Why We Fly, page 19
Another group member says, “I kinda like journaling. I’ve been doing it for three months. It’s different from school writing. I like that there are no rules. And it helps me not have knee-jerk reactions anymore.”
Mariah nods. “It’s like a way to think feelings through in advance.”
It seems like it would be much easier to have hard conversations if I had my talking points in place. Just like I opened myself up to this group, maybe I should give journaling a try. I used to come into every situation with an agenda, but group is teaching me to listen and then react. I’m discovering that I do genuinely want to help people. I just have to take my personal wants out of the equation and do what’s best for them. Now I need to figure out how best to do that and how to balance it all. I know who to go see to help me finalize my thoughts too.
* * *
I’m sitting on the tank of the toilet, using a toilet seat cover to block a few germs, when the door slowly creaks open. My heart beats a little harder. I don’t know why I’m so nervous. It’s just a conversation. I remind myself that I’m not being judged here.
“I don’t detect the distinct smell of air freshener this time.”
We both let out a little giggle. My hands unclench as the laughter helps me relax. The old me never would have laughed at Marisol’s joke about our first meeting. But my emerging friendship with her is a soft place to land, even when I’m not at my best.
“I may have retired that habit,” I say, exiting the stall. It feels good to say so out loud. Outside of group, there’s no one else I can talk to like this. Spending less time with Leni has alerted me to how few friends I have.
“Found another outlet?”
“Yep. I’ve been going to therapy. Your messages have helped as well.” Marisol smiles with pride.
Over the past few months, we’ve been texting constantly, but we’ve both been so busy that even finding this moment to meet took some major schedule manipulation.
In the meantime, we’ve become each other’s voices of reason and each other’s support systems during the stress of college acceptance season. Her situation isn’t exactly the same as mine, because she doesn’t have a disciplinary record, but the competition level at the schools where she’s applying is extreme. I know she checks her email ten times an hour, hoping she’ll hear something from MIT.
“How was date night?” I ask. She and Londie have been trying to maximize their time together before we all head off to the next part of our lives.
“For real? It was heavy.” Marisol picks a stray piece of lint off her dark denim cutoffs. Today she’s paired them with a pair of beige Yeezys and a beige hoodie with the Mercury space shuttle logo, which I’m pretty sure she brought back from her internship with NASA last summer. “We’re still trying to figure out if we’re going to do the long-distance thing.”
No matter where Marisol ends up, Londie won’t be there. She signed a commitment letter with Purdue way back in February.
Low-key, I think it’s better if they don’t try to make it work. Marisol doesn’t need the distraction with such a difficult program ahead of her. Then again, she’s not the type to let a relationship be her downfall. And it’s not my decision; it’s hers. “Either way,” I tell her, “I know you’ll find your happiness.”
“So, what’s up, buttercup? Why the secret hangout?”
“I wanted to get your advice.” She has never been anything short of real with me. One of the things we’ve been going over in group is authenticity in our intentions. I have an idea about where I’m headed again, but I couldn’t think of anyone more true to the core than Marisol. She will call me out if I’m swinging in a selfish direction.
“Shoot.”
“I want to do more community work, but I need to find something that’s authentic to me.”
“Looking to pad your community service before final admissions decisions are made?” There it is—that signature Marisol-brand honesty I knew was coming. I wish I could throw my words into the trash like scratch paper and start all over.
“No. I want something I can connect to. One of the things Leni has always had right is how she connects with people on a personal level. Even though the cheer team is disappointed in Leni right now, I feel like if they ran into her in a mall in twenty years, they’d still want to get coffee with her and catch up. I’m just trying to foster more of that in my own life.”
Marisol scrunches her face. That came out way more attention-seeking than I intended.
“Okay, so you’ve told me what Leni is good at. What do you bring to the table?”
There was a time when I would have answered that question with speed and confidence. It’s not that I don’t know what I bring to the table; it’s more like I want to make sure I’m bringing the right things.
