by Emma Doherty
She goes bright red of course and tries to step back, but Chase is there, throwing his arm around her and stepping forward with her, and as I watch them, I don’t actually feel jealous. I look at them and, for the first time, see what everyone else sees: one seriously good-looking, soccer-playing power couple who are nice to everyone and who really do adore each other.
It’s a nice realization to have.
Then Coach Dyson steps up to the microphone to introduce the cheerleaders, and we jump up. We’re in our uniforms, which we’ve had on all day, and I’ve actually enjoyed wearing them to school. We go through our finale, the newly choreographed routine by Sasha, and I put everything I have into it. I don’t stumble in my tumbles, my arms are straight, and my steps are neat, and when the music Sasha has prepared remixes to Drake’s “Toosie Slide”, everyone goes wild. All the students on the floor stand and join in while everyone else sings along, and I can feel myself grinning from ear to ear. It might just be the best feeling I’ve had at school this year.
There’s thunderous applause at the end as we all rush together in a group hug, laughing and cheering for ourselves, the relief, excitement, and sheer emotion pouring out of us at the end of our final performance together, and when I look around, I see a couple of tears in the eyes of more than one of my fellow cheerleaders.
It really is the beginning of the end.
We’re interrupted from our love-fest by Coach Dyson taking the microphone again. “And our final captain that we have to speak today is Abigail Baker.”
There’s more applause as I’m pushed away from the group and toward the microphone, and I look at Coach in a panic. I had no idea I would be expected to speak, but she doesn’t bail me out and instead shoves the microphone in my hands then steps back.
What am I supposed to say to the people in this gym? I can hardly say something about moving on to the next stages of our life and what’s in store when everyone in here knows I might not be able to move on with the rest of them.
“Um…go Bobcats!” I start, eliciting a sprinkling of applause as I look out at the entirety of the senior class.
I look back at the cheerleaders, who have spread out behind me, smiling and waiting for what I have to say.
Sasha nods and smiles encouragingly, sending me a thumbs-up.
Sasha.
Right.
I turn back to the crowd. “I have loved every second of being a cheerleader for Grove Valley High. I’ve loved the games, I’ve loved the spirit, even if I haven’t always loved Coach Dyson’s practices.” I grin over at her as she looks at me in amusement. “I can assure you all that they’re every bit as brutal as you would imagine.”
There’s laughter from the crowd.
“But I shouldn’t be the one who’s speaking to you right now. I’m not the one who puts the hours into choreography and rehearsals. I’m not the one who’s encouraging and helpful, and I’m not the one whose hard work and determination has made my last four years so much fun. I’m just the one who’s gotten the credit.”
I glance back at the cheerleaders, who are looking back at me in confusion, glancing between themselves.
I turn back to the crowd; some look curious, some look bored, but I don’t care. I should have done this a long time ago.
“Everybody on your feet for the true force behind the cheerleading squad, the one who makes us all tick and the one who deserves all your applause. Give it up for the true captain of the cheerleading squad, the one and only Sasha Bridges!”
There’s silence for a moment, total surprise at my words, but then I hear Sophie let out a cheer that’s quickly joined by Jennifer and the rest of the cheerleaders, and then the rest of the gym joins in as a startled Sasha is pushed forward by the other girls until she’s standing in front of me, looking like she’s about to burst into tears.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she whispers.
“Yes, I should have. I should have done it a long time ago.”
I hold out the microphone to her as the cheers get louder.
“You deserve it.”
She takes it with shaky hands and turns back to the crowd, and my cheeks ache because I’m smiling so wide.
She really, really does deserve it.
“Hey.” I turn away from Jennifer at the familiar voice and see Brett standing to the side.
I grin at him. “Hey.”
Jennifer looks between us for a second before leaving us to it.
“You enjoy the show?” I ask.
“Yeah, it was cool.” He looks away for a second before looking back at me. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay?”
I blink at him. “I’m fine.”
“You are?”
“Yeah, I’m totally fine. I know it was the last performance and all and it was really fun, but I’m not going to cry myself to sleep or anything.”
He chuckles. “I didn’t mean that. I meant with this being the beginning of the end. It makes everything closer.”
He means it makes my day of reckoning closer, and it does weird things to my heartbeat that he’s the only one who’s noticed that this might not be easy for me and has cared enough to ask.
“I’m good.”
“You guys were awesome.”
“We were, weren’t we?” I wink at him. “Not bad for an un-preppy cheerleader.”
He chuckles. “It’s pretty cool that you gave Sasha her due and had everyone applaud her like that.”
Sasha…of course he’s thinking about Sasha. She’s his crush. “Yeah, well she deserved it.”
He nods. “You guys all looked great.” He blushes slightly and clears his throat. “You look good…in your uniform I mean.”
My eyes find his, and for a second I can’t look away from his clear blue eyes. Him paying me that compliment means more than anything Dan Summers ever muttered when he was trying to get me into bed. It makes me want to step closer to him, and talk to him and that makes my heart beat nervously in my chest and I don’t know what that means. And then, because I’m me and apparently can’t take a compliment from Brett without messing it up, I ruin the moment completely. “Oh yeah? If only I had longer, darker hair, you’d almost confuse me with your dream girl.”
