"So…?" asked Gwen as Sally Ann reached down to grab her backpack from where it sat on the floor. A boisterous tangle of voices emerged around her as everyone began to make their way past the rows of desks and out the door of the chemistry classroom.
"So what?" Sally Ann replied, not meeting her friend's gaze as she pulled her backpack onto her shoulders.
"What'd he say to you? I saw the two of you talking."
"Nothing," Sally Ann said quickly. "I mean, it was just about the lab."
Of course, that wasn't really true, but she didn't really want to tell Gwen about everything else, about her discovery of Hasil's missing fingers, about the stupid way she had insulted him and her lame apology. She didn't want to tell Gwen about how surprisingly sweet he had been – quiet and strange, but sweet nevertheless. And she definitely didn't want to tell her about the way he had gently smiled back at her, and how her stomach had looped itself into a tight, tingly knot in response. Gwen wouldn't understand any of that; it would just make her think of him as more of a freak and a weirdo, and she would probably think that there was something wrong with Sally Ann if she didn't see him exactly the same way.
"Yeah, well…" offered Gwen, as they began to walk together towards the door. "He better not try anything, is all I'm saying."
"Yeah," Sally Ann said quietly.
"Whatever," Gwen said, looking out into the busy hallway. "I gotta get to my locker before French. See you at practice?"
"Yeah, okay," replied Sally Ann, nodding. "See ya."
The rest of the afternoon passed in a rush as Sally Ann sat through her American history class and then, for the last period, retreated to the library. She had already been assigned homework for a few of her classes, so she drew up a schedule for the week to make sure that she could get everything done, taking into account the constraints of cheer practice and her job. It wouldn't be easy, she saw, but it was doable. She would just need to stay focused, and keep sight of her goal: good grades, good test scores, and then hopefully some decent scholarships so that she could afford the tuition at the state university.
She glanced up at the top of the page in her notebook where she had been laying out her schedule: there was her name, written in blue pen ink, surrounded by curlicues and tiny daisies, left just as it had been when she drew it at the beginning of chemistry class. She had been drawing it just she had heard her name being called, stopping just as she had heard his name follow right after.
For a moment, she let her mind empty itself of its worries and concerns and started to doodle again, her pen moving unconsciously across the lines of the paper. She must have been paying less attention than she had thought, because after a little while, she looked down in shocked realization to see that she had drawn his name below hers, the tops of the first and last letters edging up into the decorative border of flowers.
Sally Ann looked around quickly to see if anyone had seen what she had done, but the tables were mostly empty, with no one in her immediate vicinity. Still, she wasn't taking any chances. With a quick rip, she tore the corner of the page off and crumpled it into a tiny ball. What the hell did she think she was doing, she thought to herself, drawing something like that? What was wrong with her?
She let out a short sigh of frustration and threw the crumpled paper into the nearest trash can. It was only then that she was able to turn her attention back to the schedule she had made, trying her best to focus on what she needed to get done after she got home from practice.
Once the bell had rung, she packed up her bag and made her way down to the gym. By the time she got to the locker room, at least half of the squad was already there, changing into their practice gear. Sally Ann joined in the group, chatting casually about the first day of school and how everyone's classes had gone. No one asked her about what had happened in chemistry class – not even Sharon, who was just a few lockers down – and Sally Ann was glad that the minor drama brought about by her socially undesirable lab partner had apparently come to an end.
Even Gwen, once she finally arrived, seemed to have forgotten all about it, her mood buoyed by the fact that the senior captain of the soccer team had texted her and asked her to come over to his house once practice was over. His parents wouldn't be home until late, Gwen said in an excited half-whisper, and his college-age brother had hooked him up with some bottles of Stoli before he had driven back to school.
"Stay safe," Sally Ann teased her friend. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"Yeah, but that's 'cause you don't do anything," Gwen said playfully. "Seriously, when was the last time you hooked up with anybody?"
"I can't help it if I'm picky," said Sally Ann, "and that most of the guys at this school are completely gross."
That was a good enough excuse, even if it wasn't much of a real explanation. Sally Ann had some experience with guys at least, enough that she was no longer considered by her friends to be a total prude. She had only ever been with one guy, a football player, who she had started occasionally hooking up with last spring. Sleeping with him had been okay – nothing horrible, but nothing that special either – and for the most part, she didn't really think about it much. She didn't have all that much interest in doing it again, though, and it didn't help that her brother was overprotective – to say the least – and had essentially forbidden her from going out with anyone.
"So are we going to hang out this weekend or what?" asked Gwen, switching the subject. "You should come over on Saturday. We can finish watching Grey's."
"I can't on Saturday," said Sally Ann.
