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chapter eleven: homecoming part one (the reckoning)
a/n:
tw(s) — br*dy, emetephobia (marked by ✥ !)
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Gwen woke up the morning of the homecoming game with the premonition that something bad was going to happen.
It was the kind of feeling that sat heavy in her stomach and made it hard to get enough oxygen from each breath, one that carried—— no, haunted—— her through the whole day. The kind of internal ache that had her on her toes, waiting for some kid to have a heart attack during gym or for that rickety fan in her last-period class to finally rock its screws loose from the plaster. She waited, anxiously, for the other shoe to drop, for something to happen and explain why she felt so terrible, but nothing did. Nothing bad happened. No one dropped dead in the middle of Ted Orion's bootcamp-esque physical education class and the fan stayed bolted to the ceiling. Which leaves Gwen here, sitting in the passenger seat of Rachel's sedan, the beginnings of a headache throbbing in the base of her skull as Rachel does her best to rally them for the upcoming event in the most Rachel way possible.
"Which one: Like a Prayer or Like a Virgin?"
Somehow, though, the question feels more like the end-of-world event Gwen's body prepared for than something meant to cheer them up and Gwen, who's in the middle of unbuckling her seatbelt, looks up from the latch to look at the brunette with furrowed brows.
Any person who knows Rachel knows that she takes her Madonna very seriously. So, as she gestures wildly with the two CD cases and blows a bubble with her Juicy Fruit, Gwen hesitates.
Behind them, in the backseat, Alexa and Laney exchange a glance.
"I don't mind either of them." Laney says the safe answer, shifting her bookbag as it sits on her feet.
"Do you have her newest album?" Alexa asks. "Bedtime Stories? I've heard that was good."
Rachel leans across Gwen's lap to open the glove compartment and Gwen watches her shoulders sag.
"Nope. I don't."
"What about the Beastie Boys?"
"No. None of that, either."
"Oh," Laney finally speaks up, "what about Alanis Morissette?"
"Okay, guys, I have you two Madonna options. Pick from one or I'll kick you out of my car."
Gwen almost laughs as her thumb sinks into the button on the latch and her seatbelt comes undone. She bites her tongue, though, because even the thought of laughing makes her head hurt even more.
"Just go with Like a Virgin. I like more of the songs on that one."
"Thank you. That's how you answer questions."
As Rachel pops the CD case open, Gwen opens the door and stares up at her house with a strange expression. Then, she turns back to them and leans into the vehicle.
"Alright, just give me five minutes——"
She gets cut off by the opening notes of Material Girl.
Gwen smiles crookedly and rolls her eyes, closing the door on Rachel, who was singing her Madonna impression so loudly that she can faintly hear it through the glass.
The house is silent when Gwen enters. She isn't unsettled by it—— she knows that Adam is already at the school, practicing before the big game, and she figures that Jake must've left already, too—— and, promising herself that she can just clean the floor later when she's not on borrowed time, Gwen goes straight to the stairs without removing her shoes.
But, when she gets to the top of the stairs, she finds that Jake's bedroom light is still on, a sliver of yellow at the bottom of his closed doors.
"Jake?" She asks, knocking with two knuckles. "Are you in there?"
"Yeah! One second!"
She hears shuffling around and then the thud of his feet hitting the floor. When he opens the door, he's a little winded, half-dressed in the suit he was going to wear to the dance and hair unruly as ever.
"What's up?"
"I just wanted to make sure you didn't leave your bedroom light on." Gwen eyes his tie critically. "Do you need help with that?"
Jake glances down at his chest and then begrudgingly answers. "Yeah..."
As quickly as she can without choking him, she undoes and then starts to redo his tie.
"What are you doing here, anyway?" He asks as she loops the fabric around itself, his hands on either side of his doorway, gripping the wood a little tightly so he could resist the urge to try to tie his tie and piss her off entirely. "Shouldn't you be at the school?"
