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beat of frenzied, stomping feet pouring off the bleachers, straight into my chest. Take it to the Keyes.
    “… the hometown crowd goes wild for the number twenty-three shooting guard, Chelsea Keyes, a dominating force for the Fair Grove Lady Eagles,” Fred Richards, sportscaster for the local KY3 news team, is saying. “Keyes averaged an astounding twenty-four points per game her junior year, and it looks like she’s on track to keep or better her average this season.”
    Richards’s booming announcer-voice is just as recognizable (to anyone living within a hundred miles of his station) as, say, the color orange. Gabe always snagged a seat behind Richards and his 16/262
    cameraman, allowing Fred’s voice to narrate the footage he shot for The Eagle Eye .
    “… a rebound by Keyes,” Fred continues as I snag the ball, then launch into a lay-up. “Shoots and … scores for Fair Grove, giving the Lady Eagles a solid ten-point lead.”
    On the screen, I jog away from the basket, chasing the ball with the rest of the team toward the far end of the court. Sweat soaks my jersey and the roots of my hair—not from physical exertion but from searing pain. Every time I watch this footage, I relive it all. And I know that at this point in the game, with less than five minutes to go in the third quarter, the me on TV is in such anguish that I’ve resorted to marking time like some fatty on a treadmill ten minutes into her New Year’s resolution.
    The ref blows his whistle, waving his arms as he calls a foul on my team. Boos ooze from the crowd like thick black tar. When Beth Hardy, number sixteen, point guard for the Aurora Lady Houns, steps up to take her free throw, the me on TV closes my eyes. No one knows it, but I’m visualizing that two Lady Houns are causing the pain radiating from my very core. I’m trying to picture them standing on either side of me, taking turns tugging on a dual-handled, old-fashioned lumberjack saw that’s slicing through me. In an attempt to turn my pain into anger at the enemy, at the opposition, I try to imagine they’re cutting me in half. Take it to the Keyes. My heart starts to go haywire as Hardy misses and I turn and charge down the court. Theresa, our point guard, has snagged the rebound and dribbles down the court behind me, her long yellow French braid bouncing against her shoulder blades as fiercely as the ball against the floor.
    Take it to the Keyes.
    Like they always do at this point in the game, my eyes dart away from myself, away from the ball, and land on two boys arguing—front 17/262
    row, far corner of the bleachers, just feet from the hoop. Pushing. Shoving. Not angrily, not like they’re really having a horrible disagreement, more like two brothers toying with each other. Which is exactly what they are—the Highful twins, Levi and Tucker, elbowing each other, eyes hidden by their filthy ball caps. Even though Brandon’s camera angle only shows their profiles, their stupid grins still leap out like name tags. Dopes, both of them. Morons in Fair Grove FFA T-shirts. Elbow, elbow, nudge, push.
    Levi’s holding an enormous soda. And every time Tucker nudges him, Levi spills a little more on the knee of his jeans. Stop , Levi mouths, and Tucker throws his head back. His shoulders ripple with laughter. Levi punches him in the arm.
    But the Chelsea playing basketball doesn’t notice their horseplay. Now that her feet have landed inside the key, right beneath the basket, she pins her eyes on the ball as Theresa passes it. She opens her hands; when the ball hits her palms, I can feel it—the me sitting on the edge of my bed, I mean. Months after the game, I can still feel the skin of the ball, rough and bumpy as a hedge-apple. It smacks my palms so hard, my skin burns.
    Shaking pom-poms, stomping feet on the bleachers. A frenzy explodes, our small town gymnasium transforming into an enormous outdoor arena the moment before some legendary, world-renowned band bursts onto the