After grabbing some breakfast at the restaurant since I didn't want to get involved with the church too much these youth teachers that were spying on me yesterday once again showed up spying on me back, and now they're even more hungry for whatever that I had to be able to afford to eat such good food every day.
They wanted that too, and we're quite jealous of me, so they started tailing me which I did not notice and as soon as I took the cab they were too broke to take a cab so they just let me go and I headed down to the venue where the tournament was being held. I paid for the registration and got a number; there were at least several thousands of people that came to participate in this tournament, so it will take a while before it gets to the finals.They were hosting games every 5 minutes just to cut down on the numbers. I played a couple of matches and only one that gave me trouble and almost cost me a loss. It was a European looking guy he was about 6'7 and speedy, which surprised me normally tall people aren't that fast, so I'm able to run around them, but this guy kept up with me and even blocked a couple of my shots due to his height.I had to do the most uncomfortable shots and activated a whole bunch of my unlimited shots. Everybody was playing up to 11 points, and he had ten he was just about to win when I used the time freeze to steal the ball and take the shot which pretty much tied up the game after we checked it I tried to pump fake him to get him in the air. However, he didn't budge, so I cross him over a bit, but he still stayed with me.His defense was pretty tough he reminded me of Momba, so I had picked up the pace showing off some of my dribbling moves by dribbling in between my legs at a swift pace which kind of confused him a little bit causing me to blow by him with a layup to win the game. After that, the rest of my matches were pretty much easy wins, and I was able to get into the top 20 by the time evening came by.They were going to continue the tournament the next day, which was on a Sunday, and I had stayed out too long, so I had to go back before the organizers of church event got worried about me. I took a cab back to the hotel, and when I got there, I was surprised to see that there were cops all over the place searching for a person who went missing this morning. I immediately knew that they were looking for me. I just sneaked by everybody and headed back to the room using my time freeze, shower and freshen up for dinner.The youth teacher that was staying in my room came back in the room and saw that I was there and was confused and started yelling where have I been and I said I had gone out for a little bit, but he didn't believe me because if I had come back and then somebody would have noticed that I was in. I just ignored him, so he went to find the police who then came in and questioned me. I simply told them the truth that I was at a tournament, and people that were doing the program were pissed off about that.I just left to do my own business, and I didn't mind him because I wasn't there for the program. They banned me from ever coming back to the program, and I told them that's fine and agreed that I probably shouldn't come to these programs ever again. I went to have dinner, and I see the same guys that were stalking me yesterday coming out again to see whether I would go to that fancy restaurant again. They had decided that they would strike as soon as I got out of the restaurant since the event programmers weren't backing me anymore.They knew it was this opportunity to rob me of everything that I have and even try to teach me a lesson, so after eating. I'm heading back to my room, and I see this group of college students and youth teachers standing around smirking at me and looking at me with evil intentions. I told him to get out of my way, and they wouldn't, and they told me that I should empty my pockets and give them all my money. I asked them if they were doing this in the name of the Lord, and they just simply laughed and said you're not part of the program anymore, so we can do as we please to you.I warned them once more to get out of my way, but they wouldn't listen so they came at me all at the same time and I quickly froze time and punch them in the face one by one until I unfroze time and they all ended up on the ground screaming in pain and wondering what happened. I just went by them and headed into my room to get some rest for the next day they saw me leaving, and we're beyond pissed and didn't know what happened or what they can do so they just simply ran away in fear saying that I was the devil and possessed and I used some kind of devil tricks to defeat them.They started to spread the word about what happened but not about what they did, and now the whole youth camp thought that I was evil and possessed, but the ones that came from my church knew that wasn't the case. When morning came, Aaliyah approached me asking me if I did those things yesterday, and I told her, yes, and I gave her the reason why I did those things, giving her more understanding. She told me she would sort things out with the others, I simply shrugged and said it I don't care what they think or what they do I'm going to live my life the way I see fit.I went and got some breakfast and then headed to the venue of the event while I was going the youth teachers were all glaring at me with hate in their eyes thinking of ways to get back at me. Still, I simply ignored them and got in a cab and left when I got to the venue they had changed the prize money from 5000 to 10,000 due to the increase of players that came. I became excited about this outcome and thought about the easy money that I was going to make.I got through all the matches fairly easy until the final round, where this guy called Kenya Martin, and I was fighting for the top prize. We shot for the ball, and I won automatically. He started the match he was a light-skinned, tall guy