At 11:59 // h.s

Chapter 6

-Grace-

Even though classes haven't even started, I was already loving college. I had so much more freedom.

One of the best parts, was my mom not being here to say, "Practice your piano!" or "Do your homework!" or "Clean your room!" and many more pointless tasks. After 18 years of living with her, I kind of learned how to tune her out.

We had our first cheer practice today and I was so excited.

Stacy and I drove towards the athletic building.

When we got there, there was about 30 other girls who were already stretching on the green turf.

"Hello girls, my name is Mrs. Warner and I'm the UCLA cheer sponsor. I'm so excited to be working with such a great group of athletes and I know we're going to have a great year!"

She kept talking for awhile while we stretched. We have practice everyday until classes start from 7:00-12:00. Wow I'm gonna be drained.

After we stretched she told us to get into 3 separate groups: bases, back spots, and flyers.

I'm not tall enough to be a back spot, so I usually base. I've been doing cheer pretty much my whole life, so I've flown a few times too, but it's scary. But looking at all of the girls here, I don't think we'll have enough flyers.

I moved to the base group. There were 6 flyers, 15 bases and 7 back spots. We were going to have 7 stunt groups, which meant that there was an extra base and not enough flyers....

"You in the green shirt," Mrs Warner pointed to me, "have you ever flown?"

"Um.. yes ma'am," I nervously replied.

"We'll try you out as a flyer," she said the words I dreaded to hear.

I had been dropped before and it's terrifying.

I looked at the other bases and none of the were as small as me. I slowly walked over to the flyers. None of the other cheerleaders have even spoken to me, except Stacy, who was also a flyer.

Mrs Warner paired the bases together by height and then put the shorter back spots with the shorter bases and the taller back spots with the taller bases.

Stunt group pairing was a little difficult in college, because none of us have ever cheered together, unlike high school, where I had the same stunt group all 4 years.

Mrs Warner pointed to 3 girls and told me to go there.

My bases were Kathleen and Macy and my back spot was Chelsea. They didn't look like they liked me very much.

We started warming up and doing simple stunts. I did pretty good, considering I haven't flown in 3 years.

"Ok now we're going to go to some more difficult stunts. Does everybody have a full down?" Mrs Warner asked.

All of the flyers nodded. I used to do some pretty difficult stunts. I had double full downs, libs, full ups, over extended heel stretches and much more.

We continued doing more and more stunts. We had surpassed all of the other groups on difficulty. Some were struggling to get quarter ups.

"Wow I'm impressed," Mrs Warner complimented my stunt group.

The first practice was pretty good. We started a team group message and by the time I got to the car, my phone was already blowing up. This was going to get old soon.

"That was a great first practice!" Stacy exclaimed.

"Yea I know!" I replied.

"Your such an amazing flyer! Your doing stunts that no one has even attempted at UCLA! But lucky for you, your bases are really strong and your back spot actually catches you." she complained.

"Does yours not?" I asked.

"I got dropped 3 times today! And my bases have chicken arms!" she said.

"Oh my gosh," I chuckled lightly.

"I overheard some of the seniors talking to Mrs Warner and they said that you would definitely be at the top and in the middle of our big stunt."

What she said surprised me. Usually freshman are on the very edge or the back. I hated the idea of thousands of people looking at me.

-Harry-

When I woke up, I realized I was on the couch of the apartment. Niall walked in and handed me a glass of water.

"What happened?" I asked, not remembering when I fell asleep.

"I got home at about 2:00 and you were passed out in front of the door. There was a note for you."

That's when I remembered. Blacking out after reading the note.

How could this happen? I thought he would never find me again. I went to extreme measures to make sure he couldn't track me down. And when I say extreme, I mean extreme. I moved states, changed schools, tried to change my name, but failed when I realized I needed a legal parent or guardian's permission.

"Who is this note from?" Niall asked in his thick Irish accent while examining the note.

"I..uhh...it's from an... old friend," I lied.

"Well ok then," he shrugged.

I grabbed my keys and headed out the door.

"Where are you going?" Niall asked.

I didn't answer. I just walked out the door without another word.