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"Welcome to Psych 101, I'm Professor Price," her female professor spoke. She was happy, most of her professors were women. Of course it was only her first day of classes, but the three classes she did have were all taught by not only women, but black women.
"I'm not gonna make y'all do some corny ass icebreaker, because that takes too long, and social anxiety is a thing," she spoke, relieving Nayeli. She'd done enough ice breakers for the rest of her entire life. "We're just gonna go over the syllabus today, and I'll assign you a reading, we'll start instruction next class," she continued. Nayeli could tell she'd love this class already.
Once the reading was assigned, she gathered her things, and got ready to go when she felt a tap on her shoulder, shocking her. Her heart rate started to speed up a bit but she took a deep breath, trying to relax a bit before turning around to see a pretty light skinned girl with a baby face smiling back at her.
"Hi! You were at cheer tryouts right?" she spoke melodically, voice matching her face perfectly.
"Um, yeah," she nodded, fidgeting with her fingers.
"I knew it was you! You were so good! You been cheering long?" she grinned. She had a very comforting smile, it reminded Nayeli of her Mimi.
"Thank you," she smiled, "But, uh, kinda? I'm a ballet dancer, but I cheered in high school, and I did a few competitions with my team," she nodded.
During time off, or between ballet shows, she often found herself very bored. She didn't like working out with her cousins or her father because she felt like she was in basketball and football bootcamp, so she told her parents she'd try for cheer.
At first, they were confused. She was so stellar in ballet, and cheer was the polar opposite of that, so they didn't understand why she'd want to cheer. But they encouraged her to do anything she was interested in, and when they saw her at a game for the first time, they were astonished at not only how good she was but how happy she looked. For Nayeli, cheer and ballet gave her the same feeling of release and freedom, but in different ways. Flying through the air in cheer and performing a perfect pirouette at a show brought her the exact same feeling of joy, and she wouldn't trade either for anything.
Cheer also gave her a new way to work through her anxiety. Ballet was more of a solo thing, you only had to worry about the way you moved in the routine and make sure you weren't making the troupe look crazy. But with cheer there was an immense amount of teamwork and shared responsibility, and with that came friendship, and bonds she wouldn't have had if she let her anxiety keep her from tryouts that day.
"Well, I hope we both make it. What's your name?" the girl asked, pushing her curly hair from her face.
"Me too, good luck," Nai spoke genuinely. "I'm Nayeli, what's yours?" she asked as they walked toward the door together.
"Oh, I'm Aubrielle, you can call me Bri Bri, or Bri. Or Aub, even though my boyfriend only calls me Aub, but that's fine," she rambled, walking out behind Nai. "Speaking of his big headed ass," she mumbled with a smile as a darker skinned boy approached them and immediately kissed Aubrielle on the lips.