Gwen tightens the knot. "I have to pick up my dress. The girls are down in the car waiting for me."
"Oh."
"There you go."
She smooths her hands over the shoulders of his slightly wrinkled shirt and then, giving him a tight smile, walks back toward her bedroom. Even though he's only in a dress shirt and a pair of boxers, Jake follows her.
"Can I get a ride from Rachel?"
"No." Gwen says, taking her dress off the back of her door and rooting through her belongings for her makeup bag. "Aren't you going to go with James?"
"He's got a date. She's annoying."
"Yeah, well, you're my annoying little brother, and I don't want you in the car with me and my friends."
The smile she flashes him makes Jake roll his eyes.
"Oh, come on, Gwen," His voice takes a whiney lilt, "if you loved me, you'd let me come along."
"Were you not the one giving me a speech about how much I embarrassed you like a month ago?"
"You're taking that out of context——"
"Jake, I do love you. That's why I'm forcing you to hang out with kids your own age, even if you find them annoying." Stuff in hand, Gwen ushers him out of her room and turns the light off behind them. "You're not even dressed yet."
"I can put my pants on——"
"Just go with James, okay? Go out, have the best time you can, and come home late—— and, if anyone messes with you, I'll kick their ass."
Smart enough to know when he's losing a battle, Jake sighs. "Fine."
"Good. I'll see you later."
With a kiss to his cheek, Gwen disappears back down the stairs and out the door.
(In her absence, Jake mocked her under his breath, fiddling with his tie.)
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A previous cheer captain once told Gwen that a good stretch before a routine could solve just about any problem, but Gwen doesn't think a few toe touches will help a headache brought on by a sense of impending doom.
"If anything bad happens tonight I'm going to fake my death and move to Wyoming."
Mindy glances up from her compact to give her a strange look.
They've got about twenty minutes before their big routine, and Gwen's been pacing the length of the locker room for over half an hour, worried that the thing she's been expecting to happen will happen in front of the entire school body. All of the other girls were able to evacuate to the gym and escape Gwen's complete nervous breakdown, but Mindy, who's been fruitlessly trying to cover a mark on her neck with powder, didn't get that opportunity.
"You'd hate it in Wyoming..." She murmurs and pats her skin a little too aggressively.
Gwen skids to a stop and swivels on her heel to glare at the other blonde.
Well, it's more of a squint than anything.
This headache is worse than any hangover she's ever had. It not only aches in her skull but in her jaw and her face, tears rimming her blurry vision.
Mindy rolls her eyes, then. "Okay, fine, don't kill yourself off. Everything's going to be sunshine and rainbows tonight, and you're going to ride off into the sunset with your knight in shimmering armor."
The sound of her voice grates on Gwen's nerves.
"The sarcasm isn't appreciated."
Mindy gives her a deadpan look over the top of the compact.
"Well, forgive me if I don't want to listen to you whine about things that might not happen—— and stop pacing, would you? It's making my head hurt."
Gwen stops pacing—— not because Mindy told her to, but because she doesn't want to exhaust herself—— and continues to wring her fingers in front of her, mind reeling and racing with all the potential outcomes of tonight.
"What are you freaking about, anyway?" Mindy asks. "We win the game against Golden Garden every single year and, as nauseating as it is to admit, you're a pretty good cheerleader."
Gwen gnaws on the inside of her cheek. "I don't know." She answers honestly. "I don't have to explain myself to you. I'm just stressed. I'm stressed and I need everybody else to not be stressed, okay? No headaches and no mocking me for being like this—— if people are stressed, they miss their cues. If you're stressed, you miss your cues, and if you miss your cues you mess up the routine... and if you mess up the routine..."
Her unvoiced threat of violence is very clear in the silence that follows.
Mindy stares at her.
"I just need this to go perfectly, okay? I need everything to be perfect."
If everything goes perfectly, her worry is just a bout of misplaced anxiety. And she needs that. She really does.
