The Boy Next Door

ｅｉｇｈｔ

Rachel

"Thanks for the ride, Wyatt. I will just ride back home with Katie after practice." I said, getting out of the car.

"Okay, have fun. Do some of those flippy things for me." He said. I rolled my eyes.

I walked up the concrete path to the athletic doors of the school. I opened the door to find Katie leaning against the wall, waiting for me. The instant she saw me, she sprung up from the wall. "Hey! How was your weekend?" She asked.

"It was good."

"I went out with this really cute guy this weekend. What did you do? " She was the kind of person who needed and wanted to know every detail about something and wanted to share every detail about her life too.

"I went to the water park."

"With who?" She pried.

"My mom, Wyatt, and my new neighbors."

"The hot guy I texted you about?"

"Yeah, that is the guy."

"Lucky you." She said.

We walked down the hallway to the doors that lead out to the football field. She was the first to go down onto the track and start stretching. I followed behind her.

I couldn't stop thinking about the water park. I couldn't get over the fact that I had opened up to Colton about Luke. Even Katie doesn't know the full story of what happened between us. All she and everyone else knows is that we broke up because he cheated on me.

I felt bad for making Colton sit there while I cried. But, he didn't seem bothered by it; he comforted me. He stayed with me until I felt better. When Wyatt had come back from the car with the cooler, he saw me crying and instantly blamed Colton for making me cry. I explained the situation, and he instantly felt guilty about jumping to conclusions.

"Circle up ladies!" The coach yelled. We all gathered around her. "Today we will work on jumps, handsprings and back tuck basket tosses. For those of you who are more advanced, you'll be working on your fulls."

When I heard her say we were doing these type tosses my stomach literally flipped. When I was fifteen, we were practicing these tosses. I was in a group with older girls who didn't like me very much. After I was thrown up in the air and I did the back flip, my group was supposed to catch me. Something distracted the two girls who didn't like me in my group and they didn't help to catch me correctly. The other girl in my group did her best to try and catch me, but they couldn't without their full help and effort. I ended up landing on the ground, breaking my left leg in six places.

Ever since then I have been afraid of falling.

We got into groups of four. Katie was in my group. She volunteered me to be tossed. Great friend, right? We got into position. I let out a long breath. They tossed me up into the air. My head went over my heels, forming a perfect rotation. I landed safely in a cradle position. I was so glad to get it over with. Once we had rotated through each of our flyers, we worked on our tumbling.

The football team had practice at the same time as us. During my break, I looked out onto the field. That was when I noticed someone who looked like Colton. He was in a football uniform. His helmet was off, and he was drinking water. I stared at this guy closer, and he just kept resembling Colton. I didn't know that he was a football player. Well, there was a lot I don't know about him.

When cheer practice was over, I asked Katie for a ride home, but she couldn't give me one. I searched through my bag, looking for my phone. It wasn't in there. I remembered that I left it in the cup holder of Wyatt's car. I sat in the bleachers and waited for the football team to finish, to see if I could get a ride from someone else I knew from the football team.