three                               back on track

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Mornings at Abby's house were a different kind of sport — one that involved lots of elbows to ribs, threats, lines to the bathroom, and a race to drink the coffee before it went cold. Ali had been lucky to find an excuse to escape it, at least for one day. The sun hadn't yet climbed over the horizon when Ali got Andrew to drive her to Columbia, the early dawn light casting elongated shadows on the empty streets.

Last night, just before she went to bed, Ali had gotten a phone call — the one she had been dreading ever since she left the hospital at Daytona. It was Jack Fisher, her childhood coach. The conversation had been quick, after all it was late, but he had just wanted to remind her, in that pointed but affectionate way he always spoke to her, that Ali had promised to spend some time with him and Sarah during the Summer, since neither of them got to see much of her after she started at PSU.

And Ali would have loved to spend more time with them — she always did — but not so soon after her accident.

The Fisher's kitchen smelled of fresh coffee and maple syrup, the aroma almost comforting if not for the tension that thickened the air. Ali sat at the table, drizzling honey over her chocolate chip pancakes, though her appetite had fled under the scrutiny of Jack and Sarah's gazes. Sarah's stares were always loaded — a combination of disappointment, resignation, and exasperation, and it pierced through Ali like a needle.

"You haven't been sleeping," Sarah said, reaching to inspect Ali's face, but she turned away from her. Sarah's fingers brushed against Ali's cheek and she sighed, losing patience with Ali's stubbornness.

"It's kind of hard to sleep when I have to share the living room floor with my cousins and Kevin," Ali replied, though she did not try to conceal the fact that she was lying.

"Why don't you stay here for the summer?" Jack offered, filling a mug with coffee for Ali to drink.

Ali couldn't even pretend to consider it. It wouldn't have been honest with Jack, and Ali could never lie to him. He had never hidden the fact that he thought of her as a daughter. Jack and Sarah had two sons, both in college out of state, and neither of them had ever been interested in cheerleading. He often told Ali about how she was special to him, and he made a point to not let people ostracize her after what had happened with her mother — at least not when he was around.

With Sarah, though, it was a different story.

Ali's relationship with Sarah was complicated. It was a maze of unspoken words and withheld affections, a delicate dance of yearning and restraint. From the moment Ali had stepped into Sarah's gym, she had been chasing the elusive ghost of approval that Sarah seemed to offer sparingly, like sunlight through thick clouds. Every nod, every rare smile from Sarah was a prize Ali cherished more than any trophy, yet they were few and far between, leaving Ali perpetually striving for more. Sarah's eyes, often filled with a mixture of exasperation and concern, betrayed a deeper care that she seemed reluctant to fully express. It was as if Sarah feared that too much kindness would unravel the discipline she had so meticulously tried to instill in Ali.

Despite the distance Sarah maintained, Ali could sense the undercurrent of genuine care that ran through their interactions. Sarah's critiques, though sharp, were laced with a concern that belied her stern demeanor. It was this paradox that kept Ali tethered, forever caught between admiration and frustration. She wondered why Sarah kept her at arm's length, why she never fully crossed the line into open affection. Perhaps it was a protective mechanism, a way to shield both of them from the vulnerabilities that came with closeness. Or maybe, Ali thought on her darker days, it was because Sarah saw too much of herself in her – the same relentless drive, the same fear of failure. And so, their relationship remained a complex tapestry of unsaid emotions, each thread woven with equal parts hope and restraint.

That day, there was something going on with Sarah and Ali couldn't quite figure it out. She noticed it because the house seemed tidier than usual, like they were expecting company and decided to hide the embarrassing stuff. Except that wasn't true, because they had never felt the need to hide anything from Ali, and the things Ali knew to be embarrassing to them were still on display.

Still, Ali felt like there was something missing.

"No. I want to start practicing before the Vixens come back from break, and Andrew's not gonna drive me back and forth every day."

"You should wait at least another month before practicing again," Sarah said.

Her concern was suffocating. More so because it came wrapped in a chastising tone, like she thought Ali was blissfully unaware of the fact that she had gotten injured.

"You're not my mother," Ali snapped, the words like shards of glass between them.

"I pretty much have known you for longer than your mother has," Sarah said, and though it wasn't exactly true, it wasn't really a lie either. Ali hadn't spoken to her mother since she was arrested five years ago, and so much had changed in Ali's life that she doubted they would even recognize each other. And the three years of Ali's life before she started cheerleading didn't really count. There was no Ali before cheerleading. "And I'm your coach."

There was a moment of hesitation, as if 'coach' was just a placeholder for the word she really wanted to say.

"Not anymore. I'm in college now."

"That doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want."

"I'm pretty sure it does."

Ali knew she shouldn't have said that. She regretted it the instant the words came out of her mouth, but she was too proud to admit her mistake.

