A 90's Friday Night Lights meets Fifty Shades, only the town is the sadomasochist and the two young lovers their pawns.
July Elizabeth Edwards is stuck in the existence her pretentious, rural East Texas town has allotted her. A shift in social statu...
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Monday, Monday... that word alone should be an alternate term for Hell. Even when it wasn't so bad, the anticipation it would be was. I wasn't a "Debbie Downer" or anything, just... tired. Pure Pines was a lot. Home was a lot. I guess I just didn't like not knowing when I was going to catch my next break, mentally, figuratively, or even luck-wise. Overall, I did know I was lucky.
I was grateful for many things. I just didn't like what most of them came with. Almost anything you excelled in at Pure Pines left you under constant scrutiny by both the student body and faculty. I think that's what I hated. I didn't like being thrown to the wolves every day, and I hated feeling like I was under the gun even when I was prepared.
We made it through the uniform debacle and new outfits were on the way; but not without those debuting on the field that night as well. Principal Sabella said they were too scant to wear them to sit in the stands and we had to change right after the half time performance, but there was no reason we should miss out on doing the routine we prepared.
Our band director arrived minutes later and spoke up to mention we could wear our matching practice shorts and tee shirts, but you could tell Sabella preferred a little NFL cheerleader pazazz to us looking like some makeshift dance line we just started that couldn't afford uniforms. Pure Pines did not suffer when it came to the elements between the goal posts or the stadium that surrounded them.
As the office door was closing on our exit that day, I heard the principal make the comment... "Yeah, I'm fine with those on the field for tonight, just ah... make sure they look as you know... appropriate on the rest of the girls." It was our band director, Mr. McClendon's response that stuck with me. "You bet. I think most of these gals are ah, in shape. Hell, they'd have to be to kick that high! But, ah, I'll have their sponsor do a once over—make sure everybody is... proportioned, ah... anatomically correct to wear that on the field tonight. Anybody who isn't can probably sit this one out until the new uniforms come in next week."
Wow. I can't say that didn't stick with me up to the performance. The entire day I kept snapping my head over to Reagan and Lynn every time I saw them huddled together in conversation. I was petrified one of them was prepping to reluctantly come tell me I didn't look okay in the uniform, and I was to be benched until next week. Instead, everything about the performance went exceptionally. The crowd in our stands stood on their feet applauding their new drill team, and we were already more skilled than the opposing team's dance line. They must have had twenty-five to thirty girls in their line. I guess that was the difference in elitism. Our school only took the nineteen who could do it exactly like they wanted. Well, eighteen that night...
