I was nervous as I approached the field where I could see girls stretching. The practice uniforms were very form fitting and didn’t cover a lot of skin. I tried to pull down the shorts to make them longer but ended up just showing more of my stomach since the top was nothing more than a glorified sports bra. Some of the girls straightened up from stretching and stared at me as I approached. I responded with a small smile and wave. I had never been around a large group of girls before and in fact hadn’t had much luck with girls ever liking me for some reason.
I started stretching on the edge of the field. I didn’t want to introduce myself before Coach Ryan arrived to explain the situation to the team. A leggy, raven haired girl arrived on the field at the same time as Coach Ryan. She had what looked like very fake, very large breasts, a dark tan, and hazel eyes. She was beautiful. She immediately noticed me and called out nastily, “What the hell are you doing here?”
I guess her beauty was definitely only skin deep.
Coach Ryan glared at the girl. “Selena, this is Eva Taylor. She will be joining us on the team, and I think you all will be very pleased with the addition,” she said.
“Are you kidding me?” spit out the girl who I assumed was named Selena. “We’ve already learned all of the routines for the season. She is going to make us look like idiots.”
Her voice was starting to wear on me so I stepped forward when Coach Ryan called for me.
“Eva, why don’t you show the team some of the flips we ended with during your tryout.”
I took a deep breath and stepped into an open area. I pictured all of the flips and gave a little sigh of relief when my body immediately began to execute them perfectly. I could hear some of the girls ooing and ahhing and felt more confident as I continued. Finally, I stopped, putting my hand on my hip, and giving Selena a look. At this point she was glaring at me but she had stopped complaining. The girls crowded around me, introducing themselves, and congratulating me on joining the team. I smiled at all of them and began to relax.
We were practicing a half time performance for the first game when the football team began to run out on the field. A lot of the girls had stopped what they were doing to watch. A few of the girls were blocking my view so I couldn’t see what the football team was doing. I stepped to the side of the girls so I could see the field. As I did so a receiver who had been running my direction to catch a pass looked up at me and all of a sudden tripped and fell on the ground. A few players jogged over to where he had fallen to give him a hard time. He gestured to them, pointing our direction. The players looked over and stood staring. It seemed like they were staring right at me. Eric ran over to them and started chewing them out. I wondered if it was always like this when the two teams practiced near each other. Eric ran over to me.
“How come you didn’t tell me you were going to be on the cheerleading team,” he asked grumpily.
“I didn’t want to say anything just in case I didn’t make the team?” I answered quickly. Eric had been becoming a problem. He wanted to hang out every second and was quickly becoming pushier when I couldn’t or didn’t want to. I had started hiding the fact that I ever saw Damon because it seemed to set him off. He would either get really quiet, or he would get really belligerent. Neither were fun to deal with.
“Is there a reason that the team has to dress like sluts?” he asked nastily. “The whole team is staring at you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I could admit that our uniforms were a bit small, but I didn’t think that qualified us as looking like sluts. I really wanted to be done with Eric.
Not wanting to start anything I turned around and started to walk away. He grabbed my arm roughly.
“Eva, I’m sorry. I just hate how everyone is always looking at you.”
I began to reply but the football coach blew his whistle and yelled at Eric. Eric looked at me forlornly and backpedaled away. I turned back around towards the team and noticed many of the girls staring at me jealously. I hadn’t noticed, but the red head from my dorm was on the team. She was shooting daggers at me with her eyes. It didn’t look like I was going to be making a lot of friends on the team if the look on her face was any indication.