The Goodbye Note

Chapter 29

The songs I recommend for this chapter are Complicated by Olivia O'Brien and Out Of Love by Alessia Cara.

Just wait until this chapter. I apologize now:) Just please don't hate me. Things had to be done, and I did them. I am a little sorry that it happened... but not too sorry. Things have to end a certain way for us to push through and get the ending we want.

***

I wake up to the sound of my alarm. I look at the time, it's seven. I have to pick up Mack for the competition. I told her I would be at her house at eight, but I'm not so sure about that. I have to get dressed, eat, do the exact makeup they want all of us to have, I have to manage to do a really tight high ponytail, because it needs to hold all day. Mack came over multiple times to help me practice the makeup for today. But I was never able to perfect it.

I rush out of bed and do my hair and makeup. I quickly get dressed into the cheer uniform. I eat breakfast quickly and rush out the door. I get to Mack's house at seven fifty-eight. I honk. She comes running out of the house, her mom follows, I roll my window down. "Good luck girls!" She calls out to us. She wants to come but she has to work, she was upset when she found out that she had to miss it.

"Mom, we don't need luck." Mack calls out to her mom as I start backing out. Xander and Dan are meeting us there. We didn't carpool altogether because we don't go on until eleven and the boys would get bored, so we just told them to get there at ten thirty. "I'm so ready for this! Em, you need to play music that makes us ready to destroy those other freakin teams." I play Better Get To Livin' by Dolly Parton. "This isn't the kind of hype that I was imagining but I guess it'll do." I laugh.

***

The drive was about an hour so we don't arrive until around nine. We meet up with the rest of our squad. Coach wants us to warm-up because she doesn't want anyone pulling a muscle. Mack grabs my ankle and I lift my leg past my head. Mack rolls her eyes, "Show off." I laugh but keep stretching. "Here my turn." She says as she hands me her ankle. I drop my leg and grab hers.

"Tell me when to stop." She says okay.

I lift her leg so it's straight in front of her. I can tell it already hurts her because she isn't breathing regularly, but she's stubborn. So she won't say anything until it's close to where I got mine.

***

I'm so nervous. We go on next and the butterflies are very present. I feel like I'm going to throw up. I know I won't but I sure feel like it. When we get called on stage the crowd claps but they're all tired from watching everyone else. I'm not on stage yet because I flip on but I still feel like the crowd can see me. The song starts and I do a bunch of flips on. The other girl who used to be a gymnast, Lily, does the same thing as me. We were symmetrical. The flips were perfect, now we just have to keep it up. Once we get into our pyramid the crowd starts paying attention. Everything is fine until the girl holding my foot sneezes. She loses grip and my whole base gets messed up. I fall and hit my head and I'm pretty sure I twisted my ankle. But I just roll to make it look not as bad. Dancing on a twisted ankle isn't easy, but neither was breathing with bruised ribs. You just have to keep going. I know I have tears in my eyes from the pain but I can't be the reason we lose today. When the song ends and we walk off stage Mack runs to me.

"Are you okay I saw they dropped you, oh my gosh, are you crying?"

"No but I will be and yes I'm crying." I pull my sock down to reveal a purple ankle.

Mack gasps and looks away. It looks awful. And it doesn't look twisted, it looks broken. Mack runs, I'm assuming she's getting coach. When the coach comes she yells at the girls for crowding me. She gets the medic that's onsite. He walks over and tells me to sit on a chair. He grabs my ankle and starts feeling it. "Sweetheart this is broken." No! We still have to perform two more times.