by Taylor Hart
Sammy nodded.
The music blasted through the speaker: “Girl, she’s on fire!”
Sammy leapt into the air to start it off and then transitioned into a backflip.
“Whoo!” some of the girls on the cheer team yelled.
She did her kick routine, then danced and turned and hit all the moves. She was a pro, she told herself. She’d practiced this routine many times. She forced a smile as the music died down and started shouting out the cheer. “We!” She clapped. “We are the Lions!” She clapped twice. “We are proud and fast. We will last and last and last!” She did another leap into the air and then went into a back layout. She hit it perfectly.
Her squad clapped—well, most of them did. Tiffany and Kira, who were standing on the edge to her right, were less enthusiastic; Tiffany’s arms were folded and her face seemed stuck in a glare.
Distracted, Sammy missed her cue, but she easily covered by starting into the pirouettes she’d planned, and then she flung her right leg into the air, holding her ankle and keeping her leg up. She did three turns, then flipped into an aerial.
For a flash, she felt free. It was the high she got from doing gymnastics, that feeling that she could let go.
When she landed and rushed to the corner of the tryout spot to do another run of gymnastics, she spotted Karl, who was watching. As she took her place to the side, he held up his helmet and shook it in the air, showing his support.
She smiled and launched into another run of gymnastic moves. If anything would win her the captain position, it was her gymnastics. She was a flyer because she was one of the smallest girls, but she was also just an all-around good dancer and performer. She knew she was good. She’d been training for this for a long, long time. Cheerleading was her life.
She was on her last run; this one would wow them. “Take back my life song!” blared through the speaker.
“You suck!”
Sammy nearly stumbled at Tiffany’s shout. Their eyes met, and Sammy couldn’t believe the hatred that shone in her best friend’s eyes.
Her focus came back and she ran and then leapt into the moves, but she was distracted. She finished the round off and turned to do the aerial when she heard Tiffany call out again: “Loser!”
Karl was moving toward the group.
Sammy seethed with embarrassment and anger. She couldn’t just let Tiffany get away with doing that during her routine, which was going perfectly. As she did the final back half through the air, she flipped off Tiffany.
She stuck the landing, and the music stopped. Some of the girls clapped, and Megan and Liz and Sadie were laughing hysterically.
Kira was scowling at her. Tiffany just looked ticked, like normal. She crossed her arms.
“What is going on?” Ms. Montlake exclaimed, walking toward her, still holding the phone she’d used to record the routine. She always recorded their routines so they could learn from them.
Dang, Sammy had forgotten the recording part. “Sorry,” she said quickly.
Ms. Montlake gave her an incredulous look. She turned to the group. “Discussion. Now!” It was what she usually said to the whole group before a cheer competition.
Everyone moved closer.
“Faster!” she shouted at all of the girls. She turned her back to the rest of the team and gave Tiffany a pointed look, then Sammy. “I recorded that, and I don’t know what the heck just happened, but Tiffany and Sammy, your behavior is not acceptable.”
Neither of them said anything.
Ms. Montlake stared Tiffany down. “You can’t just yell things out during a performance. That’s called bullying. It was rude and mean.”
Tiffany looked at the ground.
“And I have it on camera,” Ms. Montlake said, addressing Sammy. “The nice little flip-off.”
Hold back the tears. Hold back the tears.
Ms. Montlake shook her head, disgusted.
“You all know Claire and Jamie got suspended last week for doing a mean prank.”
Sammy and Tiffany exchanged a look, and Tiffany’s sad facade dissolved into irritation.
“I will not tolerate this kind of behavior from any of you,” Ms. Montlake continued.
Sammy glared through the tears filling her eyes. She always cried when she got really angry or she was really hurt, and she hated that.
Tiffany pointed at Sammy. “It’s her fault. She’s been so mean—just ask anyone.”
Sammy growled. She didn’t know what had gotten in her friend’s business, but she wouldn’t put up with this. “Oh, shut up, Tiffany!”
