Worlds Divided | j. baker

eighteen

With only about two days of cheer practice with the Beverly cheer team, Alondra was out in front of the crowd during a football game. The chants and cheers were actually really easy to learn for her because they were pretty basic things that majority of high schools did— of course, replacing school names, mascots, colors, etc— and Crenshaw cheers were more complicated, original, and created by their coach, who went to an HBCU.

The Beverly cheer coach and team were actually really surprised that Alondra managed to memorize everything with only 2 practices, but she was doing an amazing job with hyping up the crowd. That could've been the fact that she was really loud and everyone could hear her, or the fact that she managed to get an entire crowd to do chants—something the cheerleaders never do.  She had so much energy, but it's just something she's been doing her entire life.  It felt weird wearing a blue and white uniform instead of a green and yellow uniform, but she just smiled her way through it.  At some point, she even saw her "family" in the crowd.  She was cool with her siblings, especially Ruben and Lily, Madison was a work in progress, but once she found out that Rachel was the mistress and knew about the family already, she was ready to out Antonio's training to good use.

To the crowd, it was just another football game, but to the players, this was getting them one step closer to getting into the playoffs.  For the majority of the game, the scores were extremely close. There were only a couple minutes left and Beverly was behind but just a couple of points and people are beginning to get nervous.  It also didn't help that there was tension between Jordan and Asher, so whenever Jordan threw a ball, it didn't work in favor of Asher.  From the sidelines, Alondra thought that if it wasn't for all of the protective padding they wore, Asher definitely would've had a lot of broken bones.  Actually, even with the padding, she thought that one of his ribs had broken because of how hard he was tackled.

With only two seconds left in the game, Beverly had 20 points and Culver had 24. Spencer had managed to run the ball to the 20 yard line, so they had one shot to run the ball from the 20 yard line to the end zone. "All they have to do is occupy the safety that's been going after Asher and having Jordan run the ball."

The girls on the team turned to Alondra with faces of confusion. "I thought quarterbacks only threw the ball?"

"Oh, honey." Alondra turned back to the game and Watch the players get ready, hoping that Spencer had the same idea as she did, seeing as he's the one that taught her everything she knows about football. Sure enough, that's the exact same play that happened and had Jordan making the winning touchdown. The team excitedly cheered while the band and cheerleaders broke out into their victory song and cheer.

Once all the celebration had ended, everyone kind of split off onto their own for a while. Some of the family members came on the field, some people left, but all the football players had to stay on the field. "Yo, Alo!"

Helmet in hand, Jordan jogged through the crowd of people over to Alondra who was in the middle of packing her stuff up. "Hey, superstar. Congrat- oh, Jesus."

Jordan wrapped his arms around her and lifted Alondra up, swinging her around out of excitement while her feet dangled above the floor. "I told you you would be a good luck charm."

"No, I think that was all you being a good quarterback." Jordan bent over to gently put Alondra back on the floor. He went to say some thing, but he was interrupted by Armando calling her name. They were waving her over, signaling that they were all ready to leave already.

"Wait, are you coming out tonight? JJ's going to do the-"

"The Muy Fuego Challenge? Yeah, I'm doing it with him."

"Wait, what?"

Alondra nodded. "I've grown up eating spicy food my entire life, so I have a high tolerance." Her name was called, again, so her smile. left her face. "I'll meet you there, promise. And tell JJ I'm winning." She quickly leaned up to kiss his slightly sweaty cheek then turned around with her cheer bag.

× × ×

After a shower, Alondra met up with everyone else and immediately went to JJ's table while Ruben and Madison went with their friends. Minutes before, JJ had ordered 2 orders of the Blazing Hot Wings, and within minutes of Alondra arriving, they were set on the table. Their friends had surrounded them, and someone started a timer for 2 minutes. Alondra was eating normally—yet quickly—but the second the sauce touched JJ's mouth, his face started turning red. While JJ was sweating and chewing fast, Alondra was just making her way through the food.

"Did she not get the spicy ones?  Is this rigged?"

JJ was panting, looking at Alondra in disbelief and chewing before reaching over to grab one of hers.  Spencer walked over, interested in what his friends were doing, but also trying to make it look like he was working.  "Dude, I gave up going against her with spicy food a long ass time ago."

Alondra finisher her last wing and wiped her fingers on a napkin before drinking her water out of a straw and watching JJ. Once the two minutes had ended, JJ was already chugging a pitcher as everyone cheered him on. "I'm never doing that again, Jesus Christ."

"I don't know, it was kinda fun." Alondra said nonchalantly. JJ just glared at her in response while she started laughing. Her phone started vibrating on the table from an unknown number, so she picked it up and walker outside since it was quieter.

"Londra?"

"Marcos? Are you guys okay? Did they tell you they found dad? He has 3 kids and 2 of them are my age! But I keep guilt tripping him into giving me money since he hasn't paid anything. Are you guys okay?"

Marcos softly laughed at the urgency in her voice and the fact that, she wanted to tell her everything that has happened.  "We're all good, but our lawyer bailed because according to her, we don't stand a chance in court because we're like every other family that came to America."

Alondra froze for a second and then sat down on out of the outside couches.  "What does that mean?"

"We're getting sent back to Mexico next week."

i dont think i told yall, but I made one of her personality traits fighting, so there's at least three fistfights planned in my head rn 🥰
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