I was awoken by the sound of my hyperactive cousin's voice.
"YOOOO HOOO HEYYYY GUNNY WAKE UP!" I groaned and buried my face even more in the mattress, covering my ears with the pillow. I heard her sigh loudly and swift footsteps.
I thought she was gone but she definitely caught me off guard when I felt a sharp poke on my back. She had hit me with a pillow.
"Oh, hey!" I protested, turned to her and sat up while stretching a bit.
"You wouldn't wake up." she shrugged with nonchalance, like it was no big deal. Well, it actually was okay, it's not like she had thrown an anvil at me... but you never know with Jenna.
"So, tell me about yesterday's late night walk? Have you two lovebugs kissed?" she asked with a smirk, as childish as possible. I rolled my eyes.
"We're just friends, okay!" I responded truthfully. "God, you're always up when it's about gossip."
"I don't care about gossip but the boy is hot." I raised one eyebrow at her and she just laughed and stood up.
"Go have a shower and get dressed, we're going to your school." she announced in a sing song voice, and I raised my other eyebrow. I was probably starting to annoy her because she rolled her eyes at me and held out her hand.
"Ugh going to school's not necessary today. There's some crazy event for which we won't have lessons, so it doesn't matter." I growled and nuzzled my face in the pillow again. She took it from me, leaving me in a hugging-air position and I stared at her with puppy eyes, to which she simply rolled her eyes again and put her hands on her hips.
"C'mon, there's the rugby match today, right? You don't want to miss it."
"How would you know there's the match?" I asked in confusion and she leaned closer to my ear.
"Because I'm a clairvoyant" she whispered playfully and pulled back.
"And it was on your school's website. I checked it out to know where your school was, we're going with my car." I raised my eyebrows and she laughed.
"What? Did you think we were going to go on a horse?" she joked.
"No, I, uh Jen, you're sixteen and you just started driving."
"And?"
"And you're dangerous."
"I've got a license."
"I saw you drive." She waved me off and pointed to her closet. Way to change the topic.
"You can borrow some of my clothes." she said happily, pulling her hands together in a clap, and left the room. It was more of a demand than a suggestion but okay.
I got up and sleepily dragged myself to the bathroom, to take a long shower. I was almost falling asleep in there but luckily, Jenna's voice popped in my head, she was telling me to hurry.
When I was done, I dried my body and hair, brushed my teeth and walked to the closet wearing just a towel. We had a different sense of fashion, but our styles weren't too different after all. I grabbed a dark blue Jimmy Eat World shirt and smirked at it. We liked the same bands at least. I also took a Glamour Kills green jacket, a pair of dark blue skinny jeans and put them in the dresser.
I wasn't one for rugby matches, and I was definitely not the type for school spirit, but it was probably more productive than laying in my bed all day doing nothing.
As I was dressed, I did my hair and went downstairs to be greeted by an excited Jenna, who smiled at my clothing choices.
"Where are your parents? I haven't seen them yet." I asked.
"Out for work. Besides, nice outfit you picked." she complimented, nodding her head, and I thanked her. Though they were her clothes so she was practically complimenting herself.
"Here!" she said, tossing an envelope bag of cookies at me. I raised my hand by instinct, catching it.
"What's this?"
"Homemade cookies! No gluten, no fats. Don't say I'm not a healthy cook." I laughed.
"I just know that when we were little and decided to bake, we ended up putting gummy bears in the cookies."
"You're the one that burned the cake, we had to think quick." she retorted. Touché, I have no excuses for that.
"Whatever, let's not discuss my baking skills..." I mumbled and she nodded, tugging on my arm.
"Let's head to school!" she giggled out and we walked to the bus stop, linking arms. It felt so childish but who cares.
—-
"DUMB OF A REFEREE! THAT WASN'T LEGIT AT ALL!" Jenna yelled at the referee's whistle. I would say she was embarrassing me a little but almost every person around here was yelling just like her.
She claimed that a rugby match is the only time when you can allow being noisy and yelling and you shouldn't miss the chance. As you can see, I had never been to a rugby match before. Yes, I'm American.
Jenna stood up and turned to me.
"I'm going to get popcorn for both of us. Need anything?" she announced.