It happened so fast. Tiffany closed the distance between them, grabbed Sammy’s hair with both hands, and yanked. Sammy thrashed as if she’d been attacked by a mugger, kicking Tiffany and pushing her away. The pain intensified; Tiffany hadn’t let go of her hair. “I hate you!” Tiffany shouted.
“Girls!” Ms. Montlake shrieked, trying to break them up.
Sammy’s head wobbled back and forth, so she grabbed at whatever she could reach. Her fingers ended up tangled in Tiffany’s hair. The rest of the team surrounded them, all yelling out.
After what felt like a million hair-pulls, the team helped separate them.
Ms. Montlake looked exasperated.
Sammy stood, anger still surging through her. The look on Tiffany’s face clearly matched her own. How could Tiffany be so spoiled and selfish?
“Are you okay?” Kira stood by Tiffany’s side, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Was she okay? So Kira was clearly on Tiffany’s side. Emotion stuck in the back of her throat, but she pushed it down. Way down.
Sadie let out a loud laugh. “They are the problem. Clearly. The mean girls.”
Ms. Montlake glared at the three former best friends. “I don’t know what is going on, Tiffany and Sammy, but you girls …” She sighed and shook her head. “Well, you’ve forced me into this—you will be suspended from cheer, at least for the competition coming up. In fact, I need to talk to Principal Howard and see if you’re suspended from school, too.”
Fear pierced Sammy’s chest. Suspended? Her parents were going to kill her.
Tiffany rushed toward the school, her face red and wet with tears. “I hate you, Sammy!”
Kira followed her obediently.
Ms. Montlake’s face softened as she turned to Sammy. All of the other cheerleaders just stood there, staring. Quickly, Sammy grabbed her bag from the sidelines, ignoring the other cheerleaders trying to talk to her.
“Ruff, ruff,” said Sadie gleefully.
“Oww, oww,” called out Liz, looking smug.
Sammy rushed to the parking lot, mortified. She would wait there for Karl.
Twenty minutes later, Sammy saw Karl come out of the boys’ locker room. He was carrying his bag, and his hair was dripping with water.
Dang, he was gorgeous. At least she had him. Thank heavens.
Out of nowhere, Tiffany swooped in, pushing him against the wall and kissing him.
Sammy dropped her keys. What the crap?
Tiffany paused just long enough to gleefully meet Sammy’s eyes. Karl tried to pull away, but Tiffany reeled him back in and planted another kiss on him.
This was crazy. Sammy got out of the car and marched toward them. “Karl!”
Tiffany took her sweet time breaking away from their lip-lock.
“Karl?” Sammy repeated, tears swimming in her vision.
Karl looked horrified. “Sammy, I’m so sorry.”
Tiffany laughed louder. “Cat’s out of the bag. He’s been cheating on you with me!”
Chapter 5
Sammy
Sammy stared at her Instagram, feeling hollow and horrible. Her pulse throbbed in her wrist because her heart was beating so fast. Just last week, she’d learned in health that one of the signs of a heart attack was a racing pulse. Could she be having a heart attack?
“Sammy!” her mom called out from the kitchen. “Dinner in five.”
She’d been hiding in the bath
room since she’d gotten home. She hadn’t told her mother what had happened when she’d gotten home from cheer practice. Even though it would only be a matter of time before her mother found out, she just hadn’t been able to face it all. “Okay!” she called back.
She wanted to murder Tiffany and Karl. How dare they! More tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them back. This was such a low blow. She hated Tiffany! And how could Karl do that to her?
She sucked in a long breath, trying to calm herself. She just had to get through dinner, and then she could lock herself in her room and cry herself to sleep.
But not now. Family dinner was mandatory, and she didn’t want to explain everything to her mom and dad. She couldn’t begin to describe to her family what had happened: that she’d gotten suspended from cheerleading, then caught her boyfriend kissing her best friend.
