The Hard Count(27)

“The football team is lame. You should change your subject to cheer,” Izzy says, leaning into me to talk louder than the deafening blast from the marching band. Izzy is literally the perfect girl. She’s a genius in math and science; she’s built like an Olympic swimmer, and has auburn hair that always curls in one giant wave as if she’s a cartoon and her hair is just drawn that way. I’d hate her, except she’s an exceptional friend. She never dated Travis when I had a crush on him, and she put him off limits when I was over him, simply on principle. She also let me hide at her house during most of the summer, when the Cornwall football spotlight-and-gossip mill was in overdrive around and about our household.

“Your cheer team would make a really boring movie. Not enough drama. You need to be one of those cheer squads where moms plot murder and bribe competition judges with sexual favors to warrant a documentary. You guys don’t even really dance,” I say, offering half a smile.

“Are you saying this…is not a dance?” Izzy drops her pom-poms on the floor, and begins to twist her feet and pump her arms in a pattern I think is supposed to be the running man. She stops the minute I hold up my camera, wrapping her palm over my lens.

“My bad—you’re right. We can’t dance. Don’t you dare film me doing that,” she says, her hand still on my camera, but her mouth laughing.

I move to my normal spot, resting my back against the wall and sliding my gear bag from my shoulder. Most of the students are slowly making their way in now, so I scoot to the side just enough to get a wide-angled shot along the floor, but showing the expanse of the gym. I zoom in when the big spenders show up, including Brian Hawthorne, the guy who wrote an eight-thousand-dollar check to the team at last year’s awards ceremony so they wouldn’t have to wear the losing uniforms this season. Brian owns several carwashes across seven states, and apparently there’s a lot of money to be made in dirty rims and windshields.

I let my frame capture the high kicks Izzy and the other cheerleaders are doing while the drums pound behind me, but I keep my focus on their feet, fading them to the forefront and bringing the background in crisp and clear when the team starts to walk in.

Nico isn’t first. He isn’t even second, third, or fourth. He walks in with Colton and the rest of the line—in the middle. He doesn’t sit up front. Brandon does. My stomach sinks.

My dad isn’t going to start him.

I let my video continue to roll while I sit up to my knees and lean back on my heels. The cheer squad spreads out, and as the final few students filter in, the doors shut and Izzy flips her way across the gym floor. One at a time, each member of the squad goes until they all meet in the middle and shout words nobody can really hear or understand other than the occasional over enunciated “Go!” and “Fight to Win!”

“Thank you, guys! Thank you, Tiger Cheer!” Principal Locket says, his voice squealing the mic. He turns it to the side as if there’s something he can do with the volume. It squeals every time we have one of these.

“So, what’s up with Nico sitting in the middle?” Izzy whispers as she slides down the wall until she’s sitting next to me, carefully pushing her short skirt under her straight legs, palms on her lap. There are a good twenty minutes of announcements and thank-yous to major donors before the real pep part starts for tonight’s game, so Izzy always comes to sit by me.

“I don’t know. I was so sure my dad was settled on starting him,” I say, and just saying it out loud makes my stomach tighten again. I’m invested in Nico’s success, and part of that is the fact that this documentary on the team is a whole lot more interesting with Nico at quarterback. But I also want this for him. He wants it. Badly. I can tell.

I want it for him…more…

I’ve kept Izzy up to date on most of the football drama. She came to our house to visit Noah as soon as she got back into town on Wednesday. Her family believes in life experiences more than school attendance, so she misses a lot of class for trips. Her grandparents took her with them to visit a new exhibit opening in L.A., and Izzy paints, so this trip held a little more academic relevancy than most. Her dad is on the board, though, so she’s almost always excused, and her assignments are done on the road.

The mic is passed to a few different people. Everyone thinks they want to hear their voice at one of these things, but then they don’t really know what to say. It’s a lot of the same stuff—“I love this team!” Every single one of them has been a member of The Tradition. Now bald, fat, divorced, but usually rich, they all relive their best moments right here in the middle of our gym they helped pay for.

They all want to see Brandon. They don’t want to see some “scholarship kid.” That’s why my dad isn’t going to go through with it. He’s bending…caving.

“I’ve never noticed how hot Nico is,” Izzy whispers. I stiffen, half because I’d gotten lost in the background noise of the presentation, and half because of the words she just said.

“Yeah?” I say, my lips barely parting. They’re so dry. My throat…dry.

“Maybe because he’s usually so…I don’t know, argumentative? You know how he is in our class. And you don’t have calculus with him, but he’s that way in there, too. He’s always sighing—frustrated when Mr. Talbot has to go through a formula again. But I don’t know, there’s something about him in that jersey…”