Sweat pooled between my fingers. I shouldn’t have stopped taking Sunshine only a day before the big game. Everything felt wrong. Like I was half a beat off and couldn’t tell whether I was too fast or too slow.
I mustered up my best can-do attitude. “It’s a full house,” I said. “Let’s get ready to bring it.” I put my hand in the center of the circle, hoping that the girls wouldn’t notice the way it trembled, the way I trembled like a junkie in rehab. More hands stacked over the top of mine. “One, two, three, break!” In unison we all raised our hands to the ceiling and whooped.
I was the first one barreling out the door. I sashayed and waved my pom-poms. The smile I held felt as though a Barbie manufacturer had molded it into place. Do what they expect, I commanded.
I caught sight of Liam near the sidelines where he was stripping off his warm-up layers. I pulled my eyes away and hoped he didn’t notice. The fabric of my already fragile world was tearing apart. No more Sunshine. No more gimmicks. Like it or not, I was going to have to do this on my own. We arrived in front of the home crowd bleachers. I bumped elbows with Oiler Dan, the school’s big-headed mascot, as I found my place in formation.
“Watch it.” The kid underneath the mascot head staggered, catching himself on the table with the Gatorade dispenser.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
Get it together. I stretched my fingers at my side and rolled back my shoulders. Nerves. I made sure I was in alignment with the other girls. I was Cassidy Hyde. Cassidy-freaking-Hyde. And I could do this.
But as I stared up into the screaming sea of faces a wave of nausea nearly knocked me sideways. Cold perspiration popped up on my upper lip. I closed my eyes and blew out a long breath. Shut it all out. Everything that happened in the last week, shut it out. This was my chance.
“Ready?” I clapped my pom-poms—one orange, one black—twice. “Okay. Five, six, seven, eight.” The other girls joined in with our first cheer of the night. “Beat ’em, bust ’em, that’s our custom. Beat ’em, bust ’em, that’s our custom. Let’s go, Oilers, readjust them!”
I executed a high kick, spun on my toe, and finished with my hands straight out and forming a T with my body.
“Go, Oilers!” Ava bounced out of the ending pose. She raised her eyebrows and nodded at me as if to say, good job.
Behind us, the first quarter had begun. Each time our players got the ball, we encouraged the fans to cheer and when the other team charged for their basket, we led the fans in a cheer of “Defense!”
When I looked up, I saw the weird sophomore girl with the VW Beetle that I’d first met outside of practice a few nights ago, this time just staring at me. Her black bangs framed the pale moon complexion of her narrow face. A prickle worked its way up from my toes all the way to the top of my scalp. What was her name? Lena? She wasn’t watching the game. She was watching me.
The sight of her distracted me. I leaped into a straddle jump. My knees knocked together hard as I landed and I had to force myself not to flinch.
Lena’s eyes unsettled me. They felt so familiar, more so than they should. I recovered from the jump and tried to ignore her. But my legs were feeling shakier, whether from withdrawal or something else, something worse, I couldn’t tell. But Lena’s presence pushed on my consciousness like a finger kneading a bruise.
I counted out the beats. Four, five, six. This time, when I twirled in step with the other Oilerettes red swam in front of my vision and I saw myself clutching a knife and plunging it deeper and deeper into cold skin. I stumbled out of the spin and righted my balance using Ava’s arm.
Her eyes bugged, but she held me upright. “Are you okay?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“Fine,” I said. I missed the next two dance moves and then fell into formation. My teeth pressed into my tongue, giving me something on which to focus besides Lena and the images swimming before me. My stare couldn’t help landing on Lena every few seconds. Why was she watching me like that? What had she been talking about the other night and why didn’t I remember her when she clearly thought she knew me?
I didn’t remember a lot of things.
It was nearly halftime. My throat was bone dry. We were in the middle of one of my favorite cheers—“Let me hear you stomp your feet!”
I ducked to set down my pom-poms in preparation for our first stunts. We’d been working on the lifts for weeks. My body was fever raging, forehead flushed with burn. The sellout crowd stomped their feet in response and it shook my heart. I huddled in with my stunt group. Ava held a poster with the word Fight painted on it. Ashley took the other side. I tried to focus. But all I could see was blood. All I could see was me in it. The hypnotist’s memory hovered halfway between real and a dream, but how could it not be real when the evidence was buried in my backyard … wasn’t it? Statistically speaking, any other option didn’t make sense.