the next day rolled around, and you never felt more happy but also embarrassed. embarrassed that right after prying hazel's surprisingly strong grip off your waist, you meet her mom in the foyer of the house. you stood awkwardly with your shoes in one hand, and your clothes in the other since hazel let you borrow a pair of her sweatpants and a hoodie to sleep in.
" had fun last night you two," mrs. callahan questioned, raising an eyebrow while sipping her coffee. you immediately shook your hands, laughing awkwardly.
" it's not what it looks like mrs. callahan we didn't do anything like that i swear," you panicked as she just smiled looking at you flustered.
" trust me sweetie i would have known, i was actually here last night. you should probably," she laughed, pointing her head towards the front door. you nodded making your way to leave.
" i'll be back to pick her up for school," you yelled behind you, walking towards your car in the early morning.
" i'm sure you will, sweetie." mrs. callahan teased. she watched as you pulled out of the driveway, and making your way to your house to freshen up and change before picking up hazel to go to school. she shook her head, taking another sip from her coffee. " i knew there was something between them."
the pep rally was about to start, you waited patiently next to your fellow cheerleaders so you could get the performance done with to sit next to your now girlfriend. thinking about it makes you smile and feel like a giddy lovesick teenager which you were.
people started to cheer as jeff ran out to the center of gym floor followed by tim. you looked around trying to see if you could spot hazel in the crowd before facing forward again.
" everybody, even the fucking losers, make some noise !" jeff yelled out into the microphone he was holding.
" all right, uh, so we're gonna do the pep rally. first up, cheerleaders," that was your que to stand up with your fellow squad and walk towards the center of the gym floor in formation after the two idiots moved. the cheer uniforms were a bit more casual since it was the pep rally and because your cheer coach didn't want you guys to dirty the actual uniforms before the big game.
you stood in a pyramid formation standing behind stella on her right side, instead of holding your pomspoms like usual you had a water bottle for the performance. you all were facing away from the crowd, isabel looked over her shoulder smiling at you before facing ahead again.
hazel sat up more to see the performance you would be doing, her eyebrows furrowed seeing you hold a water bottle like the girl to the left of you. the music started, with the girls in the back turning around first, then brittany and isabel, then you and the girl across from you, before finally stella turned around. placing your hand on your hip before moving the water bottle in position stella winked towards opening her arms wide as you and the other girl dropped the water onto her body.
hazel just stared ahead confused, as you smiled and nodded your head while stella jumped up and down before excitedly shouting, " football !"
you could see mr. g with his head in his hands shaking his head in disappointment, now that the cheer performance was over you followed after isabel and brittany. isabel went to go sit next to josie, you stood for awhile trying to find hazel but brittany had pulled you down before anyone yelled at you to sit down. you frowned but faced forward to watch the rest of the pep rally.
" there's been some exciting stuff happening at rockbridge falls recently. how many of you know about that little girl fight club that could ?" tim spoke into the microphone, your face scrunched in confusion looking behind at isabel who looked down at you in confusion as well. there were some claps that came from the crowd, you even heard mr. g hype your club up, but you had a bad feeling about this considering it was tim talking.
" well, do we have a surprise for you. we're gonna bring.... where is she ? hazel down," tim pointed towards somewhere in the crowd. you felt your heart race not from happiness, in fear of what was gonna happen. you swallowed the lump in your throat as you felt brittany wrap an arm around you to try and calm you down.
" one of the founding members. to show us everything the club's taught her in a fun little challenge," hazel walked down the stairs, following her with your eyes hearing everyone cheer for her. of course you would be too, if it weren't for the fact you were preoccupied with thought of what the hell tim meant by a challenge.
" what is this ?"
" i- i don't know.."
pj and josie spoke behind you, hazel getting closer to the center of the gym floor looking behind her making eye contact with you. you shoot her an uneasy smile not sure if you're trying to comfort her or yourself at the moment before tim started to speak again.
" hazel will be fighting tucker, the school's number one boxer," you stood up after he said that in shock. you have heard of him unfortunately, with a few of his opponents being sent to the hospital your mom worked at. from what your mom has told you and your dad, her patients always came roughed the fuck up after fighting tucker.
" what ?!" you whispered, eyes widening and starting to breathe heavily before brittany grabbed you by the arm to sit you back down. brittany started to side-hug before saying that hazel would be fine, which caused you to look at brittany nervously. there was a reason he's in a cage half the time during school.
" wait, i thought i was gonna be fighting pj ?" hazel questioned, eyes widening at her opponent. from where you sat, you couldn't hear what she said only that you saw her mouth moving.
" i know what you're thinking, but don't be alarmed. girls can do anything guys can do, right ?" you just glared right at tim, before focusing on hazel who seemed to be mentally preparing herself.
" yeah, kick his ass !" you heard sylvie cheer hazel on.
