Special Tutoring

Back at school

Tessa became cheer captain.

I wouldn't have called Tessa an underdog since she has always been consistent in her performance and like Amy, has a family legacy in cheer. It was just that as a base, she wasn't as high profile as us flyers (meaning myself, Liz and Amy) and she was sex crazed and inhibited to boot. Not exactly the first person who would have sprung into mind as a suitable candidate for Cheer Captain.

I didn't get upset.

Instead I congratulated her when we gathered at the lockers during lunch break. Earlier that morning, I even let Trevor McGill help me up the steps into the school building, with Emily trailing behind with my bag.

Emily and Trevor's relationship had progressed in leaps and bounds. To a point that when Emily fetched me to school on my first day back, Trevor was riding shotgun, and looked like he was meant to sit there. I didn't really want to accept his offer to help me up the stairs but it was either that or explain to Emily why I didn't want to. Which would only open another unwanted can of worms.

As long as the creeper treated her right. Grr.

Exhausted, I sighed inwardly, as I rested against my locker door, rubbing absently at the skin above my leg guard, as if my leg was still in cast. Beside me, the girls yakked on about everything that had happened during my nearly two months' absence. It was mostly a repeat telecast except apparently, our usual dignified outgoing captain, Selena snogged Tessa on a dare at the end-of- season banquet in front of the faculty. This they hadn't reported on the grapevine, since it was mostly common knowledge.

"So how was the kiss?" I was intrigued by what Tessa thought of the kiss, especially since she used to profess a crush on our stately captain. Wished I had been there. I knew the football team would have killed to be there. Selena and Tessa were such babes, it would have gotten their hearts racing at the sight of them locking lips.

"She's great at everything, so no surprise there that she was fantastic at kissing," was Tessa's matter-of-face reply, her face not giving away anything. After taking on her new role, she seemed to have transposed her personality overnight with Selena's. The old Tessa would have gone into maximum deets about how luscious Selena's lips were, and speculate if she inherited them from her mother's side or her dad's side. I missed the old crazy Tessa already.

Not as badly as Liz , who had apparently refused to speak to her best friend for days, according to the Cheer Grapevine. She hadn't even "known" that Tessa was taking part in the tryouts. I think it is more about Tessa saying and Liz not paying attention. After all Liz has always been the alpha and Tessa, her beta. Tessa rising to the top of the pecking order overnight completely reversed the non-equilibrium in their relationship. That aside, thank God for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for keeping me up with (most of *roll eyes*) the gossip. It would have been the singular terrible thing about missing school.

Just then Amy stalked towards us, her head held high and lazy smile in place. The crowd of cheerleaders clogging up the corridor immediately hushed and parted like the red sea on her approach. Amy's eyes flickered with emotion (I couldn't tell, was it relief, guilt or hatred?) when she caught sight of me before steeling back into cloudless greys. Head snapped resolutely straight, she strutted on. The cheer squad closed back into a chattering mass again once she departed from earshot. Throughout the frigid silence, Amy acted as if she didn't care that she was no longer a Vixen. The only giveaway to her inward tension was her hand clutching the tattered little teddy bear hanging off her satchel in a vise-like grip, which is only something that you'd know after you spent your growing up years together.

The strange part of the entire exchange was that the team actually bothered to move apart for her. Knowing that the squad's usual modus operandi was to continue blocking the corridor when it came to ostracizing persona non grata, I was stunned by their sudden graciousness.