Prithika Singh would have told you that her love life was going great. After all, who could argue that the pretty cheerleader and the handsome quarterback with their sweet year-long relationship were anything less than a dream couple?
But Prithika i...
AUTHOR'S NOTE: So! Long time no see, haha. I had, to put it lightly, a lot going on in my personal life since I last updated, but things have calmed down a bit more. Without further ado, here's Chapter 6!
During my next update I'll be bringing y'all a super cute new cover that a friend of mine made.
The color in the header is for red velvet cupcakes! I think the color picker that pops up when you google "color picker" switched up the whole hex code being displayed on the actual color thing, so if you're interested, the hex code for this particular shade is #ad0011.
Enjoy!
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"Hey, Erica," Laila called to a blond cheerleader, whom Prithika recognized as one of the people in the search party sent out for her on Monday, in the front row. "You were off by just a beat, starting at the twirl. Show me that part again?"
Laila said the chant, very loosely going through the routine with her, and Erica complied. She was right; Erica was slightly out of sync.
"You're taking an extra beat for the step before your twirl. It should be smooth, in one go."
"Oh! Okay." Erica did it one more time, perfectly in tune with the chant. "Like this?" she asked, a couple of moves after the twirl.
"Yes! Nice job." Laila flashed her a smile.
Laila wasn't exactly a cheerleader, not in the conventional sense. All the way back in freshman year, when Aurora and Prithika were talking about joining while watching a practice session, Laila had taken a look at the crop tops and the short skirts and jokingly said, with one of her classic toothy grins, "Sorry, I'm way too Muslim for that." Of course, you could totally be Muslim and wear whatever you wanted, she elaborated later. It was just, well, she didn't want to based on the way she practiced her religion and culture as an African American Muslim. So, at the beginning, Laila Jefferson kept her distance from cheerleading.
Then, one day, just after their first practices in, Prithika and Aurora had come to her house practically in tears. Apparently some rich kid had pressured the school into diverting some funds to the lacrosse team for better equipment or something. The cheerleading squad would have to be cut down, probably to just upperclassmen, which was ridiculous because then how could the team keep going if new recruits weren't able to join and attain the skill level of the older members?
As Laila spiraled some homemade frosting on her fresh batch of cupcakes, and as her tragedy-stricken friends devoured them, an idea started mixing up and rolling around in her mind. "How much would you be willing to pay for those cupcakes?" she asked them.
Aurora thought this over. "Like, emotionally? Literally I'd rob a billionaire for a few crumbs. Realistically? These are a nice size and really good, so I could totally see these in one of those fancy shops for maybe three or four dollars apiece or something."