That was true, at least. But she couldn't tell Gwen the real reason she couldn't come over: she was scheduled to be at work most of the day. She stammered for a moment, caught on what excuse to give.
"Um, I'm… I'm doing something at home with my brother. It sounded like it might take a while… I can let you know, though, if I'm done early," she added. That wouldn't happen, of course, but it might make her story more believable.
"What'd he want you to do?"
"I don't know… He didn't say."
"You know, at some point you need to tell your brother to stop being such a dick," Gwen said. "He's kept you busy all summer. We've barely done anything together the whole time."
"Yeah, that'll go over well," Sally Ann scoffed. She sighed, her voice softening. "But, yeah, I know… It's just, well you know how he gets… But look, now that school's started, we can hang out during practice, and we'll see each other in class–"
"Assuming you don't get abducted and cut into little pieces by your lab partner…"
"Ew!" said Sally Ann, laughing. "Seriously, thanks for that image…"
They were still giggling as they made their way into the gym and gathered with the rest of the squad to start the warm up.
Unlike her chemistry class, practice held few surprises: they warmed up and stretched, and then Miss Grimes put them into small groups to work on their cheers and their tumbling. After a short break, the whole squad got back together to practice the half-time routine they would perform at Friday's game.
Sally Ann loved cheering. There was just something about it, the movement and the energy, the idea of being part of this larger thing that worked in such like-minded synchrony. Every tumbling move, every jump, they were like little puzzle pieces that fit seamlessly into the whole. Most of all, she loved getting lost in it, letting go of everything in her mind except the next move. And that feeling – of the whole squad moving as one and completely nailing a routine – it was pretty impossible to beat.
They must not have been nailing it this afternoon, however, not from the way Miss Grimes was walking around and watching them as they worked through their half-time presentation. From the corner of her eye, Sally Ann could see her narrowed brows and pinched expression, the tiny tilt of her head as she inspected every move. It was more than a little unnerving, especially when she wasn't saying anything at all.
Miss Grimes was from Texas – Sally Ann had heard that she had even been a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader for a few seasons – and everyone knew how seriously Texans took cheering. As a coach, she ran the squad with focus and iron-handed discipline, and even though the girls joked about her behind her back, they were all a little terrified of her.
So it was with a sinking feeling in the bottom of her stomach that Sally Ann listened to Miss Grimes instruct the squad – in her quiet, steely tone – to wrap up practice and find a seat on the floor of the gym.
"Ladies," she finally said, after pacing in front of them for a few moments, "I really don't know what to say."
Sally Ann quickly glanced over at Gwen, sitting right nearby, and saw the same look of frozen-eyed dread that she knew had to be written all over her own face.
"It's almost as if in the last week and a half we've been practicing, y'all have gotten worse," Miss Grimes continued. "When I look at y'all, all I see are sloppy arms and imprecise jumps, handsprings that barely get off the ground. All I see are a group of girls who forget to smile, who look about as cheerful as they would sitting in the dentist's office."
She stopped and faced them, her hands on her hips.
"What I don't see is a squad ready to perform in front of an actual audience, as if they might actually be capable of inspiring some spirit. And what I definitely don't see is a squad who should even be thinking about regionals in November, not if it doesn't want to get laughed out of the competition."
As she looked at them, the gym was deathly silent, as if they all had forgotten how to breathe.
"If y'all are serious about making this squad into something more than just a little somersault club, then y'all need to get your pretty heads out of your derrieres and get to work. Ledda" – she pointed at the blonde senior, sitting in front – "as captain, your responsibility is to help lead this team and get it into shape. You're not their big sister or their friend, you're their captain." She paused, her gaze widening out over the whole squad. "As for everyone else, that means we're going to practice these routines until y'all can do them perfectly in your sleep. That means we're gonna be here working every afternoon until Friday's game. We're gonna practice on weekends, starting this Saturday. Be here at eight, and we'll be done once y'all have absolutely nailed each part of the routine. Y'all hear me?"
"Yes, ma'am," they all echoed.
"Good," she said. "Go grab your stuff and head on home."
Sally Ann stood up from the hardwood floor, feeling thoroughly demoralized. Even worse, though, was that all the work she had done planning her schedule had been totally upended – and now she was going to have to figure out what to do about Saturday.
"Well, that sucked," Gwen muttered.
"Yeah," Sally Ann replied.
Because it really did suck. She had no idea how she was going to do it, because she couldn't be in two places at the same time, and if Miss Grimes was going to essentially double the number of practices, it was going to make it incredibly hard – if not impossible – to keep her grades up and hold on to her job. And so much, she knew, was dependent on both. She let out a small sigh, even as the tension in the pit of her stomach refused to dissipate. She didn't know what to do, and what made it even worse was that there was no one she could tell, no one who – if only for a second – she could share her burden with.