A Ripple Between **CURRENTLY EDITING**

3- The Meet

Note- I had to do a lot of research for this chapter, so I hope you enjoy! If you see anything incorrect about the swim meet please let me know so I can fix it. Creds to my bestie for helping me out with this chapter!

I stood with Sam at her locker a few days later, much more excited than normal. I had texted her last night, arranging everything for tonight.

"I still can't believe everything worked out with the meet tonight! I'm finally going to one!" I had a huge, goofy smile permanently plastered on my face as a result of my excitement.

"Ava, you realize it's just a swim meet?"

I just continued to smile at Sam, who shook her head at me.

"Hun, you need help."

"I know," I replied as we began to walk down the hallway to our chem class. I honestly don't know why my friends even talked to me. I was so annoying. The whole way down the hallway, I just talked about the swim meet. It wasn't even completely the fact that I would get to see PJ (although that was most of it.) I'd never been to a swim meet, and I wanted to see what they were like.

Class was abnormally fun that day. The teacher gave us a worksheet and then he left the room, sending us on a talking spree. And then someone just started singing. I'm not even sure who it was. But they were belting out the chorus to High School Musical's "Breaking Free", and everyone started joining in. You see, our school had a major issue with the entire High School Musical sound track. When we got bored in the auditorium, we would always start singing. In the hallways, you could hear it when it was supposed to be dead silent. And in gym class, playing basketball, someone would start singing "Get Your Head in the Game." Never failed.

So it's not like this was new. I finally joined in near the ending, since I wasn't exactly the most outgoing person when it came to singing, and heard a really loud voice from beside me. I looked over to the boys and there was PJ, singing as loud as the rest of them. I had to laugh. I continued to sing and he caught my eye, with a look that was either really good or really bad. The kind of look where I was left guessing. I couldn't tell if he was looking at me with the, Wow, she has a nice voice look or the, Wow, she sounds like a dying cat stuck in an old car motor look. I hoped it was the first, but I couldn't be sure. I finally got too embarrassed to continue. The rest of the class finally stopped singing, but I was still smiling by the end.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

A couple hours later, I had gotten changed and put on some makeup. I got a text from Sam saying that she was outside, and I ran out to her car in the driveway.

I slid into the backseat with Sam, who moved her bag and smiled.

We got there around 6, and Sam left to go warm up for the 50. Since it was her first and only event for the night, she would come back after it to sit and watch the meet with me. She had hurt her knee really early in the season, and although it was healing well, she didn't want to do too much to it. I didn't blame her. It still didn't look the same as her other knee.

I watched the team warm up in the pool, and searched for my friends. Beth was there, practicing backstroke, and a bunch of other girls from my class, too. The other team practiced on the other side of the pool.