Borrowed Time

Chapter Two

Cheerleading practice had never once failed to leave Juliette in a horrible mood, which was incredibly unfortunate considering the fact that she couldn't quit the team even if she wanted to do so. She wasn't doing cheerleading for her own benefit, she'd never found any joy in it... She was doing it for her father, and to honor her mother. While she technically could quit, while she thought about it every single day, she couldn't stand the idea of her mother's memory dying along with it.

When her parents had been in high school, they'd fallen in love – they hadn't met there, they'd actually met when they were very young because her mother was best friends with his sister, but that was where the love story began, at least for her dad. Her mom had always maintained that she'd had a little crush on him since the first time they met, and her father always said that he didn't notice her until they'd grown up a bit... A little odd, but they'd always laughed while telling the story, like it was funny, so maybe it was. When they hit high school, he was the handsome quarterback, and her mother was the head cheerleader, so they fell in love and got married fairly quickly after high school graduation – a date that she could trace back to six months prior to her birth, and given that she was premature, she could make the assumption that while they were in love, there were also some societal pressures at play.

Her father always told the story of the girl a few years younger than him who'd had a kid in high school... He never used names, he just told it like it was a cautionary tale for her to take into account, and it always made her nervous.

Prior to her mother's death, cheerleading was never something that Juliette really considered doing. She wasn't the strongest runner, didn't like being touched enough to want to be manhandled all the time, didn't think she'd like the social aspect... But once her mom did pass, the reason behind why she may do it shifted and it became the clear and least painful way to honor her mother's legacy... And it was also a surefire way to make her dad smile at her, something he'd stopped doing as often once her mom had died. He'd opted instead for a sort of heartbroken grimace, like looking at her caused him immense pain even if it wasn't something she could control.

Making him smile was coming to be less and less important in her mind, especially because it made her feel dead inside and empty in a way she couldn't fathom, and today it had even left her without a ride because Micheal's practice had gone late and while Shelby had driven on her own, she'd left early to go coach the kids team she was coaching for basketball.

She was up shit's creek without a goddamn paddle, that was for sure.

She took out her phone and fiddled with the buttons on the side, turning it on and of as she considered calling her father, maybe calling Shelby, but she didn't want to bother either one of them... Her father was most likely still at the church making his final prparations for tomorrow's sermon, and if Shelby was home from coaching then she was probably making herself dinner, or she was still coaching kids... Either way, neither one of those were a viable option, and she didn't want to be a bother. She hated that she didn't drive much, that she didn't have a car, that she had to rely on others for things that she wanted to be able to herself, it made her feel useless, made her feel like she was one question away from everyone just deciding they didn't want to fucking deal with her anymore.

She frowned, for a moment even entertaining calling Samantha as the chill of the curb bit through her shorts... It wasn't even cold out yet, just that kind of day where once the sun went down, she knew she'd be shivering her ass off. A perfect upstate New York night to sleep with the windows open maybe, but not one to walk home in. That was seeming to be what she had to do though... Take it on foot.

It wasn't that far, she could make it home in time for dinner. Maybe not by Samantha's standards, but she could never win with her. She could get home early and she'd get reprimanded for not spending enough time with her peers, 'showing what their family was made of.'