𝐦𝐲 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥 | 𝐚𝐝𝐚𝐦 𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬

"oh, 'she was wearing a tiara' my ass"

For the second day in a row, Rowan woke to the sound of her alarm. The clock read 6:30, although it was a Saturday morning. Time before competitions moved surprisingly fast and she needed plenty of it to get ready. She jumped out of bed to wash her face and brush her teeth. Rowan then ate her lucky breakfast, the same one she had eaten every competition morning for 4 years. The time blinked at 6:45, she rushed back to her room where she started her makeup. The mandatory competition makeup was a lot more than she would have liked. She applied foundation, blush, highlighter, lipstick, gold shimmery eyeshadow, lots of mascara, and setting spray to keep it from messing up. It was now 7:00 and she had to leave by 7:10 to get to the rink at 7:30 so one of her teammates could do her hair. She quickly slipped on tights along with her skating costume which was a light periwinkle blue, the upper half had lots of silver jewels that faded out to the lower portion of the short dress. There was only one sleeve made out of mesh, starting at the wrist, going all the way up her arm, and wrapped around the neck for support.

Rowan grabbed the bag she had prepared the night before and rushed out the door, wearing her favorite pair of high-top converse. Just like clockwork, she arrived at the rink at 7:25. She walked at a quick pace to the left-sided dressing rooms. She entered the room she knew to be her team's, greeting each of them who shared similar ideas of getting their hair done once they had already arrived. Rowan approached her best skating friend, Meredith, and sat down as they did every competition. Meredith braided Rowan's wavy hair into two french braids that ended at the nape of her neck. She tied them into pigtails with a clear elastic, the unbraided hair was then curled and attacked by tons of hairspray. The familiar but unpleasant feeling of hard, sticky hair, met Rowan's hands as she slicked down any flyaways. She put her white skates on and headed towards the skating rink alongside Meredith.

They entered the rink at 8:00 where their coach was waiting to start warmups and run-throughs with the team. The girls stretched as they waited for the last few teammates to come out of the locker room. The next hour was spent with mini-performances to practice what they would show later on. She looked up towards the large glass that separated the lobby from the rinks. She saw McGill, Larson, and Adam walk in at what she guessed would have been 8:50. She made eye contact with the three as they ran up to the glass and smiled.

Adam mouthed the words, "I was right" to the girl. In return, she just let out a small laugh and skated off with the rest of her team back to the locker room, where they would touch up make-up and hair, and wait for their numbers to be called.

It was a little over an hour into the competition and Rowan was yet to go. Adam, Larson, and McGill sat in the stands tapping their feet, waiting for the only reason they came to this thing to perform. Adam played with the bracket on his wrist, the two other boys took notice of this.

"Nice bracelet, Banks," Larson commented.

"Yeah, where'd you get it?" McGill asked. The boys were entirely aware of where he got the bracelet, but being his best friends -- they felt it was their duty to rank on him for it.

"It's Rowans," He muttered, slowly looking up to meet their eyes. The boys shared knowing looks, McGill opened his mouth to push the conversation further but was cut off by Adam putting his hand up to McGill's face. "No, don't even start on it."

Larson and McGill just laughed at this, knowing that Adam was on the same page as they were.

"Now from Minnesota State Skating, we have entry number 27, Rowan Pierce with Time After Time!"

The three boys jumped up out of their seats cheering when they saw her skate out onto the ice. Rowan's eyes flickered towards the loud sounds of high pitch screaming and saw the trio causing quite the commotion. She slightly giggled while getting into her starting pose waiting for the song to start.