"I know, I know. But this is something I need to do." Mia's eyebrows crinkle in concern. I'd sworn her to secrecy, and I knew I could trust her with everything. Even keeping something from her parents.
"Do you think you're going to find her?" she asked, and I had to look away. I didn't want to talk about that.
"Listen, I have to finish some homework," I say, cutting our chat short. She apologizes and tells me that she loves me. I say it back, and she makes me promise to keep her updated. I wave goodbye and shut my laptop.
I'm not going to cry. There's a good reason I came here. I sit up, push my shoulders back, and wipe the tears from my eyes. I need to get my shit together.
My new apartment isn't much to write home about. Since I transferred just two weeks before classes started, the pickings were slim. This place is nothing like the gorgeous two-bedroom apartment in Texas I shared with Mia up until a month ago. It had a window seat and a glorious kitchen and a huge tub in the bathroom.
I get up and walk around, taking in the drab walls, the grungy tile in the kitchen, and the oddly shaped bedroom that barely fits my queen frame.
No, I'm not going to cry. I'm going to make the best of this. No more pity party. I also didn't tell Mia that I've barely unpacked even though I've lived here for a month. If I unpack, that means I actually live here and that Texas is over, at least for now. Sometimes at night, I think about going back. Back to Mia and her loving parents, back home.
No. I made my decision, and I'm going to stick with it.
Grabbing a box, I start pulling things out. Great, it's the one with all my pictures, reminding me of all that I left behind. Frame after frame of me and my friends, mostly taken wearing our cheer uniforms before and after games and practices. Under a few of the frames are my bows. I stroke the ribbons with one finger.
A sharp pain goes through my chest as I think about the thing that I regret leaving behind most. Dropping the box, I lie on my bed.
Technically, I didn't leave it behind, but the squad I'm on now just isn't in the same caliber as my old team. We'd had nearly forty members and had placed at Nationals more than once. This is the first year the squad at Maine State University has even attempted to go to Nationals.
True, it isn't their fault that cheer isn't as big a deal up here as it is down there. And it was my choice to come here. My. Choice. Well, my parents had a little something to do with it as well. A combination of factors.
My phone vibrates with a text from Tobi, asking if I want to go for late-night pizza. The two of us met at cheer, and she's absorbed me into her already formed group of friends, including Carrie, Willow, Ruthie and Gwen. I barely know them, but it doesn't matter. They already feel like friends I've had for years. I miss Mia and my other friends terribly, but it's nice to have a new group so I don't have to be quite so alone.
I turn her down because I'm content to wallow tonight.
Pulling out my homework, I get down to business reading my chapters for philosophy and then delving into calculus. My major back in Texas had been photojournalism, but they don't have that as a major at MSU, so I'm doing a double major in photography and journalism with a minor in psychology. It's probably going to take me five years total to finish, but if I can add an extra class here and there, I'll be able to do it. I'm already in my sophomore year, so at least I'm part of the way there.
All that on top of cheer is daunting, but not as daunting as the other crap I'm dealing with.
I cross my legs on my chair and try to focus, but it isn't working.
Abandoning the work that definitely needs to get done right now, I walk into the living room and flip through the movies on Netflix. I want something fluffy and light, so I pick Amélie and spend the next few hours trying to remember my high school French and cheating by reading the subtitles.
My mind starts drifting, and it floats in the direction of a guy with a beard and tattoos that seems determined to spend the rest of his life pissing me off.
Rhett. His name would be Rhett. Just like the rogue in Gone with the Wind. I wonder if his mother's a fan of the book or movie or if it was a random choice. I'd cut off my hands before I'd ask him about it. I don't interact with Rhett any more than I have to, which has turned into quite a lot.
He's always the first one at the field house for our a.m. workouts and always disgustingly cheerful about it too. I loathe getting up at the asscrack of dawn, but there isn't a whole lot I can do about it. Being on the squad means early workouts.
Rhett is also in . . . well, awesome shape. He doesn't get tired running, and he doesn't breathe hard when we go full out at practice. In addition to that, he's a quick learner. He's picked up motions, stunting, dance, the whole shebang like he's been doing it since he could walk. I've never seen anyone learn a complicated stunt sequence so fast.