sitting about 6'5, I don't know whether he was a college student or was playing professionally, but it didn't matter to me who my opponent I was going to take him down.I try to dribble past him, but he kept up with me and my speed, so I just stepped back and shot it giving me two points and this final game we're playing 23 points, inside shots where two points and outside shots with three points so I was up by 2 points, and he started to play me heavily. I quickly rushed in with him right next to me, following up with me. I broke him off with my brakes causing him to tumble, but I took another shot from the midrange giving me four points.He was pissed at this point because he just got crossed over and the crowd was even laughing at him, I simply shrugged and went back up to the line to check out the ball as soon as he checked it up to me I took the shot which kind of surprised him because it was swift, I didn't have time to react to it. I made it giving me three more points, and I was up by seven at this point, the commentator was exciting me up, and the crowd was excited because I was serving him breakfast, dinner, and lunch.He couldn't defend me, and I knew it, and he also knew it, so he tried his best to pump himself up. I checked up the ball and crossed him up for a little bit just to see if he'll bite the bait, but it was still as a law so I quickly drove past him which put him behind me and I did and awkward floating shot which surprised him because he didn't think that I would make it because of the awkwardness of the shot. After I made that shot it put me up to nine points, we checked it back up, and I started playing around with the ball dribbling between my legs as fast as I could while staring at him.He got mad and started cursing me out, and I just backed away from the 3-point line, and then I shot it because he was pissed off and didn't want to come back further away from the 3-point line since he doubted I could make it from there. I made it by giving me 12 points. Once again, he was getting pretty mad that I was making all my shots. After I checked it up, he pretty much was in my face so I had to dribble the ball behind my back and then bounce it off his side and pretend to run to the other side leaving the ball behind and I broke him off and came right back to the ball which confuses him because he saw that I didn't have the ball with me.I quickly caught the ball and stepped back onto the 3-point line shot it once again giving me the lead of 15 points the crowd erupted after they saw that move the commentator was just fooling around hyping me up some more saying that I was the next best thing, people started looking for my information. When they finally found it on the internet, they were surprised that I was only a high school player and even just a sophomore, a 10th grader playing against these college students and Semi-Pro players at this point.I was getting in Martin's head with all my tricks, and he told me to play him like a man. I responded by saying that's what I've been doing this whole game. He hasn't been able to stop me which made him even more pissed off. Still, I ignored him and stepped back to the half-court line, and he didn't believe that I could make it from there, so he didn't chase after me and defended at the three-point line. I took the shot and made it. When I made this the crowd went wild, they couldn't believe I made it from the half-court at this point Martin had given up I didn't even want to play anymore because he was embarrassed that he lost to a high school student when he was playing a little Semi-Pro ball with other grown men.He checked it out for the last time and just turned his back and waited for the last shot because he had given up at this point and didn't care. I took the shot and made it once again. He checked it up once more for the game point, and I made it to win the game and the whole tournament. The crowd erupted, and they all came in and started hugging me, and some guys even picked me up, and they were cheering while walking me down the court like a parade.I had them put me down because I had to get my prize. Martin didn't even see me after the game but later stopped by and told me that I was going to make it and that he will see me in the NBA one day. I told him that he should wait up for me and not retire early, causing him to laugh. I once again received a check for $10,000 and quickly went to deposit it and my bank account before going back to the hotel. When I got to the hotel room, I packed up my stuff and headed to the restaurant to grab something to eat.The youth teachers were eyeing me as I went by because they all knew about me from that point, as I was eating lunch Aaliyah spotted me and decided to come to join me she asked if I could treat her too. I just said sure, so she ordered some food. She told me that the food that they were serving for the event was not that good, which caused me to laugh and thank myself for not accepting their food from the beginning. She started asking me how I got the money to be able to afford food from this restaurant, and I simply told her it's through basketball that I play.She smiled at this and asked if I have a girlfriend, and I quickly told her yes, I go to school with her, which caused her to have a sad face on. We continued to talk, and I honestly wasn't in the mood to talk to her. Still, I didn't want to be rude, so after we had finished lunch I told her I'd see her in the bus and left after paying for the food she stared at my back wishing that she be with me because the other guys that she met at this event where all immature and didn't have anything going for themselves.I made my way down to the hotel lobby to wait for the bus to arrive and for my youth group to arrive, I saw the busses come in, and everybody from their respective states started loading them. My bus finally came, and we loaded it, and this time I decided to sit in the front with the