"Are you on medication for your blood pressure?" Mindy finally asks, tilting her head to the side. "I think a diuretic would do you wonders."
Gwen sighs shortly. Then, because it might fix her karma, she fishes her concealer out of her locker and tosses it to the girl. Mindy catches it but doesn't say anything.
"How'd you get that anyway?"
At first, Gwen thought it was just a hickey but, now that she's getting a better look at it, it's a bruise—— thin but long, like someone pressed their finger into her neck.
"Can we go back to ten minutes ago when we weren't friends and didn't owe one another any kind of explanation?"
Gwen purses her lips but doesn't press any further. She doesn't care. It's none of her business.
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"I want to see smiles! We are cheerleaders!"
Mindy's voice is just audible over the school band and Gwen fights to not wince. All of the lights are too bright and the noises too loud, and she closes her eyes to take a deep breath and not throw up all over the floor. Then, as soon as she's got a modicum of control over herself, she turns to give the girls a frenzied smile.
"C'mon, ladies, I know you can do better than that!"
Gwen gets a few weak grins in return.
They're stood in formation in front of a makeshift stage. On it, alongside the principal and most of the teaching staff, is Wilson, standing next to a microphone and holding a crumpled-up piece of paper. He taps the microphone twice before he starts and the crowd quiets.
The sound of the feedback makes her wince.
"If I were to be honest, and we all know that I am an honest man," Wilson's attempt at a joke is met with scattered laughter. "I have never, in all my years of coaching, had a team quite like this."
The cheerleaders lift their poms and shake them, whooping.
Gwen struggles to swallow a mouthful of saliva.
"And I know that you're all as sad as I am that this is the start of their last year."
The crowd 'aw's. Gwen's eyes land on a boy, and she knows that he must be a Golden Garden kid because he's smiling. Before she can wonder how he snuck in, though, he meets her gaze, and her stomach lurches. Was that it? Was that what she was worried about? Some asshole kid from their rival school sneaking into their pre-game pep rally?
Gwen exhales shakily as she forces herself to look elsewhere in the room.
To her left, Alexa shoots her a nervous glance.
"But, there is good news. We have some great new talent tonight on offense, and, I'm going to tell you right now, it's been a long time since I've seen a kid like this with hands like his..."
She finds it within herself to smile genuinely as the spotlight shifts to Adam.
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Sitting in the crowd, Jake, despite being less than thrilled about all of the pomp and circumstance for both of his siblings, claps and cheers with the rest of them as Gwen gets an honorable mention during Adam's shoutout. Whilst his little brother looked miserable with all of the attention on him, their sister seems to glow under the praise. Even with a certain tightness to her smile, she lifts her arms into a Y and laughs as Wilson describes her with words like kind and smart. (Which, incidentally, are two words that the varsity hockey captain has never used to describe Jake.)
He's sitting there amongst the other plebeians and wondering what it must be like to be the princess of an entire high school when he hears it. Laughter.
And, evidently, James hears it too.
James slaps him on the shoulder with the back of his hand and then gestures. Sitting in the row in front of them, laughing at his big sister, are two kids that he doesn't recognize.
"Hey," Jake leans forward, trying to be quiet so that Wilson doesn't notice, "what's so funny?"
The first kid, his voice thick with mirth, shakes his head. "Nothing. Don't worry about it."
Jake exchanges a look with James. (And James' date sits there picking at her cuticles, unaware of what's about to happen.)
"No, really." James leans in, too. "What's the joke?"
The first boy doesn't say anything. All amusement has sobered from his expression.
His friend, however, is still snickering.
"It's just that—— did you know that your cheer captain is a total whore?"
Jake clenches his jaw.
Wilson's voice, booming throughout the room, interrupts them.
"Now, without further ado, let's give a warm Warrior welcome to our varsity cheerleaders!"
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The routine goes about as well as it could have.
