Cheerleaders Don't Cry

15

Albert Cooper
I didn't know why the memory was suddenly so vivid in my mind. It was November of sophomore year, back when Kathy and I had just started dating, and we were at a pep rally for the basketball team. Kathy hated pep rallies, since they were always during sixth period and she didn't like missing AP Chemistry. She would sit on the bleacher closest to the front with her textbook flipped open on her lap, reviewing past chapters.
I was sitting between her and Oliver that day, half listening to her talk about chemical equations and half watching the action on the floor of the gym. I'd never understood pep rallies, or school spirit for that matter, but there was something captivating about the synchronization of the basketball team, the pep band, and the cheerleaders - how they all knew what to do and when to do it without interfering with the other.
The junior varsity cheerleaders were distinguishable from the varsity by the absence of a thick white band around the waist of their uniform. Those were the freshman and sophomore girls, who performed mediocre routines where they'd clap their hands and wave their pom-poms and ask the crowd to shout out letters. It was the varsity cheerleaders that were the interesting ones. They were doing complex routines involving flips and twists - at one point, they performed a routine where they stacked themselves into a pyramid shape, something that I was surprised they could do without falling over. The girl at the apex did a front flip off of the pyramid, hurling through the air and landing easily on the gym floor with slightly bent knees and arms held out in front of her. Her blond hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail, with colorful ribbons strung throughout it, and she looked entirely unfazed by the fact that she'd defied gravity for a single moment. She looked familiar - I was fairly certain that she was a sophomore as well, even though I noticed the thick white band around her uniform, indicating her varsity status.
I didn't notice that my mouth was hanging open until Kathy jabbed me in the side with her elbow. She followed my gaze out onto the gym floor, to the varsity cheerleaders, and scoffed.
"What?" I knew that I sounded defensive. "That was amazing."
Kathy shrugged and looked back at her textbook, indifferent. "Yeah, you're right. It was." She briefly glanced back up at the gym floor. "It's too bad she's a slut," she said matter-of-factly.
"What?" I asked, confused.
Oliver looked up from his phone. He'd been playing Candy Crush since the pep rally had started. "You don't know?" he said, his brow furrowed. "Pretty much the entire school knows by now. Ever since that fiasco last year."
Kathy nodded towards the girl who'd just flipped off of the pyramid, who was now performing a routine that involved backflips and was making my stomach turn. "Marcy Hannon. She's slept with just about half the grade." Kathy's nose wrinkled in disgust. "Repulsive," she remarked. "She'll be pregnant before we graduate, just watch. They always are."
I tossed and turned the entire night, sleeping in brief intervals. The memory was like an ear worm, forcing its way into my thoughts and my delirious dreams. I was exhausted when I awoke the next morning. My neck ached and my mouth was bone dry, even though my pillow was wet with drool. I took a cold shower, hoping that the freezing water would wake me up. As I towel dried my hair, I noticed the fading tattoo on my shoulder. It was still visible, but barely. The only bit I could make out without looking too closely was the NOLEGE IS POWER part, while the outline of Florida had disappeared almost entirely. I only had about two more treatments before it was gone forever, a prospect that left a bittersweet feeling in the pit of my stomach. Against my better judgement, I'd grown somewhat fond of the tattoo.
I dressed in jeans and a t shirt and grabbed my backpack, heading towards the stairway. As I passed Miranda's bedroom, I could hear her softly snoring through the door. When she was 7, she'd wanted the door painted bright purple. Since then, the purple door has accumulated various attachments, including dried bubblegum, frowny-faced stickers that were peeling off, and a variety of messages scrawled on lined paper and taped to the surface, many of which read something along the lines of "stay out of my room".

I knocked on the door, and the snoring abruptly stopped. "I don't think you want to be late today," I said.

I could almost hear her rolling her eyes. "Why not?" she muttered groggily, her voice muffled by the door.