He doesn’t say anything to that.
“Your crush,” I continue, in case he hasn’t gotten the point. “Your bae, your boo, your ultimate fantasy.”
He still hasn’t said anything, instead just staring at me evenly with those clear blue eyes.
“I’m talking about Sasha, by the way.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
I don’t know what to say next, don’t have a clue how to break this weird spell that seems to have come over us, but in this moment, I’m not sure I want to. I want to stay in this moment with him looking at me like this with my heartbeat going crazy with possibilities.
“I broke up with Dan Summers,” I blurt out, because it suddenly seems very important that he knows this. “Not that we were really a couple or anything, but we’re not hanging out anymore.”
“You’re not?”
I can’t tell if this news interests him or not, if he cares or not.
“Yo, Brett!”
He turns at the shout, and we both see Dane and Jason waiting by the doors to the gym.
“You ready?”
He looks back at me for a second, looking like he’s going to say something. Then he nods his head at his friends and turns back to me, mumbling a goodbye before going to meet them and leaving me watching him go, feeling nervous and excited and scared all at the same time.
22
“Abigail, are you coming to Ferguson’s?”
I look up from my desk, seeing Aaron waiting for me at the front of the classroom. I can’t help smiling at him. He’s really made way more of an effort with me recently, like he’s remembered that we’re actually friends. He’s started waiting for me at the end of our history class just like he always used to do, just because we were usually headed to the same
place—to meet Chase and the rest of our friends. It’s nice that he’s figured out he can still do that even though Chase and I aren’t together.
He yawns loudly, raising his arms so that his shirt rides up slightly. I catch a couple of the girls walking past him stealing glances.
“I’m craving chili fries and a cheeseburger.”
I certainly won’t be having those if I do go. Last week was my one blowout, and now I’m back to no carbs.
Ferguson’s is something we’ve always done. Our whole group has always headed there right after school on Fridays, to eat food, hang out, and make our plans for the weekend. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed, something that made me feel happy and secure with my friendship group, but I’ve skipped it the last couple of weeks.
“I have to study,” I tell him.
He rolls his eyes. “An hour isn’t going to kill you, and you have to eat.” He must see the hesitation on my face as I move past him to the door. He falls into step beside me and swings his arm around my shoulder, pulling me in for a side hug. “It sucks you can’t just chill and enjoy the end of high school like the rest of us, but you do deserve some fun.”
I’m honestly so surprised at the unexpected warmth of his embrace I almost stop dead in my tracks, but he’s acting normal so I don’t want to draw attention to it. Turns out Aaron gives good hugs.
We continue walking to my locker and he waits as I dump my books. Deciding he can’t be bothered to go to his own locker, he leaves a couple of books in mine too, before Sasha joins us and we head out the main entrance and toward the student parking lot, stopping by Brendon’s car and the group that’s standing there.
“You coming?” Chase asks me. “You haven’t been in a while.”
I’m touched that my absence has actually been noticed. I didn’t think they’d care.
I nod my head as Jackson fills everyone in on some drama that happened in his math class while we wait for the others who usually join us to get out of school, and my gaze snags on Brett, who has appeared at the top of the steps as he quickly rushes to his car. I think back to the pep rally and the way he looked at me, the way it made me feel. I haven’t felt like that in a long time. I think he looks my way and I go to wave at him, but he looks straight through me, so intent on getting to his car before he speeds away.
He must be working.
Working…
He said Fridays always suck because everyone goes to Ferguson’s and his tips are low because of it.
I bite my lip, wondering if I’d even be welcome, thinking about what it would be like to see him in his own environment, seeing a different side of him.
“Abigail?” I blink out of my daydream and turn to Sasha, who is looking at me expectantly. “You ready?”
“Actually, guys,” I say before I can overthink it and stop myself, “why don’t we try somewhere else today and go over to Bernie’s Diner?”
By the looks they’re giving me, you’d think I’d just asked them to commit murder.
“That’s sacrilege,” Aaron blurts out.
“But it’s Friday,” Brendon points out unnecessarily. “It’s Ferguson’s day.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh come on, Brendon. It doesn’t have to be Friday for you to go there. I know for a fact you’re there at least three times a week.”
“I was going to order a milkshake and a brownie,” Sasha says morosely.
I laugh out loud at her tone. “I’m pretty sure they’ll have them at Bernie’s. We don’t have to, I just thought it might be nice to go somewhere different for a change.”
There’s complete silence around me. Clearly it’s taking a lot for their brains to even comprehend that they might stray from their usual routine.
Finally, Chase shrugs. “We could try it? I actually heard their waffles are really good.”
“I do like waffles,” Jackson says.
There are general nods of agreement around me, and Chase smiles my way. “See you there?”
I nod, trying to push down the flutters of excitement I feel at the thought of seeing Brett somewhere other than just the library. “See you there.”
