As the girls filed out of the room, one girl stayed behind. Nadine, was half the girl she once was, and half this new thing. Part nun, part babe, it was a daily battle within herself. The thought of being a cheerleader was something she wouldn't have ever considered before, and now she looked the part, her fashion sense had improved along with her body, hair, and face, she found herself able to flirt with ease if she wanted to, but always doubted if she should do that, if it was right. As for becoming a cheerleader, it was a curiosity, something that sat on the edge of her life, the question, what would it be like to really give myself over to something other than church life? What would it be like to let go and relax? It was a question she feared to answer. And so she asked a question.
"Can I escape?"
and so she went to Europe. None of the girls knew why she went, but she didn't come back the same. When she came back she had gained an edge, there was rumor that she had lost her faith, or maybe even her virginity while abroad, a thing she quite fervently denied (to be fair, she had not). They saw her at one point, and she was the Nadine they knew, Pretty, short and thin, a bit reserved as if she was waiting for some cue to let her know it was ok for whatever it was she had to say or do, nobody ever knew what that was. It was her mystique, which most people just assumed was religious in nature, because that was what she was all about. When they saw her again, not so many months later the change was obvious, there were the little tells that she had, something that happens when you grow up, a sense of personality gained from getting your own style, which she seemed to have gotten, probably from the streets of Malian or Paris, her hair, which had always been combed to the left, and then left to hang, had been cut and styled, bravely short and wavy. She held herself with the sure footedness of a sea captain on his boat as she walked, but it was none of these new things which allowed you to see something had changed. It was her smile, which she now wore with something behind it, a smile which revealed that she knew something you didn't know, a smile that crept into her eyes and sat like a tiger twinkle. To look into her face you would swear she had aged a year in a month, and people would ask her what it was like, but she would only riddle them an answer. Nadine had come changed, and it shocked everyone.