“I’m very organized. I’m a big-picture person. I can lay out a successful plan and see it through.”
“Then do that,” she says. “Listen, don’t devalue the importance of who you are. Community organizing is nothing without the organizing part. You’re a stabilizer. That’s super important.”
Marisol leans in for a side hug and leaves. I have a little time before my next period, so I sit. She’s given me a lot to think about. Dealing with the fallout from our protest became as consuming as the college admissions process. It took over my life. I wonder now if that was my own fault. The number of web searches I did about disciplinary records and their effect on college applications was impossible to count. And that pressure led me to being stoned for nearly two months. I easily could have used that time to figure out a way to move from protest to action. Instead, I created an escape. No lie, I still sometimes think about that escape, but I’m trying to recalibrate, and I’m ready to move toward action with a functional plan in place.
Tonight, the squad goes out to celebrate our win at State. Before we took the stage, Coach gave us an Oscar-worthy speech about her last conversation with the administration, filled with highs and lows. She said we’d be allowed onto the court for pregame during the basketball season, but only if we did not kneel.
She allowed us to make our own decision, and it was Paris who said it. “Then we don’t need to go out.”
Val pumped his fist. “We’d rather stay in the locker room.”
There was a general consensus, and then we went out and slayed our State routine.
We didn’t do anything wrong. We all stand by that.
19
Eleanor
We’re on a football field, which should feel like home.
But this one doesn’t. This is the centerpiece of Disney’s All-Star Sports Resort. Instead of bleachers, it’s surrounded by blocks of hotel rooms. Two giant, two-hundred-foot-tall football helmets lead the way into the stairwells. There are no guys in shoulder pads on this field, either. Instead, every square inch is crowded with cheer teams, wearing school warm-ups in every color you can imagine and, of course, matching bows.
Tomorrow, the national championship semifinals begin at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. We arrived and checked in yesterday, and everything has felt like total chaos since. Tens of thousands of cheerleaders and coaches and families fill this space. The athletes are simultaneously practicing and trying to scope out the competition without looking like that’s what we’re doing.
“Check them out,” Val hisses as we walk down the field, searching for an open area to practice. I follow his gaze to a team dressed all in black. The Florida sun sparkles on the metallic panther logos on their shirts and shorts—on the front of the leg for the guys and on one ass cheek for the girls. I’d roll my eyes, except I’m too busy goggling over the precision of their pop-ups. Not one wobble. Not a hand out of place.
I should say something confident back. I should encourage him, tell him we’re just as good but that we need to keep our eyes on our own paper. I don’t manage to get out the words before Coach Pearce calls back to us to hustle.
“Bags over here,” she yells. “Circle up!”
We drop our things in a pile and gather around her. She wears dark red lipstick, made up even out here in the blazing heat on a warm-up day. We all are too. No one looks at a bedraggled team like they might be something to worry about, even if it is just a practice day. You can’t slack on your mental game.
“I know there’s a lot of distraction,” Coach says, shouting to be heard over the chanting. “That’s why we’re here on this field right now. Y’all need to get accustomed to the chaos. You’ll be alone on that performance stage, but you’ll still be in a room full of people. It won’t be like cheering at a home game. It won’t feel like a friendly crowd. It’ll feel like they’re all judging you, because they will be. It’s State to the power of ten. The way to stay strong is to look to each other—not the crowd, not your families, not even me. Your pillars are your teammates.”
Normally, someone would give a woo-hoo to that kind of speech. Today, we’re all silent, dinner plate–sized eyes sliding from Coach to the teams around us. I know I need to speak up.
“I’m proud to be a part of this team.” My voice is clear and loud. They turn to me. I know that pieces of the binding that used to hold us together are torn, and nothing I say today can stitch them back together perfectly. “We deserve to be here. We’re resilient. No matter what happens, it’s not just about today. It’s about our legacy. We’ve earned this.”
