HOW DID IT END? paige bueckers

19

— REAL LIFE

LEIGHTON PRINCE

"No, no, no! Ladies, this is not at our best capabilities! Stop making excuses, every one of you have this material engraved in your head, prove to me you know it. Let's go again." Coach Lane yelled, waving her finger in the air signifying to restart.

Today was another practice, but unlike others, we could not get our shit figured out. Usually everything goes smoothly, resulting in an early dismissal, or nothing but praise from Coach Lane. Today though? I couldn't even keep count of the small arguments between my teammates, constant snarky comments towards others, making all of us irritated. Plus, it didn't help we couldn't hit our routine. We'd been practicing this routine for almost 2 months now, we were too deep in it to not have it remembered. However, it just wasn't sticking. Someone either would forget a motion, forget the words, or forget the formation, it was a complete mess.

One last thing that was completely taking this practice and turning it around, was the completely and utterly most prissy, aggravating human to exist, Hannah Van Allen. That's right, two last names, that speaks enough for you. I never liked red-heads, and Hannah was just another addition. It didn't help she was perfectly tall, perfectly pretty, and literally perfectly perfect. Hannah complains the entirety of practice, no matter how good of a day we are having. They have all learned to tune her out. I, however am not used to it yet, and I don't think I should be. Someone just needs to bitch-slap her, not tune her out.

Another yell from Coach Lane stops us moving completely. We were halfway through the Band Chant, which is the first order in a Game-day preformance, and we had already fucked up. Groans filled the air around me, coming from many exhausted, sore, and hungry college kids. As I took my head down from looking at the white domed ceiling, Coach Lane's facial expression's said it all.

"Hannah, what are you doing?" Coach Lane glared.

"Oh my god, Olivia is literally in my spot. Everytime we move backwards, we step on each other, because she's in my spot!"

"You're opposite of me Hannah." I groan, throwing my head back. This girl was gonna be the death of me. "You are on the line outside of half-mat, Olivia moves there when we go backwards. Me and you move back to quarter-mat, for the stunt." I tell her.

"I didn't ask for your help, Leighton. By the looks of it, you don't know what you are doing either." She says, looking me up and down with a small smile, like I was her servant.

"Girl, you have no room talking to her like that," Avery butts in, "She's not even been here 3 months and she knows more than you. Next time, talk when you can, not when you want to, no one wants to hear you complain." She finished.

"Oh my God, just shut up and turn around."

We all stared at Hannah with disgust as the hypocrisy continued and continued. We could all tell Coach Lane had no more patience for her, considering she was pacing back and forth in front of the long mat, her hands resting on her hips.

"Alright," Coach began, "Hannah, your whole part in this routine is taken up, Leighton, it's yours now. The tumbling sequences are only in the Fight Song. You will replace Hannah as the flyer in the ending pyramid, you are the new top girl. Hannah, well, I'm moving you to the back for the entirety of the routine. Then you won't get other people's placing messed up with yours. Is that good with y'all?" She points both of her index fingers at me and Hannah, dragging them opposite directions to stretch out the meaning of "y'all."

"Yes Coach." I say quietly, as I heard snickers arise in the room.

After that, I never once did hear Hannah make a comment for the rest of practice.