" ready ? go !"
tucker immediately started to run towards hazel who stood there paralyzed in shock before moving to side and tripping tucker with her foot at the last minute. having her opponent fall to the ground, hazel started to back away fairly quickly turning her head to the side only to see you squeezing the life out of brittany's poor hand. hazel regretted in that moment ever agreeing to tim's stupid idea, but her opponent had already stood back up and while she was distracted, quite literally threw her across the gym floor.
you yelped in fear, covering your mouth with your free hand shaking slightly after hearing hazel collide against the gym floor. you saw her cough before sitting up looking in the crowd once more. hazel heard multiple people cheering for her, so she stood up, a bit wobbly, and started to run towards her opponent while yelling. landing one of a hell punch on his face, and dodging the punch he threw right after, hazel started to feel the adrenaline rush through her body. she blocked the next punch he threw with her arm, though it costed her since the next punch tucker threw actually landed.
hazel bounced right back up, throwing a kick to tucker's chest to put some distance between them. while he was still caught off guard, hazel moved in close and starting throwing punches to his chest, which unfortunately didn't really do much, even more when he pushed her head away causing her punches to not even reach him. hazel realized that this wasn't doing much so using her right leg swinging it to take tucker's arm away from her. causing him to stumble which she used to her advantage, jumping onto his back using one hand to hold his head down and the other to leave scratch marks on his face.
you heard pj question if hazel was sorta winning which you weren't even concerned about, you were more worried that hazel would be getting badly injured. you started to chew on your inner cheek nervous as hell, not even realizing that you drew blood and your cheek become raw from the harsh biting. despite hazel screaming and leaving scratch marks on tucker, he was able to throw her off into the gym floor and it was an aggressive throw with the sound of her body and her doc martens colliding with the floor. seeing some blood drip out of her mouth made you a bit nauseous, not noticing that you had blood seeping into your mouth too from the wound you caused with your own teeth.
" i know what you're thinking. you may be wondering how a girl under the training of.....of two juvie convicted killers can't even stand up for herself against a regular old guy," you shook your head at tim's words, you know that 'regular, old guys' aren't usually caged up during class. " well, the truth is, they....they didn't go to juvie. no. there's no record of them there. and according to hazel, they never fought anyone at all."
hazel coughed trying to push herself up from the ground, but after being thrown twice her head was starting to get fuzzy and the adrenaline she once had was quickly dissipating. she could see a line of blood and spit that managed to drip out of her mouth from her blurry vision.
" and you know what else ? they didn't start the club to empower women. they did it to fuck cheerleaders," josie and pj started to look around them nervously since they were sitting right next to the club members. isabel looked absolutely stunned not even glancing towards josie, brittany was shocked but focused on pulling you down in your seat to stop you from running to hazel, stella looked confused looking between the girls.
" what is wrong with you ?" tim directed the question to josie and pj who had facial expressions that equaled to them knowing they were screwed. sylvie and crystal looked up at pj in betrayal, while isabel looked at josie with the same look she had given jeff just a few weeks ago. "it is such a shame. we were really rooting for you girls."
tucker gave hazel one last kick as tim ended his speech, that was all it took for you to pull yourself from brittany's arm running to hazel. you heard footsteps following you, but tears started to blur your vision as you got closer to hazel. squatting down next to her, you saw just how much blood was on her face causing to start to hyperventilate, your ears starting to drown out the noise around you. you felt your mouth move probably repeating hazel's name though you couldn't even hear yourself, you could see through your blurred vision that you were shaking her shoulders lightly. you felt a pair of arms pull you away from her, the warmth from your own tears pooling down your face. you heard brittany's voice that her and stella were going to pick hazel up though it sounded muffled.
you nodded slowly, unable to speak as sobs just came out from your mouth, even if you tried to speak the lump in your throat would feel like it was choking you. isabel moved forward to pick you up from sitting on the floor before moving to face josie and pj who were standing behind you guys. your ears started to clear up as the sounds started to rush back into your head causing for a headache to begin.
" is that true ? that's why you started this ?" isabel questioned the two, seeing them both unable to speak. isabel glanced over at you but you were looking back towards hazel making sure the girls were carrying without hurting her.
" no, no, no." josie started before started to breathe heavily as well, thinking of what to say to not fuck up her relationship that just started with isabel. " not- not entirely."
" not entire- okay," pj exclaimed, looking at josie in shock. " listen guys, it doesn't matter... the reason we started this, right ? like....the point of the club is that we all learn from each other, right ?"
all the club members just stared at pj and josie in betrayal recounting the very last meeting they had and connecting the dots with pj's attitude. your tears have finally dried up as you stared forward at pj, not even mad anymore just disappointed at how she was still trying to save her own ass and not just owning up to it.
" and...and we had a great time doing it and...."
" i thought this club was for sisterhood," annie admitted, staring at the two girls with a sad look in her eyes. her voice cracking from trying not to tear up. " but it was for your own selfish interests ? this is the second wave all over again."
all the others girls had gone to help out with brittany and stella were carrying hazel, but you stayed since you currently still had one of isabel's arm around you in a side hug besides you trusted the girls to take care of hazel until you got there. isabel turned to look at josie glaring before moving you and herself to walk away. you followed her in step as you heard josie and pj follow you two.
" isabel, please, please, wait. pj made me do this, i didn't want to. i would never want do this." isabel turned away to face josie letting you go in the process so you stood in place waiting for her patiently. you shifted between each leg, making sure you could walk again without having them feel like jelly.
" you're pathetic, josie." isabel's voice cracked before walking back towards wrapping her arms around you as you both followed after the crowd to go look for the others.
author's note : well the cat's out of the bag now and hazel got beat up unfortunately, the main plot of this book is slowly coming to a closing, so hope you guys enjoy the next chapter ! bye bye !