Grass. Lights. Noise.
Jen felt her body moving, almost on its own, and then felt her voice shouting, "Go Pirates!" As her consciousness materialized, she realized she was on the sidelines of the football field in the middle of a game, pom-poms in hands, cheering with all her might alongside the other cheerleaders, including her good friend Sarah.
All of them jumped and kicked, and the cheer was over. Jen looked around, saw the scoreboard showing the Pine Ridge Pirates leading the Northside Ninjas 14-3, and a smile came over her face. She looked into the crowd and saw her best friend Karyn, impeccably dressed as always, staying composed and seated while she waved a tiny pendant as all the crowd around her was jumping and shouting.
Jen could tell that Karyn was excited, and was doing all her best to support her friends on the cheerleading squad and on the football team, but she didn't want to mess up her outfit by jumping around. Or, god forbid, her makeup. It was funny that Karyn was the only one of them to not try out for the cheer squad, but Jen supposed that was because Karyn wasn't there when they all made the pact to become cheerleaders. She'd come to the party the following morning.
The crowd doubled over its excitement, and Jen turned around. Evan Ross had just snatched an interception. She rushed with the other girls into a formation and started dancing and shouting, like she'd been rehearsing for months.
Jen was completely lost to the dream. Instead of pushing to influence it like Jon had, Jen was just accepting everything in front of her as simply how the world was. She was a willing participant in Sarah's fantasy.
Evan was finally tackled, and the cheer routine ended, and in the pause between plays, Sarah shouted over to Jen, "That was an amazing play that your boyfriend just pulled."
Jen blushed. Was Evan her boyfriend? They were just good friends, right? Although it would be cool to have one of the rising stars of the football team as her boyfriend.
Coach Burlington shouted over to the girls, "There's time for one play left in the game. You ladies wanna try and take the field?"
He was met with shouts of enthusiasm, as pom-poms were shucked and pleated skirts bounced their way over to the fifteen-yard line. The girls didn't know anything about football positions, but they stood off against the Northside team and Ally hiked the ball to Sarah, who immediately and expertly spiraled the ball into Jen's open arms, who'd made it behind the defensive line and into the endzone.
The game clock ran out, and Evan Ross ran out into the field to grab Jen and lift her up into the air. "My girl scored a touchdown!" he shouted. Jen squealed as dropped the football onto the grass, and felt something stirring inside of her. It was an attraction for Evan. Maybe he was her boyfriend.
As the stands emptied out into the field, faces began to blur together, and soon the dream was over.