No. With a huff, she woke up her phone. Back to Instagram. Black screen. Sammy Lewis’s story. Did anyone really care? She usually ignored stupid attention-seeking stories. But she couldn’t stop herself from posting one of her own.
Don’t HMU. Only true friends will care.
She stared at the screen, just waiting for someone to comment or DM her. Nothing. No one.
She looked up at the bathroom mirror. She’d stopped at the park by her house and done a complete makeover before coming home. Good thing she always carried makeup and hair stuff. Her hair was “cheer perfect.” It was red and curly and long, and she had put extra product in it because she wanted it to hold throughout the tryout. The curls spilled in perfect spirals down her shoulders.
Her makeup was heavier. The lines around her eyes darker, and her fake eyelashes accentuated them. Tiffany and Kira always told her it made her look like Catwoman.
Tiffany and Kira. Thinking of her two best friends, the way they’d looked at her… Why? Pain erupted inside of her chest, and she blinked back the tears she couldn’t cry right now. She’d held it all in for so long.
Sammy forced herself to stay stoic. She stared into the mirror and imagined sticking a knife in one of her eyes. She longed for the relief of physical pain. It was stupid and dramatic, but she didn’t care.
Her phone flashed on the counter, and she looked down. She hated herself for hoping that it was one of her friends or Karl reaching out.
She grabbed the phone and squinted at the DM that had popped up from someone she didn’t know. The handle was @hunterlives, and the profile picture showed a guy’s face covered by a half mask. It looked … interesting.
Hey, gorgeous, the DM said. Don’t be letting life get you down. Check out what I do when I’m sad. It’s cray cray.
She hesitated. She didn’t usually accept requests from people she didn’t know, but she hovered over the guy’s half face and saw he’d graduated from one of the high schools that they competed against in cheerleading, only an hour away. And now he was a freshman at the state college in Fort Collins, which wasn’t far either.
The front door slammed, and she jumped.
“Honey, I’m home,” her dad called out.
Her father. She pushed her phone into her pocket and checked her face one more time. She could do this. She could pretend everything was normal until she fell into her bed and smothered her cries with her pillow.
But Sammy didn’t have a chance to wait for her pillow, because the moment she got to the dining room, her mother and father were whispering in the kitchen. And her mother, who was pretty much the spitting image of petite, redheaded Sammy, had a terrible look on her face—a pasty, the-world-has-ended look.
Her brother, who was only twelve, sat at the table with a Switch in his hands. “You’re in trouble, Sammy,” he taunted in a singsong voice.
Her father, who stood a foot taller than her mother, hadn’t aged as well. He had the paunch of middle age, and the high school football captain image was long gone behind glasses and a balding head. Fury darkened her father’s expression as he looked at her. “You got suspended from the cheerleading team?” He put his hand behind his jacket on his hip, looking stern. “You flipped off your friends? And then you were cat-fighting?” He said the last words like he was spitting out bad food. “I just spoke with the principal! What are you thinking?”
Sammy stood there, paralyzed. She wanted to run away, but that would tick her father off to no end. She tried to blink back her tears and swallow the avalanche of emotion bubbling in her chest.
Her mother scowled at her father. “I didn’t want you to handle all of this like that.” Her look turned to compassion, and she pushed passed him toward Sammy. “Sweetheart, I just got a call from Coach Montlake. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know.” Sammy swallowed, still keeping the emotion at bay. How could she tell her parents anything without falling apart?
Her mother got to her and put her arms around her. She didn’t hug back, and eventually her mother pulled away, softly putting a hand to her cheek.
A traitorous tear slipped down her face.
“Baby.” Her mother’s eyes had tears in them too, bright with pain.
Sammy hated seeing her mother cry, especially when it was because of something she’d done. Since Sammy had been born a preemie, her mother had spent the first two years of Sammy’s life in and out of the hospital for various problems. Sammy had even been held back a year in school because she learned at a slower pace. But now her mother was always talking about how she was a miracle, how she’d come so far. Sammy’s petite form was even littler than her mother’s, who said it was a gift because it let her do the gymnastics for cheerleading so well.
