether. Although he was athletic and had put in the hours training for a better performance on the court, he always felt like he was pulling up short against the other players in his team who just seemed to be more gifted.
His dip in performance affected his self-esteem. Timothy felt good back when he was playing basketball in high school because he was seen as a good player and added value to the team. In his new environment, there were times when he would be told just be a benchwarmer. He would only be in the starting line-up sometimes whenever the coach had a good feeling about him, which was not often.
He was used to the attention that he got for being a player on the basketball team. Granted, he wasn’t the best nor the most handsome in his team, but it was high school, which meant that there was no shortage of admirers for anyone in the school basketball team – even the benchwarmers.
Without this attention, Timothy began second-guessing himself and started scrutinising his own physical appearance. He was by no means unattractive, but every minor flaw of his athletic body became impossible for Timothy the Benchwarmer to bear.