I probably should’ve saved this speech for tomorrow, when we’re waiting in the wings for our turn on the mat. But this feels like the right moment. I look at Nelly the whole time I’m talking. I’ve made so many mistakes. I could spend all day every day wishing for a do-over, wishing so hard that I become trapped in it. But that would only make me freeze up and prevent me from doing better now.
“Chanel is the architect of our routine,” I say. “I want to acknowledge that we never would have made it here without her leadership. If she’ll take them, I’d like to hand the reins to her.”
Her face is serious for three long beats, and I feel as if I’ve parachuted out of an airplane. Will she accept this as the apology I mean it to be? Forever passes before she smiles and steps forward. “Gladly. We know this routine. Today is about polishing it. We just need to be clean, crisp, and on-target with our timing. Let’s go.”
* * *
We sail through semifinals with a high score, but the day of the finals, nerves set in. Yesterday doesn’t mean anything. Every day is a new performance, and I’m intimidated. The teams at the tops of their panel are near perfect, which is what we need to be if we want to win. We’re all feeling the pressure. I see it in the frowns of my teammates, in the way their eyes dart around, assessing the competition. They clutch their gym bags and stick close to one another, moving as an inseparable block lest the crowd dissolve us.
Not Paris, though. She’s as chill as ever, dancing through the crowds in the sports complex to an upbeat tempo that’s playing in her head. Every few steps, she stops to Snapchat or text Bull one of the hundreds of pictures she’s been sending him since our bus pulled out of the school parking lot back in Atlanta. When he calls on FaceTime, she answers, even though we’re still in the middle of the crowd. She waves us over, and we huddle around her phone while Bull and a couple of the guys from the offensive line perform one of our sideline cheers. They’re awful—no precision, sloppy stunts, and mismatched pom-poms. But they also wear enormous grins, shouting at top volume to be heard over the background noise. Their hype crackles over the phone line and sends a jolt of energy into me. I smile for the first time today. All of us do.
The world flies by in fast-forward—Coach’s pep talk, makeup check, warm-ups, final tumbling practice. Before I have a chance to process my nerves, we’re standing on the mat in front of a Cinderella’s castle background and the straight-backed competition spotters. A huge room filled with screaming people sprawls before us. As I run out and set down the pom-poms and signs we need for our routine, I gaze past the camera crew directly in front of the stage to the faces of the parents, friends, and families packed in behind them. I spy Coach and our parent chaperones cheering with their arms over their heads, and it does nothing to settle the buzzing in my legs—especially once I spot my own parents waving frantically. It’s the first major competition they’ve ever traveled to, and my grin almost bursts off my face at the sight of them. I whirl around to take my place, and as I see the team in perfect formation, my pulse steadies. My head doesn’t twinge. I’ve left most of the worst effects of the concussions behind me. I’m ready. We’re ready.
Nelly lifts me into the air for that first basket toss, and it’s crisp and confident.
I’m flying again.
When our routine ends, I’m shaking from exertion, but also excitement. I slide down from the last lift, straight into Nelly’s hug. Her arms are so tight around me. I clutch her, too, and we’re jumping and screaming. The others go wild around me. From the corner of my eye, I see our alternates on the sidelines, holding each other back so no one runs onto the mat to surround us. It’s a point deduction if they do. But I know why they want to.
We were perfect.
The judges will find deductions to take. Maybe a tiny timing blip here and there, maybe a few claps out of sync. Anything to keep from handing us a perfect score sheet. But I don’t need that. I already know how we did. Looking around, I can tell we all feel it.
Later that afternoon, it’s official. Franklin is named the national champion of the Small Varsity Coed competition. We receive medals and white satin national champion bomber jackets. The temperature is in the seventies—way too hot for a jacket of any kind—but no one takes them off for the rest of the day. In fact, we all show up for the bus ride home still wearing them, and I have a feeling we’ll all wear them right through the warm Georgia spring.
