Cheerlebrity Confessions

Chapter 1

Peyton and I are stretching on the front lawn, savoring the last minutes of summer before they evaporate and leave us with the harried rush of fall. I'm doing a backbend. I watch her upside down as she does a forward split, bending her head back to touch her leg. Peyton's always been a bit more flexible than me, but I make up for it in tumbling.

At the same moment,unplanned, we both relax from our stretches and roll sideways into the soft grass. We laugh at the coincidence. People routinely mistake us for sisters, thinking a closeness like ours can only be explained by blood.

Peyton sighs and stretches out on her stomach. "I'm worried about the new girls."

I flick her arm. "You always say that. How can you be worried? You're one of the best flyers in Texas."

She shrugs and buries her nose in her folded arms. I love that gesture. It's as familiar to me as the smell of faded bed sheets, as comforting as the molasses cookies my mom makes on Christmas. I feel a sharp pang of sadness. This is the last summer we have together while things are still the same—while Peyton lives ten minutes from my house, and we have another year ahead with the Cheetahs. Next summer everything will have changed. No more Cheetahs. No more reassurance that my best friend will always be around the corner. We'll probably end up at different colleges, a reality so awful it seems to grip my heart with a cold steel fist.

"Well, I'm worried about everything!" I say, rolling onto my back and flinging my arms into the air. "Argh!" I flail my arms about and Peyton laughs.

"Don't worry," she says. "We're gonna make our senior year the best year ever. It'll be epic."

"Speaking of which." I take out my iPhone and pull up The List.

We've been making The List all summer. It includes everything we want to do together before we graduate. We plan to check off each item in order to make our senior year a time we remember for the rest of our lives. My favorites are#7, Do a heel stretch next to the Grand Canyon, and #12, Make matching BFF scrapbooks. The unwritten words at the end of that one: to take to college, so we won't forget each other when we're separated.

"I thought of a new one," I say. "Try that new tapas place in Dallas."

"Love it," Peyton says.

"Girls, smile!" It's my mom on the front stoop, snapping a picture of us on her phone. We scoot closer together and smile. "Cute. I'll send it to you."

She taps on her phone and a moment later the picture pops up in my email. I show it to Peyton before uploading it to Instagram: her in a blue crop top, me in a pink T-shirt. Peyton needs hardly any makeup to make her blue eyes shine,while I've always opted for a soft-around-the-eyes look, which goes well with my brown. Our smiles are as wide and beckoning as our futures. Already the moment of the picture seems far away.

Peyton looks at me, her eyebrows furrowed. "Promise we'll be best friends forever, no matter what happens next year?"

I squeeze her hand and smile. "Promise."