Cheerleaders Don't Cry

6

Albert Cooper
My mom took away my car keys as a way of grounding me, but it wasn't that much of a punishment. The last thing I wanted to do was leave the house and risk seeing somebody from school. I spent the entire week of my suspension holed up in my room, trying to distract myself by doing homework and reading ahead in my AP textbooks. It worked for the most part, with the exception being Oliver, who came over every day after school bearing the homework that I'd missed, as well as the daily gossip. He told me about all of the whispers going around school, describing the two seniors who were stupid enough to vandalize school property when graduation was still seven months away. Additionally, he congratulated me on being ballsy enough to do something worthy of suspension, and with an accomplice none other than Marcy Hannon. Marcy, who - up until now - had been the last person on earth I'd ever be seen with.

When I asked about Kathy, all he did was shake his head and say, "You guys should really talk."
That was the priority of my agenda on Monday morning, my first day back at school. I had just exited the office after picking up my mandatory community service schedule (2 hours every Friday, 5 hours every Saturday) when I saw her blond ponytail turn down the hallway. Kathy looked up and saw me almost immediately, her expression hardening on sight. I had only just taken a step towards her when somebody wearing a pleated white and blue cheerleading uniform moved into my way.
Marcy smiled. She had ribbons in her ponytail and was wearing more makeup than usual today. My nose began to itch; she had also applied an unnecessarily large amount of perfume.
I quickly looked over her shoulder. Kathy had already turned around and walked in the opposite direction of me. I didn't know whether she had seen Marcy or not, but I knew that the situation sucked either way.
Marcy frowned in a pout. "What? Not happy to see me?"
"No, not really," I said, still looking over her shoulder watching Kathy walk away.
Marcy followed my gaze and rolled her eyes. "Seriously? You're still caught up in that? It's been what, a week now?"
"You may not know this, Marcy," I said as I stepped around her. "But it takes longer than a week us actual human beings to stop 'being caught up' in someone."
Marcy made some indignant sound and started to move towards the office entrance, but then caught sight of the sheet in my hand. "Is that our assignments?"
I tucked the sheet away quickly, folding it into the pocket of my jeans. "No, it's my assignment. Your's is probably still in the office." I glanced at her cheerleading uniform. "Why do you look like you stepped out of the movie 'Bring it On'?"
"Pep rally during 7th hour for the basketball team." Marcy nodded down the hallway in the direction where Kathy went. "You should sit by Kathy, I'm sure that'd be supremely awkward. But you actual human beings know how to handle awkwardness, don't you?"
A retort had just reached my tongue when she disappeared into the office, the door clicking shut behind her.

