A Celebration Christmas

As if bolstered by the support, George gave one quick, decisive yank and jerked the ball free. Holding it to his chest, he hesitated for a second, looking up in the stands. He made eye contact with Cullen, who cheered wildly.

“That’s my boy! Way to go! You got this.”

Even though his team had the lead, it would be so great for his confidence if he could score the final basket. According to Lily, last night’s sleepover with some of the guys on the team had been a breakthrough of sorts. George was making friends and showing so much confidence out on the court.

Then, as if it happened in slow motion, George took off running. The wrong way. He was running the wrong way down the court. The crowd was yelling again. Cullen was trying to get his attention to tell him to turn around and go the other way. Even if he held on to the ball until the clock ran out, his team would win, but George seemed to be so caught up in the frenzy that he shot the ball at the basket and scored the final two points for the other team.

Lily reached out and took ahold of Cullen’s hand and whispered, “Oh, boy. Oh, no.”

The opposing team won the match by one point.

For a split second the entire gymnasium went absolutely silent. George’s teammates stood stock-still on the court, gaping at him in disbelief.

Then the guys on the other team broke out into a frenzy of cheers and applause, exhibiting terrible sportsmanship. They jeered at George and slapped high fives with each other as they taunted George for winning the game for them. Wasn’t someone going to stop them? Someone really needed to sit them down and talk to them about that. In fact, in all fairness, shouldn’t they forfeit the basket because of unsportsmanlike behavior?

But the damage had already been done. That would only bring more attention to George’s error.

Cullen turned to Lily. “Why don’t you go ahead and take the girls home? I’ll go get George and try to do some damage control.”

“Are you sure?” Lily asked him.

“Yes, I’ve got this.” He was driven by an incredibly overwhelming sense of protectiveness. A long time ago, he had been the kid on the team who made the mistake and there was no one there to stand up for him. His mom had been working and his dad was nowhere to be found. Cullen had been left to fend for himself. It was the worst feeling in the world for a little boy. Cullen knew he might not be father material, but this, this was personal.

As Lily ushered the girls from the gymnasium, Cullen made his way down to the court to retrieve George, who was still standing frozen underneath the basket.

“Hey, buddy,” he said. “How about we go get that banana split we talked about?”

Where was the coach? Cullen wanted to tear into him right now for not being there to reinforce that it was just a game and George had done the best he could do. Hell, George had been doing a great job till the end. This was the kind of thing that could scar a kid for life. It could make him turn inward—or push him further inward than he already was.

One of the refs was shuffling some papers and for a split second Cullen considered going over and tearing him a new one for letting the boys on the other team get away with acting the way they did. Then he looked at George, who was standing there staring into space as if he weren’t completely there.

The best thing he could do for the boy was get him the hell out of there. Three minutes later the two of them were buckled into Cullen’s car, pulling out of the community center, leaving the bad memory in the dust. Maybe not immediately, but the faster he got the kid the ice cream, the sooner George would see that the errant basket didn’t matter.

As he pointed the car in the direction of Polar Bear Ice Cream, Cullen pondered what to say. Should he start with how wrong the boys on the other team had been to act the way they did? Or no, maybe a softer approach about this just being a game, not brain surgery—ha-ha, a little medical humor? But no, that would seem to trivialize it.

Damn it, why was this so hard?

They’d been on the road for five minutes when the boy leaned over and buried his head in Cullen’s shoulder and began to sob.

Cullen’s mind went completely blank. He sat there for a good two minutes with both hands gripping the steering wheel as the boy blubbered.