Karyn and Sarah heard the final bell ring from the football field, and began their goodbyes as the rest of the cheerleaders arrived on the field for their regular after-school practice.
And as Jon snuck underneath the bleachers to see if he could make any attempt at getting close to Karyn.
The moment he saw another half-dozen girls joining his best friend and his worst enemy, Jon knew he wasn’t going to be able to do anything here. He’d have to go home, maybe try to make a wish on the stone, and hope that Karyn left Sarah’s side sooner rather than later.
If only he’d known that Sarah was just about to leave, herself. If only he’d waited another minute to see her leave the field. But Jon left first, and so it wasn’t until Jon was already walking outside of school grounds and Sarah was driving away in her car when the distance between Karyn and Sarah became greater than the distance between her and Jon.
Warm egg yolk ran down the back of Karyn’s throat, and the expressions of all the girls around her began to shift from welcoming to suspicious. Karyn’s danger instincts flared as one set of eyes after another narrowed against her.
“What are you doing in that uniform?” Melony Tyne demanded. “You’re not a member of this team!”
Panic. Abject panic overtook Kayn and she froze, eyes wide open, pupils shifting from cheerleader to cheerleader in a desperate hope that one of them would hold some answer for the situation she had somehow found herself in.
Karyn’s eyes found an angry face, and fled somewhere else only to find another angry face, and then a third angry face, and then– a smile.
“It’s okay, girls, I let Karyn borrow one of my spare uniforms,” Amber stepped forward with a wink that only Karyn could see. “We had a really good conversation this morning, and I think she belongs with us. Give her a chance.”
“Oh yeah!” Tiffany’s face lit up from within the crowd of cheerleaders. “Sluts gotta stick together, right?”
“I’m not a slut,” Karyn demurred as a flush rose in her cheeks.
“Okay, sure, you’re not like a slut slut.” Tiffany took a step forward to join Karyn and Amber. “You don’t sleep around or anything. I’d know. But you give me slut vibes. In a good way. You know how to show off.”
With Amber’s approval, and now Tiffany’s as well, attitudes were visibly shifting in favor of Karyn.
“We need a group photo.” Amber took a few steps backwards and motioned with her hands for everyone else to crowd together. “I want you all to see, with a visual, how much Karyn belongs. Look how good she wears that uniform, she’s practically a part of the team already!”
There was some minor grumbling as the girls all crowded together, but then their cheerleader instincts kicked in and their faces all lit up into smiles. Karyn looked around for a moment, confused as to what she should do, but then she caught Amber’s eye as the girl lifted her phone.
Amber mouthed the word “smile” and gave an encouraging nod in Karyn’s direction just as Tiffany gave Karyn a friendly slap on the back of the shoulder. “You’re doing great,” Tiffany whispered. “Just pretend you’re laughing at the funniest joke in the world.”
Karyn swallowed her nerves and followed Tiffany’s instruction, lifting her head to look at Amber, who gave a thumbs-up before tapping her phone screen.
When she rejoined the group to show everyone the picture, it was like a renaissance painting. A tableau. Not a smile unaccounted for, not a hair out of place. If you’d had to guess who the impostor cheerleader was without knowing in advance, you’d never have been able to pick Karyn out. She was just another one of the girls.
And for the rest of practice, it was just so: Karyn was another one of the girls. She needed help learning the routines and hitting some of the more complicated moves. But Amber and Tiffany were more than glad to slow down on her behalf. By the time practice finished two hours later, Karyn had almost forgotten that she wasn’t actually on the team.
Amber pulled her back from the group just a bit as they began their march back to the locker room. “So,” she whispered. “Where did you get that uniform from?”
Karyn blushed. “You’d never believe me.”
“Okay, I get it.” Amber put a comforting hand on Karyn’s back. “We basically just met this morning, you aren’t going to tell me everything.” They walked together past the bleachers as the sun set behind them. “But however it happened, I’m glad you were at practice today. You really do just fit right in here.”
For a moment Karyn wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Did she want to fit in with the cheerleaders? It was so far away from how she always saw herself. But was it really a bad thing?
Amber’s hand slid across Karyn’s shoulder and pulled her into a half-hug as the two continued forward, and Karyn found her own arm rising to pull itself around Amber’s. And as the two girls leaned into one another, Karyn’s mind settled. This felt good. This felt like friendship.
And she was just so grateful to know that she fit in.