As they're sticking the final pose and giving the crowd a moment to applaud them, Gwen's eyes, for whatever reason, drift back up the bleachers to where those boys were sitting before. They're not there, though. In fact, there's a small hole in the crowd—— like a decent number of people are just gone, or something. She continues to stare, her smile falling from her face, as the pyramids get deconstructed and flyers get placed back on solid ground.
Someone grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her, but she brushes them off.
She can't find Jake.
He was in the crowd, she knows that much. She saw him briefly, cheering for her and Adam, and then had to look away, but he's not there anymore.
Just like the Golden Garden boy, her brother has seemingly disappeared.
"Oh, shit," She sighs, and winces at the throb in her skull, "oh, shit."
"What?"
Gwen registers Mindy's question a second later than she should.
"Cover for me?" She gnaws on the inside of her cheek. "Jake's doing something stupid."
"I——what——how do you know?"
She shrugs her shoulders. "I just know."
Mindy, eyes wide, looks around to see if anyone else is witnessing this as Gwen leaves her with that.
The night air is cold and damp when it hits her. She takes a moment to stand on the threshold and shiver as she adjusts to it, but then dashes across the parking lot and toward the group of kids who are all shouting about something.
"Jake!"
Someone, a boy, grabs her around the waist before she can get to them.
"Get off me." Gwen elbows him in the chest and, after twisting slightly, the face.
The stranger grunts and releases her, and she takes a step away from him before she turns around to see who it is.
And the sight of Brody wiping his bloody lip with his thumb might just be what makes her throw up.
"Seriously?"
"Don't put your hands on me next time!"
The door to the gym opens as she shoves him in the chest. She glances at it, at the mixed group of varsity cheerleaders and hockey players standing in the doorway, and gives Brody one last scathing look before returning to her original task.
With the presence of the varsity boys and Brody, the fight gets broken up fairly quickly.
Cole has the Golden Garden boy in a headlock and Dom has Jake around the midsection, and Gwen, as the rest do their best to handle the crowd that's formed around them, steps between the boys.
"What the hell is going on here?"
"He called you a whore!" Jake cries, his voice breaking under the strain of his anger.
"She is a whore." The boy from Golden Garden shoots back, grinning despite Cole's headlock, his blood in his teeth. "Brody told us all about it."
Gwen is suddenly very aware of Rick and Scott in her periphery. They've arrived late on the scene, and their heads turn to her slowly.
"Yeah. She couldn't even remember his name when she kicked him out in the morning. Isn't that right?"
Even out of the corner of her eye, she can see the recognition in Scott's expression as Brody does nothing to deny the claim.
(Oh, you son of a——)
There's a metallic taste in the back of Gwen's throat and every labored inhale feels like lava. Actually, her whole body might be on fire, now.
"You son of a bitch!" Jake lurches forward and tries to swing again, but Gwen's body block and Dom's hold on him keep him in place.
Cole twists the other boy out of his arms and shoves him away, telling him to get lost.
Telling them all to get lost.
Gwen sways on her feet.
"Hey——" Brody's voice sounds strangely far away.
Mindy is the only person on her side to speak. "Fuck off, Cargill. Leave her alone."
Alexa touches Gwen's back. "C'mon. Let's go. They've got this."
Someone else, probably Rachel, also starts to urge her to disappear, but she can't.
She's rooted in place, pinned beneath the gazes of Rick and Scott.
Her heartbeat is in her ears right now. Her skull feels like it's splitting open.
"Gwen, seriously?" Rick asks, his words lacking any of the hostility they should have had.
Gwen can't find a single word.
The last thing she sees before turning around is their faces, one looking just as betrayed as the other.
✥
And, fuck, she thinks as she throws up in the locker room trash can, Laney rubbing her back, I should've just stayed home today.
✥
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a/n:
word count - 3147
dude what if I just told you that next chapter is like a thousand times worse? like what about that?
mindy's character development in this fic is actually something so personal to me <3
god, I know I created him, but I hate brody so much LMAO
comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and I cannot stress how much they motivate me to continue! thank you