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JACKIE RECEIVED HER cheer uniform that afternoon. She wasn't even sure if she wanted to be on the team, but Chrissy and Heather and even Sandra were cheering for her in the locker room—it felt good. She felt accepted, liked. And she liked the uniform, white and green and almost too flattering on her. She turned in the mirror again, and Heather approached her with a grin.
"So? What do you think?"
"I think you need to be a lawyer or something," Jackie told her. "I mean, seriously. How am I even here right now?"
"I'm a good persuader," Heather shrugged.
"More like peer pressure-r."
Heather pointed at her. "Not a word. And do you really think I could've forced you into this? If you truly didn't want to be here, you wouldn't."
"How could you possibly know that?"
"Because I'm just like you," she shrugged. "The new girl with no friends. I didn't have anyone to be my saving grace, not until middle school. I wanted to be yours."
"Need I remind you that you were mean when you met me?"
Heather waved her off. "Yeah, water under the bridge."
"I should be saying that," Jackie snorted, but Heather was dragging her out of the locker room and into the gym. The rest of the girls were stretching and doing warm-ups, the boys on the basketball team were dribbling, and Jackie spotted Steve yelling out commands. She hadn't realized he was captain, not until she read the back of his jersey.
For a moment, a lump caught in her throat. Quickly, she swallowed it, forcing gaze elsewhere and listening to Jasmine go over the choreography.
It was dusk by the time Jackie found her way into the parking lot—not because it was late, but because the sun set so early in November. She didn't have that problem in California, it was light until the late hours of the day. She missed that. And she missed not having to warm her car up, too.
Except the engine rutted when she turned the key. She tried it again. And again. Frustrated, she jabbed it into the ignition one last time and slammed her head back into headrest.
"You've got to be joking."
The school office was long past closed, she couldn't use a phone—and she didn't have any change for the phone booth. Then, she caught movement to her left.