* * *
Our win merits a mention on the morning announcements that week and a single paragraph in the school paper, not even a headline. The team smiles weakly when friends and teachers congratulate us in the hallways. We accept the high fives directed our way, but I can tell we all ache inside, thinking of the schoolwide, half-day pep rally the football team received when they won. It was practically a carnival. The principal doesn’t even show up to deliver his congratulations in person. He sends Coach Pearce with a message that she reads from her phone.
“It’s bullshit,” Bull says the Friday after our triumph. A few of us stand in the front hallway before the floor-to-ceiling display case of trophies. Ours is in there, shiny and new, the first National High School Cheerleading Championship Franklin has ever won.
Nelly shakes her head. “What did you expect? The administration made its feelings clear back in the fall. We’re persona non grata at this school. I don’t even know if the team will get a clean slate next year.”
“Well, you’re not persona non anything to me,” he declares, jumping up on one of the benches in the hall. “Shemar! DeWayne! Tristan! Cole! Get over here.”
“Bull, you’re wild.” Paris grabs his backpack and tugs, but she’s laughing. “What’re you up to?”
“If they won’t throw you the celebration of the century, I will.” He raises his voice and shouts to the audience around him, “Did y’all know these badass women right here won their own national championship?”
Second lunch is about over, and people have begun to spill out of the cafeteria. They can’t help but gather to see the spectacle. The guys Bull called, whom I recognize from the offensive line, trot over, dragging a few others with them. Nervously, I glance toward the administrative offices. The secretaries have stood up behind the desk to see what’s going on. A few vice principals and the nurse file out to watch. I cross my fingers that the principal isn’t around.
“They’ve cheered on every team during every game, and I think it’s time they get to hear us doing a little cheering for them!”
The guys from the team groan and shove each other. Then they shove Bull right off that bench. But they’re all smiling, and a grin is creeping across my face too. I sneak a peek at Nelly, and she’s shaking her head, arms crossed over her chest. She can’t keep the amusement from her face as Bull lines the guys up and they launch into the cheer they did for us over FaceTime. It’s a well-known one from Friday night games, and by the time they’re on the second round of the chant, the crowd has joined in.
We’re surrounded by voices shouting for us, and suddenly, bittersweet tears well in my eyes. It’s not the pep rally I’d been dreaming of, with a speech by the principal and my parents in the crowd. But not one of these students is here because they have to be or because they want a free period. Maybe some are here just to see the spectacle, but the energy in the room, the way the cheer swells as Bull and the guys name everyone on the team, tell me that many—maybe even most—are here for us. For a few moments at the end of a lunch period, that really feels like something.
I know from IG that Three is traveling, and I can’t help but torture myself by wondering if he would’ve shown up if he were in town. Would he be chanting my name with the rest of the guys? If I’m truthful, I know he wouldn’t, and that stings more than I want to admit.
When the bell rings and the reverberating chants fade, Bull takes his backpack, which Paris has been holding, and grabs her in his trademark bear hug.
“You’re too much,” she says.
“I think I’m just enough,” he replies. “I also think I’m throwing y’all a party tonight. My house, eight o’clock. Spread the word.”
* * *
Most of the football and cheer teams plus a ton of our other friends show up at Bull’s house. His parents have filled tubs with ice and sodas, and there are trays of Publix subs and chicken nuggets spread around the basement. Bull tunes the TV to ESPN College, which is recapping National Signing Day. A clean-cut, handsome anchorman babbles about the various big signings, a montage of athletes signing papers and putting on the hats of their newly committed schools flashes across the screen. An endless stream of people achieving their dreams. The sight of them reminds me of my empty inbox—the one I created specially to email college cheer programs. No invitations to spring tryouts have arrived. In fact, most of my introductory emails to coaches have gone unanswered. And, thanks to my unremarkable grades, I’ve already been waitlisted at two schools.