“What happened?” her mother asked. “You texted me that Karl asked you to prom, that you were about to try out for team captain for the competition.”
The compassion in her mother’s face brought the words tumbling out. “Karl…” Sammy sucked in a breath, the pain hitting her gut like a sucker punch. “He was kissing Tiffany.” She fell into her mother’s arms.
Her father moved over to them. “What?”
She cried and shoved her face into her father’s vanilla-smelling shoulder. “I caught him kissing her after cheerleading. Right outside of the locker room.” She pulled back and was now a full-on mess. For a few minutes her mother just hugged her, gently patting her shoulder.
But she could feel her father’s anger. He hated drama and despised anything that had to do with feelings. “Sammy,” he said in that quiet, dangerous way. His eyes narrowed in a deep scowl. “The principal said you wouldn’t be suspended from school, but…” He broke off, running a hand through his hair.
“Can we eat?” hollered Josh from the table.
Her mother glanced at Josh, and then back to Sammy. “Yes, let’s say a prayer. Then you can eat, and Sammy and your dad and I will go in our room and talk.”
Sammy felt even hollower, wondering what punishment her parents would give her—not that she could bring herself to care. She thought of Karl again, and she covered her face and wanted to curl into a ball.
Her mother said a prayer and then began putting burritos on plates.
Her father got a plate, telling her mother, “I haven’t eaten all day.”
“Meet us in the room,” her mother said in response. She put her arm around Sammy’s shoulders and they walked into her parents’ room.
Sammy didn’t think she’d ever want to eat again.
Her mother placed both of her hands on Sammy’s face and stared into her eyes. “Baby, this isn’t you. I see you. I know you. And all of this that’s happened today, this isn’t you.”
Sammy sucked in a breath.
Her father walked in, a plate in one hand and a burrito in the other. She knew that to her father, who was a very busy man, this was a huge annoyance.
“Sammy?” her mother asked, lightly pulling her hands back.
Her father put the plate down on the dresser and wiped his mouth with the back of his coat. “You are in big trouble. Do you realize that you could have been suspended from school? Ms
. Montlake told us that she had worked it out with the principal just to suspend you from the cheerleading squad until after the state competition, but this could have been so much worse.”
Sammy gritted her teeth. “I hate school. I want to quit school!” she shouted.
“Really?” Her father’s voice rose, and his face reddened. “This cheerleading has become too much of a distraction. I’ve told your mother you need to focus on your grades. What is your grade in math, anyway?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and ran a hand through her hair, turning away. “I don’t know.”
“Turn back around and look at me.”
“I don’t care.” The math fight was familiar by now.
“You don’t know? You don’t care? Don’t you think you should be more worried about your grades and what college you’ll go to rather than this…stupid cheerleading? Maybe this is a good thing, because your mother and I have been talking about whether or not there’s any benefit to your life that cheerleading adds.”
Sammy bristled. He was calling everything she loved stupid.
“Hank,” her mother said to him, softly but with reprimand. “Just stop…”
“Stop?” Her father threw his hand up. “Right. Stop. How much do we spend on cheerleading? On all the gymnastic lessons and private lessons and uniforms and all the time you donate?”
Her mother didn’t reply.
Sammy hadn’t heard her father rail against cheerleading with so much hatred before. Pain stabbed the center of her chest.
Her father scoffed. “Right, don’t say anything about cheerleading, but look what happens when you’re involved in this type of drama. You have your daughter get in a fight and then get kicked off the team.”
“She wasn’t kicked off the team,” her mother said calmly. “And it’s good for her to be part of something. She’s helped this team grow into the powerhouse it is.”
“Yeah.” This fact just added fuel to her father’s fire. “And look at the good that’s done. Because they won’t even be able to win state without her, right?”