youth teachers so that nobody would disturb me. They were surprised by this and thought that I learned something from the event, but little do they know that I wasn't there half the time.Aaliyah was sad that I didn't sit in the back with her this time and had a different guy sitting next to her, who kept bugging her and talking about how he wanted to be a rapper. She got annoyed and told him to just keep quiet for the rest of the journey and which later on he just moved away to talk to someone else, so she just sat there alone secretly looking in my direction from time to time. I felt her glances but didn't want anything to do with her, so I just ignored her and slept throughout the rest of the trip.The other girls approached her and told her to stay away from me since it seemed like she was bothering mm. She told them that there's nothing between them and that he already has a girlfriend when all the girls heard about this their hearts were immediately broken because they did not know I had a girlfriend and they also just went to take a nap after hearing about that. The rest of the trip was relatively quiet, and we are finally got back home.I called Rasta to let him know that I was nearby that he should come to pick me up, so as soon as I got to the church, he was there waiting for me with Opal, and I headed over to them as I was leaving Aaliyah thanked me for the meal. I told her it was no problem and she tried to hug me, but I almost pushed you away, but I didn't want to be mean, so I accepted her hug which caused Rasta and Opal to laugh, and then I left her standing there alone looking like a lost puppy. I got home exhausted because I was mentally tired from the trip and all the drama that came with it, so I just went straight to bed, and I woke up early in the morning to do my homework.It was the last week before our vacation to Cuba, and I was pretty excited about it, and we also had a game to play that Friday, so we practice all week, and I was still brushing up on my Spanish until I was pretty fluent with it. Sandra helped me out a lot, and we spent a lot of time together and even made some hotel visits for some private sessions. Friday evening game started, and we were playing against a semi-good team with one good player who was a center, and he was pretty much the tallest sitting at 7'1, which was even taller than Momba, who was at 6'9.He had a growth spurt after he had entered High School, which surprised me. We started the game and played back and forth. The ball was a match between Momba and this guy called Ryan. Ryan was taller, but Momba was stronger, so it was about evenly matched, and I stayed in the game just to help him out and keep the lead for us. By the last quarter of the game, we're up by 13 points and had this cat in the bag. I decided to sit out for the rest of the quarter and let the bench team get the opportunity to play.My backup shooting guard was always excited because I barely played any minutes during the season, so he got to have a lot of playtimes, which he appreciated, and I didn't mind it, so we easily won that game, and then we celebrated after. I went to go pack up for the Cuba trip at home. I didn't want to take that much luggage with me since I decided that I'll buy all my clothes and stuff when I get there. I took out a lot of cash from the account and was just about to go meet up with Sandra and her family when Rasta showed up with his suitcase.I just shook my head and said, "what took you so long? let's go" he was excited because he's never really been down south. Flo had just walked in because he had her come to watch Opal that week since we're both going out of town. He drove up to Sandra's place, and it wasn't a bad place. They had a small townhouse with several cars parked in front. When we got there, it was a bunch of guys outside just chatting, and when they saw us, they got hostile and asked what are we doing there.I quickly identified myself and introduced ourselves as friends of Sandra and that we were going on a trip to Cuba with them which surprise them one of them said they don't want no black people traveling with them and that I don't belong with their kind I couldn't even get mad at them because they had a right to say that. I had no clue what to say at this point until Sandra showed up with her mother, and all the guys quickly shut up, and the mother made them apologize to me, causing me to laugh. Rasta looked like he was about to start fighting them, so I told him to calm down. It wasn't a big deal. I introduced myself once again, but this time as Sandra's boyfriend, which caused them all to be a little bit pissed, but they couldn't do anything about it.We headed inside to meet the rest of the family. I met her father and her uncles. I was surprised that so many people were living under this roof. She told me that it helps with the bills, which I quickly agreed and told her not to worry that one day I'll get them their own house, which made her laugh. Her dad was surprised that I would say such a thing and asked me whether I would stay true to my words, and I told him that I always stay true to my words and that if I wanted to get them a house right now, I could. He was surprised at my declaration but didn't take me seriously because I was still in high school, so I just shrugged it off.We started to get ready for the trip, and we called a van to come and pick us up and headed to the airport. It was me, Rasta, Sandra, her mother Lily, her father Carlos, and her younger brother, whose name was Miguel. When we got to the airport, I had bought some food to eat while we're waiting to board the airplane. Sandra's father was surprised that I could afford the airport food and asked me what I do for a living to sell drugs.Rasta was quite offended by this, but I wasn't in the lease, and I told him that no, I just play basketball sometimes I win tournaments, and I get cash prizes. I also made investments; he was very