Beyond Love

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

L: Just laying down in bed. U?

M: On the couch watching tv. I'm sleeping over at Prince's tonight.

L: U guys hung out late or something?

M: Yeah. We were out late so I decided to crash here.

L: At least you're safe

M: Yeah...
Aye, will you meet me after school tomorrow?

L: Sure. Why?

M: I got something to show you.

L: Okay. I'm gonna go to bed now. I'm really tired.

M: Aight Gn

L: Gn

I go into my bag and get my charger for my phone, then I walk to the extension cord outlet where there are other multiple cable cords connected. I found a free space to plug my phone in and put it on the side of the coffee table.

Latasha's POV

I told my mother about me trying out for cheerleading. She was pretty nonchalant about it, but she wished me luck in making it on the team. As of lately, my mother and I have been in a struggle. I noticed every time I come home either on time or late, she starts to argue with me about where I've been, or about the little things I forgot to do before I left home. Such as taking the trash out, keeping shoes out of the hallway, or remembering to keep my towel from falling on the floor. As far as her asking where I was, she's been very overprotective of me. I understand we live back on the South Side now, but she needs to let go because I'm a teenager now and I can handle myself getting home. Man, I miss her working late sometimes. With her being at home after 4 pm, all I know she's been doing is having a drink of alcohol a lot. Sometimes I think of what happened to the mother that I used to know. How did she get to be this type of person? Hopefully one day she will get back to normal, or something good would come up with her.

A new week of school and I manage to get to the second half of cheer tryouts. My scores came out as 29/30. I'm in the middle of warm-ups as I have a small conversation with Ciara, who came out with a perfect score of 30/30. Honestly, I didn't think I would make it because of her, but I got lucky to come in close. I stood up from the group and went over to my bookbag and pulled out my hair scrunch twist to let out my natural curly 18 in hair. I am wearing bright, gray sweatpants with a white tank top. About 60 of the girls have made it on the team, but Kaylaa mentioned that she needs to cut the size in half. We finished our warm-ups and now it's time for Kaylaa to set the agenda for the rest of the tryouts.

"Alright y'all, today for choreography we're gonna do a dance battle between two groups. I will pick 2 of you as leaders and from there you pick your people to be in a group with you," Kaylaa announces and she looks at her clipboard. She calls them names, "Latasha and Ciara. You two will be the leaders and you can choose whoever is in your group from there."

Great. More competition I have to keep up with. I was nervous that she called me. I wasn't expecting to be the leader of the dance group. Forgot there were also some boys trying out too. I picked a few guys on my team. After I got my group together, I met up to maybe over 30 members each. They were all very nice and we got to know each other to break the ice and work together on ideas on what we can bring to the battle. Kaylaa was observing us on how we can work together as a team captain is expecting. Kaylaa made sure she played the song on repeat so we can get the moves and steps in rhythm. She also let us have an option for us to use props she had set out on the sidelines of the gym. It took about 45 minutes to 1 hour of coming up with dance moves and practicing, then Kaylaa came with an announcement.