Page 39 of Tell Me Softly
You could hear her screaming across the gym. Every single person stopped what they were doing and turned to watch with curiosity. I turned red as a tomato and glared at her. “Can you not stop screaming?” I asked.
Leading a cheerleading squad wasn’t easy. I knew––I had done it––but rule number one was to always keep a hold of yourself. Fine, I was distracted, but it wasn’t my fault that the game was three days away and we still hadn’t settled on our routine.
“Pay attention!” Kate said.
I tried to bite my tongue, but I couldn’t help telling her what I was thinking. “The way you’re determined to do this pyramid is impossible, Kate, and we’ve barely had any time to practice because you can’t settle on what routine you want to do.” I was over it; I just wanted to go home. I was doubly pissed because I still had detention after, and Taylor and I would have to decide on a subject for our project after that.
“I’m the team captain—you don’t get to tell me what to do!” she said, smoke veritably streaming from her ears. “Or maybe you want to run the team, since you know so much!”
She threw her pompoms on the ground and ran off like a little girl throwing a tantrum.
I rolled my eyes. All the other girls were staring at me, waiting for me to do something. So finally, I hurried after her.
“Kate, wait!” I called, running behind her after she’d already shut the door in my face.
“You know how hard this is for me,” she said, “but instead of helping me, all you can do is criticize me!”
“Kate, I know it’s hard, but I’m trying to give you some advice…”
“Fine, but you don’t have to do it in front of the whole team,” she shouted. I was glad we had at least left the gym. “Don’t you see they won’t respect my authority if you do that?”
“I’m sorry, OK? It wasn’t my intention. But seriously, we can’t keep wasting our time on that pyramid. They need to have a sense that we’ve got the routine worked out, otherwise they’re just doing a bunch of random moves. Focus on the choreography, and when you get that ironed out, we can do as many pyramids as you like.”
At first, Kate didn’t want to listen, but eventually she nodded, then looked to where a group of cross-country runners was stretching out.
“I don’t know why you don’t just do it. You’re obviously better at it than I am.”
“Don’t be stupid. You’re great. You just need to get your priorities in order.”
“Priorities. Sure.” She grinned and looked me in the eyes. “Like you with my brother, right? That seems to be a priority for you.”
I was confused at first. But when I saw what she meant, I started to laugh.
“You know what you just said makes no sense whatsoever, right?”
“Oh, really…? You do like him, though, don’t you?” She seemed scared of the answer. I wondered if it was possible she didn’t know her brother was gay. If not, I certainly wasn’t the person to tell her. So I tried to thread the needle, telling the truth but not revealing Julian’s secret.
“Kate, I swear, we’re just friends.” I wove my arm through hers and walked her back toward the gym.
“He looks at you like he’s completely sprung.”
“You’re way off base, but it’s fine, think whatever you want.”I was uncomfortable. I didn’t want to lie to her or hide things from her, but I wasn’t sure I had a choice.
Kate and Ellie were two friends I shared absolutely everything with. And that made it hard not to tell Kate about her brother. But I was sure I was doing the right thing. It just wasn’t my business.
We continued training until six. I watched all my friends chatting as they walked to the parking lot, ready to go home. I had to grab my backpack and head to the library. I hated being there after six. The halls were deserted, there was barely any light coming through the windows, the whole thing was just depressing…
“Hey, partner!” I smelled Taylor’s cologne as his arm passed over my shoulders. “You ready for a round of hangman?” He said it softly enough that Thiago, who was in the doorway watching us, couldn’t hear.
I’d always thought the game was kind of dumb, but he and his brother could both play it for hours, and I’d never seen anyone so good at it. They came up with the longest, strangest words, and they had some kind of otherworldly capacity to guess when it was your turn to try to stump them. I used to think they cheated or that they had some kind of trick that helped them win.
“We should use the time to study, you know.” He frowned at me, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. That made Thiago look at us more closely, his expression icy as ever. “Come in and sit down,” he said. As soon as we walked past him, I saw Danny there in the back of the room. For the love of…this detention was going to be the end of me.
But actually, it passed quickly—not just because I played hangman with Taylor, switching to tic-tac-toe after he beat me five times in a row—but also because time with Taylor was just like that; he made the minutes fly by. He was always fun to play games with. I remembered how much he used to like hide-and-go-seek and how Thiago could never find us.
Taylor had sat in front of me, and we were able to pass our paper back and forth without Thiago noticing. Danny was behind us, though, and he watched us like a hawk. I knew it, but I wasn’t going to pretend like I cared. He was a grown-up now. His actions had gotten him here, he’d have to learn to deal with that, and he’d have to learn to deal with the fact that what we’d had was finished. He’d spent his whole life as a spoiled brat who got everything he wanted. I’d given in to him many times when I shouldn’t have, and if he didn’t like seeing me happy without him—well, I hated it for him, but he was going to have to deal with it.
When detention was over and I thought we were going to be able to leave, Thiago called us up to his desk. Julian and Danny hung back for a moment, then walked out. Taylor rolled his eyes and grinned reassuringly as we walked over to his brother.
