"In this case, Miss Ghandour, your appeal has been denied."
The Dean of Athletics didn't look much like a dean. Unless his first name was "Dean," which it easily could be. With his very short cropped hair and ill-fitting suit, he looked like a football player giving a press conference about domestic violence. Too old and flabby to be athletic anymore, but neither comfortable in silk, either... he felt like he didn't belong.
Perhaps that's where the glint of sympathy in his eye came from.
"Misrepresentation on a university form is grounds for having your scholarships revoked." The dean continued. "The athletic scholarship you were awarded is for female athletes. And..."
Silence hung like a fog of cigarette smoke in a speakeasy. The dean looked at the appealing student directly.
"Well..." He said shortly, returning his gaze to his helpful piece of paper. "Because of your... condition, you aren't eligible for it."
Connie sat in her chair, the two chairs around her both empty. Her parents couldn't fly out to support her, not that it would have been a wise use of money anyway, and she hadn't been at the university long enough to make a friend to support her. She was here... alone.
"But this doesn't mean you're not still welcome here at U-Dub." The dean insisted. "Coach Johnson was very impressed with you. I would make a meeting with the Student Finance office and apply for another form of student aid. Trust me, Miss Ghandour, this is a speed bump, not a wall. There are plenty of roads from where you are right now. Please don't be discouraged."
The academic review meeting moved on to the next review, a fraternity who might lose the lease on their house if they have another party where the police are called from off-campus to bring it back under control.
Of course, they had tons of support. They all had one thing in common, and it wasn't their two-digit IQ's.
Connie left the meeting without another word.
She didn't take the dean's advice. She returned directly to her dorm room, piled her clothing into a trash bag, took her laptop and anything else important... and left, sliding her room key under the door of the RA without even knocking to see if she was there. Connie left behind her bedding, towels, posters and her allegedly valuable textbooks. She wouldn't dignify the bookstore by selling them back for a tenth of the value she'd bought them for less than a month ago.
Connie got in her car and drove off-campus for what she knew would be the last time. She wished she'd never heard of this place. She had driven for three days from Pittsburgh to get there so she'd have this car with her on campus, and now she'd have to do it all again... if the car would survive another trip that far.
She drove her car into downtown Seattle, where she'd only driven through once to get to that place she hoped never to think about again. She found a parking space nearby a park and bought a piroshki, recalling a blog post somewhere that described foods one should try when visiting Seattle. At this point, she might never get another chance.
Connie went to a nearby park to review her financial situation and nibble on her piroshki. She ate fried food very seldom, but this was a bad day, so she'd chalk it up to an extra 'cheat day.' Maybe this wasn't such a bad thing. Maybe things would go alright. She took a few notes on the back of the receipt for the piroshki with a pencil.
Then, Connie made the mistake of checking how much renting a studio apartment in the city would be.
And her small savings seemed so much smaller. She could hear the echoing clatter of that single nickle rattling in Lucy Van Pelt's jar. She might be able to swing this kind of rent in Philadelphia, but getting out of that rat nest was why she was so thrilled to get a full ride at the University of Washington, as far west as she could get without leaving the continental US. She'd turned down other athletic scholarships closer to home to give U-Dub a chance, and they pulled the rug out from under her once she'd finally gotten comfortable.
All of this... because she was a futa.
She heard someone cry out something that sounded like "heads up," but she didn't react, still looking at all down payment for a new car these people expected her to pay every month for an unfurnished studio apartment. Maybe she'd be sleeping in her car after all.
The "heads up" still unheeded, Connie was smacked directly across the face by some large rubber ball. It bounced off her cheekbone and into her lap, smashing the rest of her lovely fried treat from her hand and knocking it to the ground. Her phone luckily avoided damage, but she looked at the ruined meal with almost the same frustration.
Connie hadn't seen it coming, but she didn't even want to look at it. She knew exactly what it was from the bumpy texture of the rubber.
A basketball.
The very sport she'd been asked to play for the university, and no longer could because of the arbitrary way sports were divided by gender. No place for her, evidently.
"Sorry!" A man hollered through the fence, running to get to the gate of the basketball courts to retrieve the ball. As the man jogged towards her, Connie contemplated the ball as if it were the source of all her troubles. She took her pencil and stabbed it into the basketball, crushing it flat between her hands, the air releasing with an undignified raspberry.
"Whoa!" Said the man, a tall man with goatee, his head shaved bald. "I said sorry! What's the big deal?"
Connie looked at the man. "I... hate... basketball!" She threw the deflated ball at him.
"You popped my ball because you hate basketball?" The man asked. "If you popped it because I hit you, THAT I can understand."
"You're actually CHOOSING to play it? As an adult?! Why bother? The Bulls aren't going to draft you. I could probably beat you all!"
"You hate basketball, but you could beat us?" The man was now deeply confused.
"I got you beat! Right here!" Connie grabbed her groin and wagged herself through her jeans. "See, this is apparently what's so damn important! And it's not a side-effect from being near a basketball! Trust me!"
The man briefly looked over his shoulder, looking for the support of his teammates. They were just laughing. He turned back to Connie uncertainly, as she continued thrusting herself towards him.
"Come on! It all comes down to this, doesn't it? THIS is all people care about, right? Why bother playing? Just get a ruler out and determine the winner! Whip it out! Let's see if you beat me!"
From Connie's right, and the player's left, someone jumped between them as suddenly as the basketball has struck Connie. An Asian woman had separated them, standing nearly a full head's height below Connie. She was wearing a zip-up gray hoodie and jeans. She faced Connie, both hands out, gesturing to her to stop.
"There you are!" The woman said, spinning in place back to the now very confused basketball player. "Excuse me for her behavior. Her father was killed by the Harlem Globetrotters." She grabbed Connie's hand and pulled her off. "Come on now, let's go watch Space Jam in reverse so the bad guys win."
