Till Death Do Us Part {Completed}

Chapter Two - Life of the Party

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Dedicated to 1olMichelle for the amazing banner to the side! I love it :) Thanks, hun. x 

~Chapter Two - Life of the Party~

I loved football games. I was one of those girls that enjoyed the popcorn and corndogs and excitement and cheering and bleachers.

 I couldn’t see why some people only pictured beefy, sweaty meatheads running back and forth on a green field, passing a brown oval ball around. It was about so much more than that. The socializing, supporting your team, eating food, consuming drinks, the excitement as the last seconds dialed down and everyone leant forward in unison.

 Maybe that was why I decided to become a cheerleader.

 All I knew was that, on that Friday night, I stood on the sidelines in my red-and-white cheerleading kit, my feet clad in bright white tennis shoes. My hair was tied back in a curled ponytail, and I swayed around to the crowd, as the whole team got ready for the game.

 “Let’s start cheering, girls,” I told the group of assembled cheerleaders. “Kitty, Sasha, Maria, stick to the left. Laura, Mickey, Brittney, stick to the right. And Ariel, Emma, Gabbi, stick to the middle. And, Hayley, I’m trusting you as a boost for the top of the pyramid, just like we practiced, okay?”

 Hayley flashed me a quick thumbs-up, and the girls dispersed to their positions. I stood up the front and watched as everyone turned their attention to us. The boys were still back in the changing-rooms, getting pre-game pep talks and running drills. It was our job to entertain everyone while they waited.

 I clapped my hands together three times, and the snap reverberated through the stadium. After counting four beats in my head, we chanted in perfect rhythm. “Who are we? We’re the wolves. Now let’s shout it from the roofs. We will win, there’s no doubt. We’re about to beat you out. W-O-L-V-E-S. You heard right, we’re the best. W-O-L-V-E-S. What does that spell? Wolves!”

 Yes, that was the lame cheer I had come up with when I was drunk one Friday night after I had been elected head cheerleader. Apparently I submitted it whilst still inebriated and was stuck with the terrible chant for the rest of my high school career—which, thankfully, wasn’t long now.

 Just then, the football players started running out, hooting and cheering and trying to raise the enthusiasm as they took their positions on the field. The crowd went wild, and the girls and I continued cheering loudly as the game began and the klaxon rang out.

 As the game progressed, I watched Lucas with adoring eyes as he handled the ball skillfully and scored many touchdowns. His left in command, Regent, stayed close by his side to protect the quarterback they basically worshipped. He was in charge of making sure no one got near my man.

 From what I had heard, before I arrived at Hopetown, the team went through a rough patch a while back when they lost ten games in a row. Then their head quarterback—and also Lucas’s best friend—Finn McDermott, went missing, and Lucas was forced to take over the role as quarterback.

 This happened three months before I arrived, but Lucas was still pretty torn up about the sudden, unexplained disappearance of his best friend.

 Apparently one day they were at a party when Finn suddenly disappeared out the back door, and no one saw where he went.

 He was never seen again.

 Search parties were sent out, door-to-door knockers, donations, shrines, the works. He was a big part of the town, and worshipped by everyone in the town. He was the wholesome, homegrown, boy-next-door that everyone wanted to know, and the whole town was devastated when suddenly he went missing.