Chapter 6 - I'll Be a Home for You

how is this level of bodily contact allowed in high school?

Aang

There’s still time to bail out.

I tie my new sneakers in the locker room. White exterior, white soles, no markings, according to JJ. She didn’t text me to buy them. She went straight to calling my mother.

I glance in the mirror on my way out. My Stanford T-shirt provides enough motivation for me to push the door open.

The gymnasium looks different from how it does during PE class. There’s a forty-by-six-foot red mat on the floor that looks like a really thick carpet. On it is a group of thirty girls shouting, jumping, and doing flips.

What would my grandmother think about this? Moving from Hong Kong to America with a newborn daughter so that her grandson could join cheerleading. I doubt that’s what she had in mind. I doubt they even do cheerleading in Hong Kong.

I turn around.

The door is twenty feet away—2.5 feet per step, eight steps. I can be out of here in eight steps.

“Aang!”

I turn back.

“You have no idea how excited I am that you’re here!” Ms. Rosario, or as JJ calls her, Coach, shakes my hand. “The first co-ed squad in the history of the school! And it’s thanks to you and JJ!” She searches for JJ in the crowd. She’s standing near two other girls but isn’t paying attention to their conversation. She’s doing a jump where her legs extend outward, followed by a backflip. Try-hard.

“JJ’s very hardworking. I’m not surprised she was the one to recruit you.”

Teacher’s pet.

“And I hear she brought you up to speed yesterday.”

I don’t feel particularly brought up to speed, but how hard can this activity be?

“Let me introduce you to the rest of the team.” Ms. Rosario signals for me to follow her.

I sneak a look at the door. Eight steps.

“Aang?”

I trudge behind Ms. Rosario, who starts explaining the importance of having boys on cheerleading teams. As we reach the mat, the noise drowns out her words. How does she manage this group of girls? My eyes find JJ, who clearly got bored with acrobatics and is now adding to the noise by laughing with the two girls. I frown. They look familiar …

A sharp, piercing sound cuts through the air, and I flinch, covering my ears. How does Ms. Rosario whistle so loudly with only her mouth?

The chatter vanishes like someone hit mute on a TV. Every head turns, and in the blink of an eye, they’re all in a semicircle around her.

“Girls, give a warm welcome to Aang Lau, whose joining marks our transition to a co-ed team!”

The screech that follows is so earsplitting it leaves me temporarily deaf.

Ms. Rosario puts one hand up, and the noise ceases instantly. “Line up, please.”

The girls mill around, switching positions. JJ chews on her braid, walking around hunched over. Oh. They’re ordering themselves from shortest to tallest.

“Aang, join the line, okay?”

I walk to the end where the tall people are. From the corner of my eye, I see that JJ’s the sixth person from the short end. That’s hardly being a team giant. Why am I here?

I stand at the end of the line, awaiting further instructions.

“Thank you, girls!” Ms. Rosario’s gaze darts to me. “Sorry! I meant thank you, everyone!”

A couple of giggles.

“Today’s stunt groups are preliminary. Don’t get attached to your group. Don’t get attached to your position.” She starts shouting an onslaught of names, each greeted with a squeal.

All this excitement over being assigned to a group. I won’t get half this enthusiasm tomorrow for the first Mathletes meeting, and a fraction of the people will show up. Last year, we didn’t have the right skill mix to be competitive and barely placed in the top twenty. This year, I need someone good at logic questions to win Nationals. My jaw clenches when I recall whose area of expertise that used to be.

“… and Aang!”

My head snaps up. Separate groups are standing around the mat, staring at me. Which one am I supposed to join?

“You’re in the group with me.”

Instant relief gives way to annoyance. I turn to JJ. “How unfortunate.”

She narrows her eyes. Her braids are in a high ponytail held up with a pink scrunchie. They hit me in the face when she spins and walks away. I drag my feet but follow her.

Besides JJ, there are three other girls in the group. They wave at me, their smiles showing every single tooth. Terrifying.

They introduce themselves. Addy. Emmy. Paige.

“Welcome to the team!”

“So fun to have you in our group!”

“Have you done cheerleading before?”

Ms. Rosario’s appearance saves me from the barrage of questions. “Addy and JJ, you’re both flyers for today. Exchange places every couple of stunts. No decisions have been made yet.” She focuses on another group.

