flightless ━ kevin day

V. Sidelines

five                               sidelines

𐦍༘⋆

It had been two weeks since Neil arrived, and time had stretched out like summer itself had decided to melt, slow and thick, over everything. The heat clung to the days with a sticky persistence. It was the kind of summer where the world blurred at the edges, weighed down by the heavy press of the shimmering air and cicada song, their relentless hum like the soundtrack to hours that bled into one another, the minutes oozing forward like honey dripping too slow to catch. Even the tension simmering between everyone felt dulled, as though the heat had leached the energy out of the arguments before they could even spark. Those two weeks had passed in a way that felt both infinite and suspended, as if nothing could move fast enough to break the stillness of it all.

Ali had finally ditched Jonah for good once Abby cleared her for night practices, as if the permission slip came with an unspoken understanding to cut ties with anything dragging her down. She didn't need to keep distractions around in case she got bored. But even the night practices weren't doing much to make the days go by faster. Even under the stadium lights, with sweat running down her spine, nothing moved fast enough. Practice was slow, like the heavy heat of summer had crawled inside Ali's bones and slowed everything down. The start of the semester loomed on the horizon, a distant promise of change that still felt too far away. She wasn't seeing the progress she wanted, not in her tumbling, not in anything. Each failed pass was a reminder that her body wasn't responding the way it used to. Limbo had settled in, and every day felt like she was running in place, waiting for something to shake her out of the slow-motion trap of summer.

Ali had been marking the days with the same impatience that comes with watching a storm roll in—eager for the release, the break in the unbearable stillness. The semester's start wasn't just a date on the calendar; it was a lifeline, a promise that the silence in her chest would soon be drowned out by the pulse of her team. Without them, she was adrift—just her and the mat, the echo of her body's betrayal reverberating in the space between failed stunts. But with them? She could remember how to breathe. Her teammates were more than hands catching her mid-air; they were the gravity that kept her grounded, the rhythm that pulled her back into the flow. She needed them now more than ever, like a heartbeat she'd been trying to match her own to, hoping that maybe, just maybe, with them, she could stitch the pieces of herself back together.

Ali had always known that her body was more than just her own—it belonged not just to herself, but also to her teammates, like an extension of their collective force. As a child, she had learned the delicate balance of control and trust, how every twist of her limbs was mapped not just by her mind but by the watchful eyes of her teammates. They knew her body's story better than anyone. They saw the small cracks before the stunts, the flicker of nerves in her knuckles before she launched herself into the air. And when she flew, they were there, their hands waiting, like gravity didn't exist unless they said it did. The connection between them was fluid, a machine perfectly in tune with its parts, each move calculated, each muscle a cog in the relentless pursuit of grace. They all knew their roles and their partners' bodies as well as their own.

But after the injury, her body became something alien, something she couldn't trust or understand. It was like looking at a familiar landscape and realizing you'd forgotten the way home. Everything was unfamiliar, every movement a betrayal of what once felt natural. Muscles that once snapped to her will now faltered, uncertain. It was as if her body was communicating in a language she no longer understood, each flip, each leap, foreign to the sharp confidence she once owned. Gravity itself seemed to have shifted, pulling at her differently now, making her second-guess every landing. Muscles she once commanded with ease now hesitated, betraying her in small, infuriating ways. Her body, once a finely-tuned instrument of power, one that executed flips and stunts with flawless precision, had become foreign, uncooperative. Where there had been speed and grace, now there was awkwardness, fragility. Every move required thought, calculation. Cheerleaders were trained to fight through pain, to land even when their body screamed at them to fall.