interested when he heard that I said I would make investments and started asking me what about half of this trip I was explaining about the whole stock market business. He was amazed that I had so much knowledge on the stock market, and he gained whole new respect for me after chatting with him throughout half the flight.During the flight, we went through a storm, which caused a lot of turbulence in the air. I was scared to death because I was scared of flying and also scared of heights, so I immediately started thinking negatively and praying that God takes us there safely. A few minutes later, the plane started at the stable, and I got more comfortable again and decided to take a nap. Carlos wanted to chat more with me, but he saw that I was getting tired and let me rest. So he decided to speak with Rasta, but he wasn't interested in speaking with him, so he ended up just going to speak with his wife, Lily.We have finally arrived in Cuba, and it was a beautiful country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean, where the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean meet. The country was very colorful, and everybody was using all these old school vehicles. They had their driver come and pick us up since the car was not big enough to fit all of us in me, Sandra, and Rasta called a cab and met them at their house.Their house was lovely when we got there. It was green and pink and had several trees in it, including coconut trees and mango trees, which surprised me there were others too, but I didn't recognize them. I was just enjoying the sight, and it was also sweltering there, but they told me they had an air conditioner, so I breathed relief. They had a guest room set up for us while their family members were cooking dinner because, by the time we got there, it was slightly evening.I was ready to try out their food and drinks that they had ready for us, I asked Rasta to see if there were any basketball tournaments around, but he said he had already looked. There was none which surprised me because the coach said that there might be some ballers out here, but I guess I was right not much was here. Sandra came to call us for dinner, and I came out, expecting a good meal from them. We had ropa vieja: stewed beef with vegetables over rice, which I fell in love with right away.It was so good I had to ask for seconds we all laughed then enjoyed each other's company as we chatted throughout the evening. When we were done, Sandra and I decided to take a walk around the town that she was born in. She was telling me that she grew up here and how the people are very nice, and there was practically no crime around this area. Everybody helped each other out, and I told her that some parts of Africa are like that too. She took me to where the basketball court was located, and I saw that some bright lights were shining on the court while a lot of people were playing there.They even had a crowd that shocked me I didn't know that basketball was a thing over here until Sandra showed me that they do play it's just that they don't have it officially online for people to locate. They even had a commentator commentating in Spanish, and I was thanking God that I had learned it because I would not have understood a single thing he was saying all night.I just watched the game and noticed a few players going hard at each other. They were missing some shots, but when it came to dunking, they were very stylish and trying to mimic the way Americans do their dunks, but there was a little bit of flair in it. I wanted to play with them so badly, but it seemed like they had already picked teams, and I decided that it was getting late. Hence, we decided that I would come back tomorrow a little bit earlier to play, so we left and went back to the house where I chatted with her parents, and then we all went to sleep.The next day we had some breakfast, which was also banging. I was just enjoying the other foods and always had seconds. I decided to go downtown to check the scene out there; Rasta wasn't feeling too good due to the turbulence that happened on that plane, so he got a little sick and couldn't go anywhere with us. He just kept throwing up and sleeping most of the time, which I felt bad because I let him come out here to enjoy himself, and now he was stuck sick in bed; at least he had a cute nurse to watch over him.She was a young Cuban girl that had just finished nursing school, so she took care of him, and he appreciated it because she was beautiful. I asked Sandra why all the females are beautiful in Cuba. She quickly shook her head and rolled her eyes and said that I should keep my eyes to myself. We kept it moving and headed downtown where we saw some historical sites and all kinds of places, by the time the evening was coming I was dead tired physically and mentally due to having to translate all the Spanish that I heard in my mind which quickly exhausted my brain at this point.I went straight to the room to pass out, but as soon as I opened the door I see Rasta balls deep in his nurse, and he quickly tells me to shut the door, and I'm shocked, so I quickly left out and sneaked off to tell told Sandra what I just witnessed. She just laughed and said "that your brother is a handsome guy so that's not surprising that she would fall for him. I shook my head, saying, are you trying to get my whole family to date Cubans.Sandra just shrugged, saying, "we're just beautiful, so it's not your fault that you guys are falling for us." I just let that go and went to the kitchen to ask if the food was ready when dinner was finally ready. I could see the nurse coming out of the room. She was super thick in the hips with a nice bust size too, and now I knew why Rasta had done what he did. I just shook my head because she was beet red and running off without saying anything to anybody. I just laughed at this and quickly ate my food to get ready to head to the basketball court.