Addy is a pale girl with a blond ponytail tied with a red bow. Where JJ somewhat reaches my nose, this girl is barely at my shoulder. When they stand next to each other, JJ looks like she’s towering over her.

She can’t be happy about that. My lips quirk up.

“Let’s start with a smoosh!” Ms. Rosario shouts. “Clean one, clap three, turn five, jump in seven, stay one, three, down five, clean seven.”

Wait. What?

“I’ll go first.” JJ throws herself between Emmy and Paige, beating Addy to it.

I stand behind her, like she showed me yesterday. “What do I do?”

She shivers. Jesus, I whispered that into her ear. This is way too close.

“On five, you grab my waist. On seven, you help me up. On five, you help me down.”

“But … I don’t …”

“Shouldn’t have bailed yesterday,” she spits out. “Do not screw this up.”

“And five, six, seven, eight!” Ms. Rosario shouts.

The rest of my group hits their sides with their arms in some weird military-like motion. Just with much more deranged smiling. Paige and Emmy face each other, bend their knees, and put their hands out in front of them. JJ puts her hands on the girls’ shoulders and raises her heels.

And then they dip.

Shit. Grab the waist.

But it’s too late. JJ’s halfway up. By the time my hands are on her waist, she’s landed with her feet on Paige and Emmy’s palms. Her core muscles shift under my hands, and my fingers twitch. Thankfully, the bases let go of her feet quickly, and she lands on the ground.

She turns to me, seething. “What do you think you’re doing?”

I’m not about to admit I made a mistake. “You didn’t even need me.”

“For a smoosh! This is about to get infinitely harder without a backspot.”

“Well, no one explained anything to me—”

“Well, I would have if you didn’t just leave yesterday—”

“I can just leave now—”

“Okay, go again!” Ms. Rosario shouts.

JJ steps aside, glaring, and Addy takes her place.

Five grab the waist, seven help up, five help down.

I don’t bother with the weird salute. But sure as hell, I’m grabbing the waist on five, helping up on seven, and helping down on five.

“Well done, Addy’s group. Aang, that was great backspotting!” Ms. Rosario gives us a thumbs-up.

JJ stands in front of me, her nostrils flaring. “Did you do that on purpose?”

I shrug. “Maybe.”

“Let’s go to prep now! Dip one, stay three, high V five, clean seven, down one.”

I remember prep from yesterday’s lecture. It’s when the flyer stands up from the crouching position, and the bases hold her at their chin level.

JJ shoots me a desperate look. Her mouth quivers, but she presses her lips together to stop it. She takes her position in front of me.

The pang in my chest from yesterday returns. My body needs to follow my brain’s orders to stop reacting to her sadness.

They all do the weird salute again. I grab her ankles as the bases dip. I use all my force to propel her up. Which might have been too much, since she wobbles at the top. I instinctively grab higher around her knees to stabilize her. Her skin is soft. Silk-soft.

The gym air is poisoning my brain.

She does the high V thing, which involves extending her arms up to form a V. What an original name. We go down.

“Thank you,” she whispers and makes space for Addy.

We spend the next thirty minutes making sure the preps are perfect. And that seems to be impossible, based on Ms. Rosario’s feedback.

“Paige and Emmy, you need to stand closer together on the smoosh!

“Group four, why aren’t your flyer’s ankles touching?

“Alexis, your arms are too wide on the high V!

“Aang, I didn’t give you permission to skip the motions!”

My arms are tired. They’re flailing strings of noodles, doing the motions.

“Break! Five minutes!” Ms. Rosario orders.

The clock catches my eye as I grab my water bottle. It’s only been forty minutes. Eighty left of this ordeal. Around me, the team’s back to screaming like we haven’t been doing heavy lifting for more than half an hour.

JJ’s next to the same girls as before.

A chill runs down my spine.

That’s them.

The ginger one has a bob now, and the tall one’s hair used to be curly, but that’s them. They’re the ones who were there that day. It was a week after the fight with JJ. I’d finally swallowed my pride and was going to beg her to come back to Mathletes. I was waiting in front of her locker with a flower, rehearsing my apology, when she appeared around the corner. She didn’t notice me because her attention was on those two girls.

And she was talking about me.

The flower ended up in the trash.

