Duality

Chapter 1- MVP

"They've declared me MVP!"

She looked up from her carnival food on her lap and finished chewing. "Masturbates with vibrating phones?" she asked, swallowing.

"No..." I said, giving her a suspicious look. "Most valuable player."

She took a bite of her corndog and chewed slowly, thinking something over. "It makes sense," she said nodding, "I mean- you're rich... Plus you've stuck your tongue down most of the throats of the girls in our school. You seem like a rather perfect valuable player."

"Ha ha, very funny." I sat down on the bench beside her and blocked the glare of the late afternoon sun from my eyes with my hand. "In basketball," I said bluntly.

She threw her head back and scrunched her eyes. "Oh! Right! Well that too, of course." She downed the rest of her root beer from the bottle, sending a brown shimmer similar to light from stained glass across her face. "So you starting all the games now?"

I sighed and looked across the boardwalk at the ocean, listening to a few rusted buoys' bells clanging in time with the waves. "No, I'm alternating with Gorman. He's been bitching about it in the locker room ever since Coach Harris announced it."

"Aw, he wants you to be in the open line up that badly?"

"You know what I mean," I grumbled, leaning forward on my knees. The boardwalk wasn't ever crowded these days. I remembered back when business was booming, the days when the Ferris wheel was always operating. To the left, the oldest ride on the pier stood stalk still, creating the most complex silhouette I've ever seen against the blazing pink sky.

"You know," she said, tossing her garbage from her lap to the sidewalk and leaning back. "I was thinking about try outs..." She cleared her throat and crossed her legs. "And I was thinking about going out for the girls' side of what you do."

I looked over my shoulder at her with a quizzical expression. "Girls' basketball try outs are over- they ended last Thursday."

She squirmed and uncrossed her legs, pulling her baseball cap further over her eyes. "N-no... I mean, um, cheerleader try outs."

I felt my mouth fall open, but I couldn't figure out how to make it close. "Cheerleading? Cheerleading? You? You, Blythe Ann Baker?"

She cleared her throat and hid father in her windbreaker. "Yes, me. Ch-cheerleading. I thought it would be something good to put on my- my college application."

I blinked in disbelief. Blythe? A cheerleader? She had to be joking. I looked at the old boarded up shops up and down the pier and the slowly turning Ferris wheel that had just started its nightly mechanical check. The sun was slowly drowning on the horizon, sending flares of vibrant colors swimming across the sky. I looked back at her.

She was staring at me intently, expressionless, waiting for me to say something. The deep orange rays of the setting sun made her green eyes glow super naturally. I blew a stray curl of hair out of my face through the corner of my mouth.

"Sounds good to me."