"Hm yeah, just a Pepsi, thanks." I requested. She did the 'okay' sign and flashed me a smile before leaving.
It was weird sitting on the bleachers alone. I mean, I wasn't alone, there was a large bunch of people, but they were all strangers to me. It just felt... awkward. I was definitely not at ease, as if everyone was watching me even though no one probably was.
Maybe I should just go follow Jenna so that I won't be alone, I thought and went to stood up, but someone tapped on my shoulder, stopping me.
I looked up to see a pretty brunette with greenish eyes and a cheerleader uniform on. I had already seen her before, she was I guess the co-captain of cheerleaders in our school? The other captain was Ivy the viper, or as I like to call her – Iviper.
"Hey!" she saluted with a genuine smile, looking as cheerful as you could possibly imagine.
"Um hi." I waved awkwardly. Why was a cheerleader talking to me? I was an outcast, she was on the top of the popularity radar. That was weird.
"You're Lynn, right?" she knew my name? Why was that?
"Um yeah..." I said, nodding, which caused her to smirk a little.
"Great! I'm Cassadee, by the way, cheer captain." she introduced and held out her hand, which I shook.
"I just wanted to say thank you for what you did with Ivy- I mean, thanks for turning her off." I furrowed my eyebrows and she continued, noticing that I had no clue what she was talking about. I mean, I damn well knew, but I didn't get why one of her mates would thank me.
"Honestly we were all growing sick and tired of that girl. She used to never let the others speak in the team, when she was captain..."
"Was?" she nodded.
"She's no longer co-captain with me. Thanks to your gesture, the team pulled together the bravery to stand up to her. We voted and just a few of us still wanted her as the leader- I guess that's the price you pay for being mean to whoever's around you." she explained.
I smiled widely at the thought of Ivy being kicked off from her captain throne.
"No problem, I would even rewind it and repeat it all over again." I confessed and she let out a cute laugh.
"Well, next time you burn someone, make sure they've learned the lesson." she replied.
"Because of social conventions she'll probably sell out her best fake apologizes to the team and beg to be captain again. But don't bet on her saying sorry to you cause it would brutally kill her pride, and she'd never let it happen." I smirked. I had won the battle and won the war, simple as that.
"What can I say? Expect conseguences when you act a certain way." I shrugged. I didn't believe in Karma, but maybe some things were to turn for the better depending on how you act and carry yourself.
Attitude is not just a shallow aspect of a person, it's the core, the fulcrum, you can't just shake it off.
"However, many kids at school took you as example and started sticking up for themselves and speak up, instead of letting themselves being teared down by the bullies. So thank you in the name of all the school, I guess." she finished, smiling brightly. Her smile was contagious, I guess it was the cheer effect?
"Anytime." I replied grinning back. Someone called her name and she turned for a second to check, then looked back at me.
"I must go now. It was nice to meet you, Lynn."
"Right back at you." I replied truthfully and waved at her as she went back to her team and coach. She seemed such a cool person. The cheerleader stereotype was just another bullshit, some of them were nice, just like Cassadee. I didn't know it either until now, and I'm ashamed that I believed in the stereotype, but now I know it for certain: Being popular does not necessarily mean being a bad person or being obsessed with reputation.
I watched as Cassadee and the other girls did their cheering rituals as I heard Jenna's voice.
"Oi, who was that?" she questioned, placing the popcorn on the seat and handing me my drink.
"Oh, no one, just a cheerleader that definitely doesn't look at the others from a height." I responded, smirking. She nodded and sat back with me.
It's strange how people can surprise you, I wasn't expecting things to turn this way. I was actually really pessimist over the subject, you can never know what's next with people's manners. I think it's all about mentality, and you can build up an okay mentality only with conscience and knowledge, never taking anything superficially as most of the people do.
Perhaps I was getting luckier, or just growing up, but it did seem like a dream. A parallel universe, something you wouldn't imagine.
This is not just all in your head.
—
A/N: Heyoo. Liking Jenna so far? Also, I couldn't help but put Cass in this story too. Whatevs, hope you liked the chapter. I won't be updating this book for a little while because of schoolcrap, but you can go check out my other stories.
Have a nice day! x