"Goodbye."
"This isn't goodbye, Noelle. This will never be goodbye."
_ _ _
Noelle was the type of girl that you'd see in the halls at school, or in a store at the mall that you would just assume had everything. She was rich, a cheerleader, and had a...
Nervous energy shot through Noelle's veins as she madly threw a gym change into her backpack along with white sneakers. She'd forgotten all about cheer tryouts until Jake had texted her three minutes ago, informing her that Bryce was giving her a ride to school as well.
"Christ on a stick," Emily shuffled into the kitchen in a black silk robe that barely covered her naked body. She was clearly hungover. Her eyes sported bags bigger than the designer ones her older boyfriend bought for her and she spoke quietly, like sounds hurt her, "Why are we running around in the middle of the night?"
"School's in twenty minutes," Noelle gave her sister a once-over and raised her eyebrows, "Really? No shame?"
Emily's lips curled up seductively and she let her arms float up to stretch above her head, "God gave me this, why not flaunt it?"
"Because I'm your sister and don't want to see your boobs?" Noelle winced and cast her eyes toward the floor as she dodged her sister and stalked through the large kitchen to the huge steel fridge to snatch out the bag she'd hastily stuffed with a sandwich the night before.
"Please, you wish you had boobs like these!"
Noelle wished she had boobs period.
Her phone buzzed, and she bit back a long-winded insult.
"You can tell you're adopted!" Noelle yelled over her shoulder as she rushed to the entryway to tug on a pair of shoes before she nearly tripped out the door.
"So were you!"
Noelle simply raised her middle finger in her adoptive sister's direction before slamming the door.
Her cheeks turned pink when she saw Jake grinning at her from the passenger seat of his brother's beat-up pickup truck. She practically skipped down the walkway to the door of the truck.
Jake hopped out of his seat and ushered her into the seat between him and his brother. An uneasy feeling enveloped Noelle as she squished herself between the two boys, her bag squeezed between her knees.
She still wasn't sure how she felt about Bryce after all the time she'd been aware of him. She wouldn't say she really knew him. She'd only just talked to him for the first and only time that Saturday.
"'Morning Noelle," Bryce drawled as Jake slammed the door to the pickup closed. Then, he stomped on the gas.
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Noelle stood with her arms wrapped around her torso protectively. She felt out of her element, standing at the side of the football field with the rest of the girls trying out for cheer. It wasn't like she hadn't done cheer before. In fact, she was probably at a much higher level than the rest of the girls there. High school cheer was nothing compared to the three years of competitive cheer she'd been in.
Mostly, she felt uncomfortable because she didn't know a single one of the girls there. It wasn't the most intimidating group. There was the odd obvious bitch, but most of the other girls either looked bored or scared.
