“They were arriving today? I didn’t know,” I say weakly, my tone as casual as I can manage.
“Should I open them now?” Aisling asks, her fingers brushing adoringly over the paper.
Them, I think, a small splinter cracking in my heart.As in, there’s more than one this year.
Holding back my sad little gulp I nod my head and hold my breath.
“You know what? I’ll model them for you,” Ash decides, much to my absolute horror. “You wait here, and I’ll be back in, like, ten seconds.”
“Ash,” I begin, in a voice that clearly translates todear God no, but she’s already speed-sashaying into her bedroom, a vision of petite cheerleader perfection.
I drop my gaze back to the unfilled grant application on my screen and the ever-growing pinch between my brows burrows a little deeper. Did I really want to spend my senior year at college applying for the most hotly contested arts scholarship available at Carter Ridge University? No. But I also didn’t expect to get benched from the cheer team after three years of being their perfect, unbeaten top-of-the-pyramid flyer, meaning that the graduate sports scholarship I have been not-so-secretly praying for?
Yeah, not gonna happen.
Thoroughly distressed by the empty state of the document at my fingertips, I shut down my laptop and set it down on the glossy table, sighing inwardly at the fact that, without funding, this is one-million percent about to be my final year in the safely suspending arms of my academia haven. My final year of being enveloped in this condo, researching my latest Lit essay and obsessively plotting my secret just-for-fun dream manuscript, whilst thinking that this is what life could have been, if I had only worked hard enough. Not having to fear the prospect of heading indefinitely back to my parents’ house and disappointing them further because I don’t want to go pro with my sport.
As much as I love doing cheer, I don’t want to be ogled for the rest of my life on the field of every NFL game.
But it isn’t just about doing the work, my mind reminds me.It’s about having the money.
Which brings me back to my original point: not being on the cheer team means not getting another sport scholarship, and not getting another sport scholarship means not getting to stay on at Carter U for the Master’s degree that I’ve always wanted to do. And if I can’t stay on at Carter U to do my Master’s, then I’ll besacrificing my studies – my only form of genuine validation in this world – not to mention my secret manuscript, for the kind of job that will pay my bills but will never leave me enough time to accomplish my real dreams.
Or even worse: it will result in me moving back home, without an end-date in sight.
The irony of this situation is that I purposely cleared my schedule of all non-academic working arrangements this year so that I could ensure that Carter U’s cheer team would excel at Elite. But now that I’m benched from the comp team I’m desperately seeking a last-minute extra-curricular job because Ireallyneed to amass as much money as possible if I’m to stay on for a graduate year without getting into debt.
The issue with this plan? There are zero jobs to be found in the campus radius.
Although, my brain reminds me,there is that one job…
I do a full-body shiver and quickly lock that thought away.
I’m going to hold off on that possibility for as long as is humanly possible.
With slightly shaking fingers I reach down to pick up my coffee, and I’m momentarily semi-balmed by the small illustration of Baby Yoda being picked up by the Mandalorian on the mug.
I take a sip and look up at the ceiling, picturing the intergalactic galaxies beyond.
The Mandalorian would never drop Grogu, I think to myself.
“Ta-da!” Aisling announces herself in her bedroom doorway, her hip cocked up and one hand behind her beautiful chocolate brown hair.
Then she turns around and I get the full force of it.
I let out a little gasp and clutch at my heart.
“Super cute, right?” she asks with a grin as she looks back at me over her shoulder.
There’s a brand new cheer ribbon affixed in her hair.
“They finally let us pick lilac,” I whisper. I take a shaky sip of my coffee.
“It gets better,” she says, before unfolding the hand that she’d hidden from view.
“Oh my God.” There are literal tears in my eyes.
“I know right!” She holds up the second ribbon, a big red one with tiny icy crystals embellishing its centre knot, and she twirls over to the mirror between the windows so that she can admire it for herself. “So the purple one is for nationals, although we still have last year’s red-and-blue one as back up if we choose to stick with the whole ‘rep the college colours’ thing, andthisone is for” – she gives me a naughty conspiratorial look – “thatthingthat I can’t tell you about yet.”
