Working intently with his fellow five-year-olds, Avery colored in his drawing. It was a badass rendition of Michael Jordan with his championship trophies.
“Avery, can I have the box of crayons? I need the red.” asked his classmate Alex.
“I’m not done with the red. You can have it when I’m done,” Avery answered, not looking up from his work.
“Quit hogging the crayons! Mrs. Jones said we have to share!” Alex complained, reaching over the table to retrieve his desired art supplies. Snatching them away, Avery put the crayons in his lap.
“I shouldn’t have to share when I’m not even done with them.”
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Avery sat happily on the living room floor, re-enacting a bloody and hard-fought battle between his legions of toy cars and his army of toy dinosaurs.
His younger sister walked over. “Can I play?”
Avery looked up in irritation. “No. Girls aren’t supposed to play army-men. Go play with your dolls or something.”
From the adjacent kitchen came his mother’s voice. “Avery, share your toys with your sister!”
“But mom, she doesn’t even know the rules!” Avery responded, begrudgingly allowing his sister to sit down with him. Immediately, she disturbed his carefully-planned battle lines, even going so far as to combine the two armies into one large, nonsensical jumble.
“I hate sharing,” he muttered under his breath.
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“Hey Avery.”
“Hey Julie, what’s up?” Avery answered, trying hard to keep a cool demeanor. If you were to grade Julie on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being extremely hot, Julie would be an 11. The big dance was coming up and he had been sort of angling for a shot to go with her.
“I need a really big favor from you. I know how good of friends you and Demetrius are, and I was wondering if you knew if he would think about going to the dance with me,” asked Julie.
Avery knew for a fact that Demetrius didn’t yet have a date for the dance, and in fact, also had his eyes on Julie. “Oh, I think he’s already asked somebody out. Don’t know her name. Sorry,” he lied, putting on his best ‘sympathetic’ face.
Julie looked crestfallen. “Oh. Thanks anyway.”
Trying to sound nonchalant, Avery said, “Well, I don’t have a date yet, so if you wanted, you could, you know…go with me or something.”
Julie smiled. “I’d like that!”
Avery did a secret fist pump. “Cool.”
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Walking down the sidewalk on a blustery Boston morning, Avery squinted against the quickly-falling snow. The Dunkin Donuts was only three blocks from his house, but he was already chilled to the bone.
Ahead, he could see an elderly man struggle to gain his footing on the icy ground. As Avery caught up to him, he took a fall and hit the concrete hard. Groaning in pain, he looked up hopefully at the passing basketball player.
“Sorry dude, I got business to attend to, no time to assist,” Avery said, walking quicker to remove himself from the situation.
—————————————————–
Brad Stevens looked very coach-like, sitting at his desk with a stern expression. “Avery, I love how aggressive you are in scoring the ball, but we really need you to be more of a facilitator.”
Avery shrugged his shoulders. The point of basketball was to score points. As long as they were scoring points, he didn’t see what the problem was. “I’m tryin’, coach. But when Rajon comes back, he’ll be the one handling the ball, and I’ll have to unlearn everything all over again.”
Coach Stevens didn’t like this answer. “Avery, I could have Olynyk running the point and he would get more assists than you.”
“Whatever. I ain’t changin’ my game. I never been one to share and I ain’t startin’ now.”