Crash

“Lucy!” a voice shouted over at me. “Lucy!” and again.

Try as I might, I could not escape the suffocating fog that was Taylor Donovan. “Get down here!” she motioned at me, waving at a space where she and her apostles stood clapping, kicking, and ra-ra-ra’ing.

Being front and center in a cheerleader sandwich wasn’t my first choice, but it was better than my current situation. Half na**d boy to my right threw his arms into the air, yelling, “Go, Spartans!” and it was immediately clear he didn’t believe in, own, or use enough deodorant.

Paint me crimson and gold and call me Go, Fight, Win Wendy—I couldn’t get to those cheerleaders fast enough.

“What were you doing up there sandwiched between Dumb and Dumber?” Taylor asked, weaving her arm through mine. “You do realize you probably just made their night because I’m certain that was the first time either of them had gotten anywhere near copping a feel.”

“Eww.” I shuddered. “Taylor, please check the visuals at the door. I’m totally creeping out right now.”

“Well, you’re lucky I saved you,” she said, motioning at a few other cheerleaders. No big surprise they were the girls that sat at our lunch table, but the only names I could remember were Lexie and Samantha. “Besides, a girl like you belongs down here. I saw your tumbling routine in gym this week and you’ve obviously done this before.”

Of course Taylor would be the one person to catch a glimpse of my improv dance routine on the mats while I was waiting for everyone else to suit up. “I cheered at my last school,” I said. “But only because they didn’t have a dance team.”

“Well, we have a dance team here, but that’s just where the girls who are too fat or ugly to cheer go.” Not even a smidgen of remorse in her delivery. “You don’t want to join the dance team. You belong with us.”

A few of the other girls circled around us and nodded their heads.

“Since Holly didn’t come back this year, we’ve got an extra uniform and we just can’t form a proper pyramid without a tenth team mate.”

“Thanks for the offer, Taylor, but really, I’m more the dance team type of girl. Plus, I heard Southpointe’s has won some state champion—”

She lifted her hand to cut me off. “You’re cheerleader material. You’re gorg, you have experience, and ninety percent of the male student body is already jacking off to you.” Another visual I really could have done without. “The other ten percent is still undeclared in the sexuality department,” she whispered.

“There’s a potpourri of reasons to join if I’ve ever heard some,” I muttered, wondering if I was better off sniffing rancid armpits and getting “accidentally” felt up all night.

And that’s when Jude came jogging out onto the field. I forgot about Taylor, and armpits, and the whole damn world. There was nothing but him. And gold spandex forming over parts that flexed and stretched and pulled and made me forget how to blink.

“Who, in all God’s gracious green earth,” Taylor said, leaning over the fence, “is that?”

Just then, he looked over, meeting my eyes, and the smile that broke over his face couldn’t be disguised by the helmet’s face guard. Extending his arm, he pointed at me all the way to where the rest of Southpointe’s football team huddled at the twenty yard line.

“That, Taylor,” I said, weaving my fingers through the fence, “is Jude Ryder.”

“I knew there was a God,” she breathed.

“Yes,” I agreed, smiling as he squirmed in his spandex, “there most certainly is.”

“So are you guys . . .”

“Taylor,” I warned, spinning on her.

“What?” she said, adjusting the crown on her head. “Something is definitely going on with you two, and the only thing I’m more certain about than that is it’s not just a friend relationship.”

“We’re friends,” I said because I didn’t have any other title for what we were. We’d kissed in ways that were illegal in forty-nine states, spent every free moment at school together, he looked after me, I watched over him, but we were, as far as I knew, in no way exclusive. I didn’t have a claim to him, although I wanted that. But did he want the same?

“Honey, a girl can’t keep a man like that as a friend. He’s a lover or an ex-lover, but never a friend. Men like that weren’t created to be a woman’s friend—they were created to make a woman hit high C three times in a row.”

Another colorful visual by Taylor Donovan, although this one I didn’t mind as much. “Sorry, Taylor. I don’t know what to tell you. I care about him. He cares about me. If that doesn’t make us friends in your book, go ahead and label us whatever you like.”

Her eyebrows went sky high.

“Except for that,” I clarified.

The buzzer sounded and the two teams lined up, Jude in the QB spot looking like a giant playing a game with a bunch of munchkins. Snatching a pom-pom from Taylor, I lifted it in the air and shook the hell out of it. “Go, Spartans!” I hollered. “Come on, Ryder! Let’s see what you’ve got!”

It was a long way off, and he was crouched in position, but I would have bet my worn-in pointe shoes a smug smile appeared.

“Hut. Hut. Hike!” the center shouted, hiking the ball back to Jude. You could feel the collective breath every single Southpointe fan in the bleachers took.