under pressure

one-on-one

"Bye? Did you hear her say bye-ee?" Brandon asks as he, Bree, and Andrea walk by Brenda and her friends. Andrea lets out a chuckle at his astonishment.

"Face it, Walsh. Your sister's gone total Beverly Hills. Anyways, goodbye-ee. Parting is such sweet sorrow. But, you are covering the basketball and track tryouts today, right?" She asks, pointing at the two of them. The two of them grimace, putting their hands in their pockets.

"Actually, Brandon's trying out for basketball and I'm trying out for track." Andrea lets out a hmph, not knowing this at all.

"Aren't you a little short, Brandon?" He deadpans, making the two girls laugh.

—

Bree was in her shorts and a tank top for tryouts. So far, it was pretty easy. They were doing 2-mile runs and sprints. Currently, she was sitting on the outside bleachers with her friend, Ellie. The two girls were chugging water while watching other people tryout. Bree sees this one girl that was faster than all of them. She was tall and had tan skin. She had a fierce look on her face as she ran.

"Who's that girl?" Bree asks, motioning to her. Ellie follows her gaze and her eyes widen.

"That's Anya Townsend. She's a sophomore and just transferred here. She beat the freshmen record at her old school during a meet." She nods, finding her interesting.

"So far, it looks like it's a pretty good team this year if she's on it." Ellie lets out a scoff, tying her shoes.

"This year? Every year. I was on track last year. West Beverly is a perennial powerhouse. They always beat some sort of record or win some sort of championship. It's the main reason why I wanted to come here." She says, getting up and stretching. Bree gets up with her, looking at all the other people trying out.

"It seems like there's a lot of girls in that program that Anya is in." She says, seeing three other girls talking to her when they stopped running.

"These tryouts are bogus."

"What do you mean they're bogus?" Bree asks, furrowing her brows.

"Hopkins, the coach, has already chosen the team. He just has tryouts to see if anyone could replace anyone on his personal roster. Something about school spirit. Last year, since I was on the team, I was guaranteed a spot this year."

As they were watching more people run, the coach came over to the freshmen to talk to them. He had a clipboard in his hand, he looked annoyed.

"The first meet that we have is next week, freshies. The first cut will be posted after practice. Thanks for coming out." Just by the tone of his voice, Bree knew that none of the freshmen made it on the team.

"The least he could do is invite us to the meet so that we could watch the team run." She mutters to herself.

"Walsh, Smyth, and Vincenzo, can I see you three run?" Bree and Ellie high-fived each other. They're running alongside two other girls that had already been there. When he tells them to go, they all start breezing through the track. Bree, however, was faster than all of them. Even when she would slow down, she would still be faster than all of them. The coach noticed this and when she jogged past him, he made sure that she was Walsh, ready to put her on his roster.

—

After all of the girls showered, they walked out of the locker room just in time to see Hopkins putting up the first line of cuts. Bree and Ellie stood behind everyone, waiting for everyone to stop crowding the bulletin board. When everyone clears it, the two girls take deep breaths before walking closer to it. They all gasp when they see it. Bree made it, while Ellie got cut. Ellie exclaims in disbelief, before storming away.