"I-it's just..." Sarah dried her eyes, smearing makeup on the back of her hand as she did. "W-why... why are you being... s-so nice to me? I'm just some loser..."
"Nope, nahnahnahnah, hush with that, little one!" Melissa said, shushing Sarah physically. "You might've been just some loser before, girl, but now, if you're really meaning to get in good with us, I'll have you know we popular girls don't tolerate any of that attitude among us! Girls like us, we've gotta be nice to each other and stick together and stuff, you understand?"
"W-wait, are the other girls...?" It suddenly occurred to Sarah that this informal cheer practice thing might not actually have been Melissa's idea, and turning her head about, she soon caught sight of the likelier culprit coming to meet up with them.
"Hey-o!" Amber Levine said as she skipped over, throwing out a bubbly little wave of her hand in greeting. "Omigod, you look soooo cute in that outfit, I could just eat you up, Sierra!"
"S-sarah..." she corrected Amber nervously. "My name's Sarah. But th-thanks anyway..."
"Oh, hey, like, are you okay?" Amber asked, genuinely sympathetic when she noted how wet Sarah's eyes were, and how trembly her voice was. "Was anyone being, like, mean to you, or something? That's, like, totally not cool!"
"N-no, no... i-it's not that... it's..." Sarah was getting frustrated with herself. A lot of the girls are going to be here; I can't be losing my voice or my self-control now! She thought, fighting Kyla's old rising anxieties about failing in front of lots of people. Chris Morgan, Amber's boyfriend, was filtering into the gym behind her, along with Allison Wright and Tiffany Sanders. Word to organize this little session had apparently gotten around quickly.
"I think she just never imagined herself as being one of us, Amber, that's all," Melissa said, jumping to Sarah's rescue. "But now, she's wearing the outfit, so..."
"Good, because it should be made clear, that outfit does NOT make you one of us, missy," Allison interjected sharply, addressing Sarah. "Not yet. Not until we know what you're made of."
The breath Sarah exhaled was somewhere between a groan and a shudder. Allison Wright, the only black cheerleader on the squad, was even more of a popularity elitist than Sarah used to be. She wasn't as hated by the masses because typically, she simply refused to interact with them at all, since she viewed them as being not so unlike insects beneath her feet. The cheerleaders were the only folks she could be considered friends with, and even then, there was some lurking tension; it wasn't any big secret that she had some less than positive judgments of a few of them, that she never voiced (disdain for Tiffany's promiscuity, for instance, or Amber's lacking intelligence). Sarah wondered what she must be thinking of Kyla now, given how odd her behavior must've seemed; in the old world, Sarah was the only one she'd had an unqualifiedly positive opinion of, she thought. That was before, though; now, there probably wasn't an ounce of her that was happy to hear that they were letting this geeky, invisible nobody into their sanctified hierarchy.
"But, like, why does that make her sad though?" Amber asked innocently, uncomprehending. "Our group is like, super duper awesome! Like, you get to be a super sexy, totally cute cheerleader, and, like, get all the guys and stuff!"
"It's complicated, Amber," Melissa said as sweetly as she could. "Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head over. Kyla and our newest friend here will explain everything when the time is right; they've promised."
"Hey, by the way, where is Kyla?" Tiffany asked. "Wouldn't she want to be part of this whole thing we're doing with the new girl?"
"She, uh, doesn't know about it," Melissa explained, cautiously. "And just between us, I'd rather we didn't tell her until after the fact. Something's really up with that girl, I tell you, especially when it comes to this new girl! LikejusttodayatlunchIsawKyla..."
Melissa started pouring out all the latest gossip related to Kyla onto her friends, in that tone that suggested she wasn't going to stop talking until someone made her. In the meantime, Sarah's phone buzzed lightly; checking it, she saw it was a text from Kyla.
Hey, can I get your locker combination? I'm pretty sure something from my old life is in there, and I need it back.
What is it you need? Sarah texted back. She wasn't in the habit of just giving out the combination to anyone, after all, especially not potential enemies like Kyla.
It took a long moment for Sarah to get a message back. What she eventually saw, she found almost shocking. D&D character sheet. Don't tell anyone, please!
Sarah looked up and around at all the girls gathered around for this secret thing they were doing with her. If any of them noticed anything, they made no outward sign of it; for the most part, they were just listening to Melissa's sleuthing out all the minor suspicious details about their de facto leader's sudden change in behavior. If something like what I just learned got leaked to them... Sarah wondered. By the way Allison was shaking her indignant head at the trivial little things Melissa was talking about, she suspected it wouldn't go over well for Kyla, not at all. Discretely, she sent the locker combination, and then shut her phone down.
"That's really interesting," Chris Morgan piped up once Melissa finished one of her stories, "but if you'll excuse me, I was under the impression I was invited here to throw some ladyhood around? Coach ain't here to get us started, like usual." Chris was one of the few male cheerleaders in the squad, and was in fact one of their finest bases (that is, one of those on the bottom of a formation, who lends the muscle to physically lift a cheerleader off the ground, or even throw them up into the air). Sarah figured he was who she was going to be practicing with, if they did any formation drills; it somehow seemed really weird to her now, even though as her old self such an exercise would have been just business as usual in the cheer team.
"Oh yes, Chris, you're absolutely right," Allison said, returning her attention to Sarah. "I wanna see what this audacious little dork thinks she's capable of, as well," she added pointedly. Sarah suddenly became very aware how much she smeared her makeup when she sobbed earlier, and it shook her.