So when Brett said it was dead in Bernie’s on Fridays, he wasn’t lying.
There are only two other tables in use when we walk through the door, and my eyes immediately scan the room for Brett. I see him pop up from under the counter at the sound of the bell on the door, his face frowning slightly when he sees us walk in.
I wave my hand at him in greeting, and he nods in return before he greets Chase and the rest of the guys at they go up to say hi and fist-bump him or whatever it is they do. Then they head to the back of the diner and immediately take over a couple of large booths.
“Oh,” Sasha says from her spot next to me, a small smile playing on her lips. “I forgot Brett works here.”
I shrug, feigning disinterest. “Yeah, I think for a while now.”
She smirks. “Now I see why you wanted to come here.”
I do not appreciate the fact that she can see straight through me. “Sasha?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
She does shut up, but it doesn’t stop her from sniggering to herself as we make our way over to the booth, me making sure I’m sitting with my back toward the wall so I have a view of the diner ahead of me.
Brett ambles over to us, a bunch of menus in his hand, which he promptly drops in the middle of the table. “Hey guys.”
The guys scramble to grab the menus as everyone smiles at Brett, saying hello to him.
Weird. I didn’t know he knew everyone. I thought it was just me and Sasha and the people we were with at Ferguson’s that time. I guess it was just me walking around in a daze the last few years, only talking to people in my immediate group.
It’s embarrassing to think about. I’m embarrassing.
“Can I get you some drinks?”
“Do you do lattes?” Jenna asks.
Brett doesn’t even bother to hide his snigger. “Sorry, we’re all out.”
Jenna frowns. “Did you run out of coffee beans?”
Chase snorts. “Jenna, this is an old-school diner. They have a coffee pot.”
Brett nods in affirmation, and Jenna decides to opt for water while everyone else places their drink order.
“Hey Brett,” Sasha says, smiling at him when it’s her turn. “Can I get a Diet Coke?”
He grins back, his smile wider than I’ve seen it with anyone else, nodding as he writes her order down on his notepad. I can’t help glancing between them, watching his smile for her, and she goes back to browsing the menu, completely oblivious to the fact that he’s into her.
“What’s good?” Brendon asks, distracting me from the crushing feeling his crush on Sasha has on me. “The burgers?”
“Not as good as Ferguson’s,” Brett says with no regard for the fact that the chef could very well hear this conversation in the almost empty restaurant.
Brendon glares at me. “Abigail! I always get a burger on a Friday.”
“Live a little, Brendon.”
Brett cuts a look at me, obviously wondering what I’ve got to do with it, and I’m not about to enlighten him.
“Abigail convinced us all to come here,” Chase tells Brett. “Thought we needed a change.”
I could kill Chase with my own bare hands in this moment, and I stare down at my menu so I don’t have to face him.
“And we heard the food was good.” Sasha jumps in, obviously sensing my embarrassment and trying to cover for me. “Someone was telling us last week.”
Luckily for me, no one mentions that she was so set on going to Ferguson’s only a short time ago.
“Well, the waffles are good,” Brett says. “And the hot dogs, and the chef does a mean Caesar salad. The wings are pretty good too.”
Everyone’s so conditioned to go to Ferguson’s every time and order the same thing every week, and it actually takes everyone quite a while to decide what they want. Brett wanders off to
get our drinks while everyone else continues perusing the menu.
“So how’s math?” Jennifer asks from her spot next to me.
“Yeah, is it getting any easier?” Sasha asks from across the table. I glance around, but thankfully everyone else has broken off into separate groups and is having their own conversation. I don’t really want everyone listening to how terrible I still am at calculus. I know they already know, but I don’t have to announce it.
“I suck, big time. I swear I’m getting worse.”
Sasha winces while Jennifer pats my arm in sympathy.
“She’s being too hard on herself.” Brett appears from nowhere. “She’s definitely improving.”
I’m momentarily startled. “I am?”
He nods, setting the drinks down on the table. “Yeah. Those equations we worked on yesterday? There’s no way you would have been able to do them a couple of weeks ago.”
A smile spreads across my face as I realize he’s right, and just for a second he looks back at me, right in the eye, and smiles back.
That eye contact and that smile genuinely make my heart stumble.
Dammit. Dammit.
I do not want to like him.
Brett places the rest of our drinks down on the tables before retreating back behind the counter, and I can’t help watching him as the conversation around me continues. I watch as he wipes down the surfaces then goes to collect the plates from the table that just left before wiping that down too.
The door opens, and another family enters and sits in a booth. He grabs them menus and takes their drink orders just as another girl, who is very pretty and looks to be the same age as us, walks in the diner and immediately heads behind the counter.
She’s wearing the same polo shirt as him and is tying an apron around her waist.
She clearly works here.
I watch as Brett heads back to the counter, his face lighting up when he sees her, and she returns his smile as she leans in for a welcome hug. She says something that immediately makes him laugh, and my eyes flit between the two of them as he nods toward the new table and she starts making some drinks.