***

Marcy Hannon
My week of suspension was easier than I'd originally expected. It felt more like a vacation than anything. I spent the days watching TV in my room and went out a couple of nights to some parties downtown. Normally I wouldn't go out on a school night because of the inevitable hangover the next day, but with five days of no school, I was free to do whatever. Mom spent most nights at the hospital and spent most of the day sleeping on the couch, so it was easy to avoid her.
The one annoying reminder of school was Travis, who persistently texted me over my week of freedom. Amber had started doing a community service project after school feeding homeless people or something, so I had to fill in the empty slots she left in his schedule. It had gotten too exhausting by Wednesday, so after that I put my phone in one of my dresser drawers and ignored it. I knew that he'd be irritated after four days of cheater silence, so by Monday morning I'd come up with a foolproof excuse.
"I didn't get your texts."
Travis didn't look like he believed me when I told him, but he was in no position to question me. I wasn't the one cheating on my girlfriend, after all.
After sixth hour ended, all the students headed towards the gym for the pep rally. By the time I showed up in the girls lockerroom, it was already bubbling over in chaos. There were a total of 35 cheerleaders; 20 on junior varsity, 15 on varsity. Put them all in the same lockerroom, and it's a total nightmare. About 10 girls were crowded in front of the mirrors fixing their makeup or adjusting their uniform, another ten were crowding the benches doing each other's hair, and the rest were trying to get dressed without bumping into somebody else.
I'd been doing this for four years, so I had solid practice on how to get in and out of the lockerroom in one piece. The key was: don't look at anybody. Keep your eyes on the ground and go to the furthest corner of the room, because then you have two walls to protect you.
I focused my eyes on the floor and had just made it through about half of the room when a person stepped out of nowhere and rammed straight into me. As luck would have it, the person was also carrying a plastic bottle of red pop - the red pop, according to the laws of intertia, having nowhere to go in this sudden stop but all over the front of my white uniform.
"Fuck!" I said, taking a step back. The front of my uniform was drenched, sticky red soda dripping from my shirt onto the floor.
I looked up, ready to pound whoever had their head too far up their ass to watch where they were going - and froze.
Big brown doe eyes, shiny black hair, smooth dark skin.
Amber.
Holding a now mostly-empty bottle of red pop.
Apologies immediately began pouring from her mouth. "OhmyGod, I am so sorry, I didn't see you, this was completely my fault--"
"It's-it's fine. Don't worry about it." My voice sounded choked, stuck in my throat. I quickly moved past her and started heading to my locker to find another uniform top. The noise had died down in the lockerroom, now that half the people were watching me. Us. Me and Amber.
Oh God.
I've never confronted the girlfriend before she found out. Never. Never never never, and I've definitely never had them apologize to me, for crying out loud.
Amber was still full of apologies as she followed me to my locker. "It was a total accident, I swear - here, you can borrow one of my tops, I have an extra."
"Oh, you don't have to - " She had already darted back and forth between her locker and me to grab a top. It was a little wrinkled from being at the bottom of her locker, but it was about my size and it was clean. " - do that." I coughed to clear the stiffness in my throat and took the top from her outstretched hand. "Thanks."

I set my backpack down and peeled my drenched top off. Amber still hadn't left. "What's equanimity?" she asked as I put the clean shirt on. I gave her a confused look as I opened my locker. "Your tattoo. On your back," she clarified."Oh. Um - " If I was being completely honest, I had completely forgotten about the tattoo, let alone what it said or what it meant. I shrugged and looked at my reflection in my locker mirror. I had touched up my makeup during 5th hour and my hair looked all right. The top Amber had given me was a little bigger than my normal size, but I doubted than anybody would notice. "Beats me," I said. Amber looked like she was about to say something, but then we heard a booming voice echoing from the gym - the principal, indicating the start of the pep rally. All the girls immediately assembled into a single file line, with Josephine Pritchett, the squad captain, at the head. I shut my locker door, picked up my blue and white pom-poms, and left Amber to go find my place in line. Within a couple of minutes, we came out the doors and onto the gym floor, smiles frozen on our faces and pom-poms waving in the air. The basketball team was already out, shooting hoops and passing several balls in some kind of routine. We passed them and got into formation in front of the center of the bleachers. The JV girls separated from the line and started chanting as they made poses and shook their pom-poms. The varsity girls began to perform our first routine, the pyramid. The sturdier girls formed a line of four at the bottom, and three girls stood on top of them. Josephine and Amber formed the next line of two, and the final girl wasMe. It'd made sense the first time we planned it out. We'd build a pyramid, and then the girl at the top would do a somersault off of it that'd make the crowd go crazy. I was the best at flips, so I was the one on top. We'd done it a bunch of times, both in practice and in rallies. But this time, something felt off. My hands felt clammy and my legs were shaky as I climbed to the top of the pyramid. And then, just as I was about to step on top, I made eye contact with Amber. And she smiled. I bit my tongue and the taste of blood soon filled my mouth. I quickly looked away and got to the top, the smile fallen from my face. I raised my hands into the air, and then jumped forwards, tucking my knees to my chest and tumbling up and over in the air. The hard gym floor came rushing up at me and I unfolded my legs quickly, my feet making a solid connection with the ground. Of course the audience cheered. They always cheer. But I couldn't see them. I couldn't hear them. I just kept replaying that single moment in my head, that smile. And every time I did, I felt something I haven't felt since freshman year. Guilt.