My heart’s thudding, the vibrations rising into my throat, making me feel sick.

The tall one catches me staring and says something to JJ. Are they going to laugh about that day?

They don’t laugh, but JJ breezes over in my direction, and I don’t know which is worse.

“How’s it going?” she asks.

My arms hurt. I don’t understand the motions thing. I forgot I’d be on the team with the girls who witnessed the most humiliating moment of my life.

I wait for my heart to settle. “Worse now that you showed up.”

She huffs but stays where she is.

We stand in silence. Being around her used to feel easy. In the car, at the library, on the floor of my room, shoulder to shoulder without saying a word. Now it’s fucking unbearable.

Especially since she used the break to shed her T-shirt and is now wearing only a white sports bra and pink bike shorts. I try not to glance at her, but my eyes ignore my brain’s orders.

There’s a definition in her shoulders that I never noticed before. If it were physically possible, she would probably bypass me and lift herself. There are muscle lines running through her legs that look carved in. She looks like an athlete. Like a ballet dancer. Or an ice skater. Or, I guess, a cheerleader.

Stop staring.

I will my eyes away. Did she catch me staring? I should just quickly look back and check. All her attention is on Ms. Rosario and Addy chatting on the other side of the gym. She’s pinching her left arm, her posture stiff.

“I know Addy’s shorter than you, but you’re easier to lift,” I say.

Her hand stills, and she looks at me. If she’s surprised that I opened my mouth, she doesn’t show it. “That’s because I tense more. It helps the bases lift me.” Her gaze travels back to Addy.

“What is that weird salute thing you all do at the start of every stunt?”

She turns back to me. “Weird salute thing?”

I slap my arms against my sides. “This thing.” I look ridiculous.

I expect her to laugh at me, but she only says, “Motions add points for creativity and help break up the routine.”

“I see.”

“Yeah.”

Ms. Rosario saves us from returning to silence. “Let’s do single-leg preps! Group one, please demonstrate the correct technique.”

The chatting stops immediately, and everyone returns to their positions. The tall girl I saw with JJ and three others stand in front of everyone else. The bases squat and grab the flyer’s right foot. The backspot squats even lower and puts her hand under the flyer’s butt.

I blink.

I’m supposed to do what?

My gaze wanders to JJ’s pink bike shorts.

Nope. I’m not doing that.

The demonstration finishes, and JJ turns to me. The look on my face must be comical.

She bites her lip. “Don’t overthink this. It’s just cheerleading.”

Just cheerleading?

“Let’s do this!” Paige shouts.

I squat down. JJ’s so close to my face I can count the stitches on her shorts. I lean away. I put one hand on the back of her knee.

“Higher,” she hisses at me.

I move my hand an inch higher.

“Higher!”

I move my hand half an inch higher, and she stops fighting me.

My hands are drenched in sweat.

Which turns out to be a problem.

When the bases lift her, I don’t have enough of a grip on her thigh. My hand slips as I push. And all the momentum generated to send her up … makes her go forward.

She catapults out of the stunt and lands on her face with a loud thump.

My stomach drops, and I push through Paige and Emmy to kneel next to JJ. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She jumps to her feet and looks down at me, her nose reddish from hitting the mat. “Don’t make a scene.”

“Make a scene?” I stand up. “Your head rebounded off the mat! It looked like a basketball.”

“And I’m fine. Let’s go again before Coach gets to us.” She glances toward Ms. Rosario and takes her position between the bases.

I look at Ms. Rosario. She’s moving toward our group.

JJ’s acting like the fall was no big deal, but she was barely off the ground, and it already looked dangerous. If we put her above our heads in extension, she’ll be at least eight feet in the air. A fall from that height can mean a concussion and broken bones.

The realization hits me like a brick.

It’s my job to make sure that doesn’t happen.

This girl has lost her mind. Out of every single person in this school, she’s ready to put her life in my hands?

For what? Flying?

Aang, JJ mouths. Move.

I purse my lips. Have it your way, then. I walk behind her, get into the correct position, and focus on doing the stunt properly.

I’m not going to be responsible for anyone’s ER visit. Especially not hers. If I land her in a hospital, that might make us even for what she did last year. And then I’d have to stop being angry and forgive her. Nope. Not happening.

“And five, six, seven, eight!” Paige shouts.