“All right, ladies, take five!”
The shrill blast of Coach Anne’s whistle pierced through Isobel’s head, ringing in her brain like a fire bell, sending her headache officially into migraine status.
Without turning to talk and stretch with the others like she normally would, Isobel broke away from formation and trudged to the bleachers, where she’d left her gym bag. She tugged down on the hems of her blue practice shorts and plopped onto the bottom-most bench. She grabbed, opened, and drained the rest of her Gatorade in one smooth motion, then screwed the cap back on and stuffed the empty bottle into the bag between her street shoes and jeans.
Sitting there, she couldn’t seem to bring herself to form a single coherent thought. Not since she’d had to order her brain to stop its relentless attempts to assign a rational explanation to what she’d seen in the girls’ bathroom earlier that day: the dark figure that had stared her down and then vanished.
Deciding that she would do better to wait until after she’d had more than ten cents’ worth of sleep, Isobel tried to think of something else. That, however, only left room for her brain to play and replay the agonizing scene from lunch.
Again and again she saw Varen look up at her from the crowded lunch table, those stony green eyes fixing on her, at first in mild surprise, then slowly melding into two pools of nothing
—until he was looking at her with only vague recognition, like he might have seen her on a milk carton somewhere.
And that girl. Lacy.
Isobel thought back to the way she had glared at her—territorially.
She pictured them together, hands linked, and she couldn’t help but wonder what kind of boyfriend he was.
He could be so cynical. So dry and acidic. As blank as a page. Could he be tender, too?
She flinched at the thought, angry at her mind for letting it venture so far beyond what she already knew to be true. He wasn’t any different from the people he pretended to be above.
He’d proven that much at lunch.
She sighed, keeping her eyes closed, trying to release some of the day’s stress in one long exhale.
To top everything off, she was now doomed to be kicked off the squad, too.
And she would be. As soon as next Friday zoomed by and left her with a big fat zero on Mr. Swanson’s English project.
She would be a Trenton High cheerleader nevermore.
Not showing up for today’s practice, though, would have been admitting defeat.
If nothing else, it would have been her way of personally paving a path and rolling out the red carpet for Alyssa to take over her spot as center flyer. And despite the fact that nobody on the squad liked her anymore, Isobel still loved cheerleading. She was good at it, and in spite of everything, she was not prepared to make it easy for Alyssa, or anyone else who wanted her little slice of sky, to take her place.
“All right there, Iz?”
Isobel popped one eye open to see the whistle around Coach’s neck swinging back and forth on its yellow lanyard like a clock pendulum.
“Yeah,” she said, blinking slowly, putting on a smile until Coach passed. “Headache,” she said. At least it wasn’t a lie.
“You looked good out there today, Izzy,” Coach called over her shoulder.
Isobel watched Coach’s back as she stepped into the hall, where she stopped to fill her water bottle at the fountain. Normally she would have welcomed the encouragement. Especially after a day like today. With the rest of the squad standing by, however, watching and listening, she wished Coach hadn’t said anything, because now they’d started to whisper.
Isobel pretended to ignore them by searching for something in her bag but paused when she heard the squeak of approaching sneakers. She looked up enough to count eight pairs of gold-and-blue-accented tennis shoes. Raising her eyes, she saw that it was Alyssa who led the pack, Nikki only one step behind.
“I’m surprised you decided to show up today,” said Alyssa, loosing her platinum hair from its tight ponytail.
Isobel lifted her chin. “If only to save everyone from having to watch you try to do more than a single twist for the rest of the season.”
A trickle of giggles ran through Alyssa’s buddy patrol. Isobel let a cool, subdued smile tease up one side of her mouth. Alyssa’s cheeks flared pink and her whole face pinched together, as though she’d just chomped down on an extra-green crabapple. The laughter at her back dissolved quickly into sniffs and coughs.
“So what happened to your leg?” Alyssa asked.
Feeling that this must be of some sort of trick, Isobel resisted the urge to check her legs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, looking away. She wished Coach would come back already. What was taking her so long?
“Oh, I think you do,” said Alyssa. “I’m talking about that mark on the back of your thigh. Why don’t you stand up and show everybody?”
Isobel kept her seat. She tried to guess what was going on, tried to remember having done anything that would have put a mark on the back of her leg.
Had they left something for her to sit in?
Then she remembered.
“Rug burn,” she murmured, not liking that she couldn’t guess Alyssa’s game. And too late she realized it would have been better to have said nothing.
Isobel turned away to zip up her bag as giggles erupted from the group. She stopped and slowly raised her gaze again to the faces of her squad, wondering how these people had ever been her friends.
“Oh,” Alyssa said, her mouth on the verge of bursting into one of her radiant, blinding, too-much-whitener smiles. “That’s funny. We thought it must have been something like that, what with your new undead boyfriend and all. Bet you’re sorry now, though. Gosh. Especially after putting out. Tell me, how does it feel to realize you’re a skank
Isobel launched up from the bleachers, the sudden action spurring the collective squeals of backtracking sneakers and cheerleaders. She shoved Alyssa hard, hard enough to send her stumbling backward through her backup party and straight to the floor. She hit with a jolt, landing on her backside, her glossed mouth fixed in a shocked O.
“Hey!”
The shriek of a whistle split through Isobel’s throbbing head again and in her peripheral vision, she could see Coach bustling up to them, her oval face reddening to a ripe beet color.
Isobel trembled with fury. Her eyes remained locked on Alyssa, who stared up at her from the floor, her hands clenched. Coach seized Isobel by the arm and with a strong, yanking grip ended the hate-stare between them.
“What the hell is wrong with you two?” shouted Coach Anne, this time focusing her attention on Alyssa. “You know I don’t tolerate fighting on my squad!” She swung around to glower at Isobel again, her face purple. “In my office! Both of you!”
Then she spun on her heel and stormed toward her office door at the far end of the gym.
Alyssa smiled at Isobel as she picked herself up from the floor. Revolving in a slow turn, she followed after Coach Anne.
Scalding heat crawled up Isobel’s face. She couldn’t bring herself to take so much as a single step in the direction of that office. Not with everyone staring again. Not when she wanted so badly to put her fist through Alyssa’s flawless teeth, to crush that perfect button nose flat and permanently erase that conceited smile from her stupid face.
The heat of rage coursed through her veins like a deadly poison.
She had to get out of there. Now. Or she’d blow up.
On impulse, Isobel grabbed her gym bag. She looped the strap over one shoulder and started to walk hard and fast for the gymnasium doors.
“Lanley!” she heard Coach howl after her. Isobel, her head down, plowed forward. She had to keep moving.