"Y-you wanna... what?" Sarah asked, voice quavering.
"Oh, yeah, I should explain," Melissa began to explain, "I told the girls what you told me, earlier this morning, about wanting to become a cheerleader and learn self confidence and how to flirt and all that, and, well, we kinda took the idea and ran. Think of this as being sorta a Day 0 for you as a cheerleader, or like, Popularity 101 or something. We'll have basically an informal sorta tryout for you, to see what you already know, and then teach some of the basics of what it means to be one of us! I know it's probably a bit sudden for you and all, but hey, I think it's a really good opportunity for you, wouldn't you say?"
"Oh it's gotta be!" Tiffany interjected. "Kyla's already got your looks taken care of, so all you need now is a few tips from me to get aaaalll the boys hard for you, sweetie~!" Tiffany gave a giggle and a wink just to elicit a heavy blush from an already embarrassed Sarah.
"Hey, hey, oh, you, like, don't need to be so worried, cutie!" Amber reassured her, cheerily. "I'm sure you'll do great, Sierra!"
Sarah was beginning to get anxious again and had to look away, but she forced herself to nod. "W-well... Let's get started... then..."
One thing that readily became apparent was that each of the girls had somewhat different goals for what this whole "Day 0 Cheer Practice" was supposed to achieve, and without the strong central leadership of Kyla there was a nontrivial amount of squabbling over direction for the thing. In Amber's simple mind, this was a neat opportunity to make an adorable new friend named "Sierra" as well as hang out with her older friends. Melissa was of a similar mind, but Sarah quickly picked up that for her, that was in large part a means to try and gently pressure Sarah into revealing more secrets about herself and Kyla, as well as any other gossip Sarah might know that was worth sharing. Diametrically opposed to Amber's point of view was Allison, who basically saw this "tryout" as a harsh and unforgiving weed-out session and an excuse to point out all the reasons Sarah shouldn't be allowed in their ranks. Chris, more simply, was just there to drill and work out, and get Sarah breaking a sweat with all the work she was doing. Tiffany was most casual about the whole experience, basically there to hang out with friends and give Sarah some advice when she asked for it.
If it were anyone else at the center of it all, the whole endeavor would probably have crashed shortly, with so many different hands holding the steering wheel. The thing is, though, this was Sarah, and she kept control of the thing by routinely exceeding everyone's expectations. She already knew, cerebrally at least, how to be a damn fine cheerleader, and had plenty of experience from her old life as Head of the organization, so nearly any task they threw at her, she mastered in no time. After a while it basically became her just showing off to them; they'd challenge her to some routine or dance they had absolutely no expectation she'd be able to handle, and she'd handle it as if she'd been doing so all her life, since, really, she had. The entire group ended up essentially showering her with praise and promise through the hours, and even Allison was forced to grudgingly admit she would be a great addition to the team. Melissa was making a huge social media story about it, even.
By the end of the day, the only person who wasn't really impressed with the way Sarah was performing was Sarah herself. She was, quite literally, the only person in the world who knew just how much better she had been performing only a day ago, and couldn't entirely keep at bay Kyla's old, crushing self-doubts. Being a flyer, for instance, and trusting Chris and the other girls to lift her way up into the air, not letting her fall when she'd strike a pose, it took guts; guts the Cloud had mostly taken away from her. Her technique hadn't deteriorated any, so the girls didn't notice, but she was quaking inside! Striking poses, cheering and flashing smiles and all that, she could do it, no problem, but it felt way too much more like just a mere and fragile facade; she wasn't feeling it, like she used to. She felt silly, vain, and humiliated, even despite all the other girl's affirmations, and even despite the growing knowledge that her skill and technique literally hadn't changed. All that changed was that she felt less comfortable doing it; and that, she resolved, was the feeling she was trying to defeat more than anything else. Further, it was because of that that there was one thing she could be unqualifiedly happy about: Her old friends, strangers this morning, now had her back once again.
"Ohmygod, ohmysweetmotherofgod, Sarah, wherethehellhaveyoubeenhidingoutallthistime!?" Melissa chirped with unbridled excitement as Sarah toweled the sweat off her brow. "You'renotjustgoodyou'reoneofthebestcheerleaderswehavealreadywithnopracticeandI'veneverevenhadtheslightestideayoucouldbesogood! Whyhaveyoubeenholdingoutonussolong? Ishould'verecruitedyouforourteamagesagoifIknewyouhadsomuchtalent!"
"Well, you know~..." a grin was plastered ear-to-ear across Sarah's blushing face, not that she was facing Melissa to show it. She figured she could really let herself enjoy this, while it lasted; she needed the ego boost, anyway. "Just around~... with different priorities and stuff, anyway..."
"Sweetheart, whatever those priorities were before, forget 'em!" Tiffany exclaimed. "You are soooo one of us now, cutie, we're not letting you get away even if you tried!"
"Yeah! Like, you're, uh..." Amber struggled to find words. Eventually she just gave up and cheered "Whatever, but like, welcome to our team and all that, Sierra!"
"Ah ah ah, remember that Sarah has yet to officially try out," Allison pointed out. "You'll probably do fine, but I'm looking forward to see what you'll be once Coach whips you into shape, so don't get cocky yet, missy!"
"Oh, trust me, I won't. I'm excited too!" Sarah replied, still grinning like a fool. I can really do this, she thought in her moment of triumph, I'm really going to be the confident, charismatic, beautiful and fit Sarah McMillan once again! You better fuckin' watch out, Kyla, I'm coming for you!
