Beautiful People

9: tape 5, side a

The next day, Lily arrived to school with Justin and Bryce. Luckily, neither of them was suspicious about her study session the night before and hadn't asked her any questions about it. After having dinner with Zach and his sister they played a game of chess, where Zach played against his sister and May tried to explain how to play to Lily because she had never learned. It was fun and Lily didn't realise how much fun she was going to have with the siblings when she had turned up at their door that night. Zach was even surprised at how easily Lily had slotted into his home, feeling as if she had always been there and joking with his sister as if they had known each other for years.

When it got dark outside, they took a ride in the Audi to drop Lily home before their Mom got back from work because she didn't want to burden their time with their Mom. May had been very impressed with how big the house was and Lily promised her that one day she could come over and use the pool, which she was very excited about. The evening had been perfect, which was something neither of the teenagers had been expecting but Zach liked a night off from the worries of his secret.

The three students walked over to where Jessica was stood talking to Sheri and Zach. Jessica was in the middle of a story when they reached them but Zach didn't seem to be listening. He had his entire focus on the girl walking towards them, his eyes not leaving hers and not worried about being caught for staring. She sent him a warm smile which he sent back, both of them excited about the secret relationship that they were kind of having. There were no official labels for them but they knew what they both wanted, they were just taking things slow.

"No, now she's trying to punish me by giving all of my stunt to this 80-pound freshman. Go ahead. You really think that she can lift Melanie Opstad's fat ass into pyramid formation?" Jessica laughed, as everyone else laughed with her, even if they didn't know what she was talking about. "She's fucking fat! Really, good luck!"

Bryce shook his head. "Your coach is such a bitch."

"She's actually pretty cool as long as people show up to practise." Sheri replied, hinting to why Jessica was not a favourite at the moment.

"I've always wanted to try cheerleading; think I could join the squad?" Lily asked, she wanted to change her reputation as Bryce's bitch, and one way to do that was to make her own friends, maybe she could do that on the cheerleading team?

She had never thought about being a cheerleader before but it was something interesting to try and if she joined then she would know both Sheri and Jessica already and then could make more friends. Plus, it was good to have some extra curriculars on your list for college applications; it would be useful to add a sporting one as well as her academic ones. Sheri was about to answer, thinking that having her on the team would be a good idea because it really brought out people's confidence but then Bryce answered for her.

"Hell no."

Lily frowned. "Why not?"

The comment even made Zach frown; he had been thinking about what it would be like if she was a cheerleader. Sure, he didn't like the stereotypes of the athletes dating cheerleaders but he didn't care if they were a stereotype; and he wouldn't mind having his own personal cheerleader to hype him up before a game. But he knew that now Bryce had said no, there was no chance that his little vision was ever going to come true. Lily was too scared to go against her brother but she was trying to move away from what her brother wanted and become her own person; maybe she would join the cheerleading team just to prove that she was her own person and she could do whatever she wanted.