After her mother's arrest, Ali had gone down a dark road. In a matter of days, she went from being a promising cheerleader to being the girl that people no longer could rely on. She had never stopped loving cheerleading, but suddenly she found herself skipping practice without even meaning to, like her brain was on autopilot, configured to make all of the wrong choices.

And she acquired quite the reputation.

It suddenly had become very clear that this was what everyone had always expected from a girl like her — mouthy and one-track-minded and begging for attention, prone to angry outbursts for reasons that most people deemed unimportant. With a mother who was in jail and a father who was six feet under, with no family to care for her. How else was a girl like her supposed to end up? No one had ever expected her to go to college. For all they cared, she would have been dead in a ditch by age nineteen.

And maybe that would have been true if Sarah hadn't contacted the Vixens' coach on Ali's behalf after her cousins' signed with the Foxes. The cheerleading try-outs were done by the time her cousins enrolled at PSU, so Ali really only got a spot because of Sarah.

Cheerleading had saved her on more than one occasion, but in that situation, particularly, it had been because Sarah had pulled the strings. She owed it to her to be grateful, but Ali couldn't bring herself to say the words out loud.

The silence that fell in the Fisher's kitchen was as stifling as a blanket. Ali dropped her fork, leaving half of her honey-soaked pancakes on the plate as she pushed back on the chair.

"I should get going. We're supposed to go to the stadium right after lunch."

"Don't you want to stay a while longer, Ali?" Jack asked. He had been quiet through Ali and Sarah's entire argument, but when he spoke, his voice was sure and calm as it had always been during practice. "We can drive you there later, when there's less traffic."

"Let her go, Jack," Sarah started, before Ali could say anything else. "You know Ali never does anything unless she wants to, no matter the consequences to herself or anyone else."

With that, Ali left without another word. She slammed the door and stood on their front porch, her shoulders already burning under the scorching Summer sun. Anger and hurt warred furiously inside of her, and every muscle beneath her skin felt red-hot. In a way, she felt betrayed by Sarah's words. She thought that if anyone would have understood her need to start practicing as soon as possible, that person would have been Sarah.

But maybe they were not as similar as she thought. Maybe she was wrong about her, and her guardedness didn't actually come from a feeling of careful affection. Maybe she saw Ali the same way everyone else did — a screw-up who would never amount to anything, because she kept getting it all wrong.

Trembling with anger, Ali called Andrew.

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There was something—always, even after a year—about stepping into the empty stadium. The whole cavernous place, a place Ali knew so well that most of her dreams took place there, felt different. It was more than the stillness, more than the heavy bleach swabbed over every skidded inch.

It was the silence. Not the absence of noise, but the kind of silence that held its breath, waiting for something to happen. Ali stood at the entrance, the weight of her gym bag pulling her shoulder down, and let the quiet settle around her like a shroud. The stadium was a place of echoes—of cheers, of laughter, of the rhythmic thud of feet against the hardwood floors—but now it was just a vast, hollow space, filled with nothing but the low hum of the lights and the distant creak of the rafters.

Kevin and her cousins had crossed the threshold into the section reserved for the Foxes, while Ali stayed back to change into her gym clothes in the Vixens' locker room. Her footsteps echoed in the empty space, a hollow sound that bounced off the walls and returned to her with a strange finality.

Kevin's presence had brought more money to the Foxes, which had allowed them to refurbish the hardwood floors and buy new gear, but the Vixens hadn't been contemplated by that money. Their locker room still smelled faintly of mildew and the tiles on the floor were stained and cracked from when they tried to scrape gum off it at the end of the semester. The air vents didn't work very well, and they were currently stuck, encasing the entire room in a film of unbearable heat.

Sweat licked down Ali's back as soon as she stepped inside. She promptly slid off her miniskirt and put on her lycra shorts, then walked over to the mirror above the sink to put her hair up in a ponytail.

In the mirror, she almost didn't recognize herself. Not because of the light-blonde hair that gave away its natural dark color at the roots, not because of the bruises on her skin, which were, somehow, always there. There was something about that specific place when she was alone, when she had no glitter on her face and no one by her side, putting on lipstick and talking about basket tosses and pyramids. Without her Vixens next to her, Ali could barely recognize herself. In that one year since she joined them, it was like something had changed inside of her, in the chemistry of her body, in the feeling behind her eyes. They were bound by obligatory symbiosis, and Ali couldn't survive without them.

But she was there. That had to count for something.

Ali rolled her shoulders, trying to loosen the tension that had settled there like a second skin. She was ready. At least on the outside.

When Ali stepped out to inner court, the boys were already playing. They were all flashes of orange chasing each other, with the exception of Andrew, who was at the goal, not moving much — not even when the ball neared down-court.

Ali started her warm-up. Those two months since her accident flew by, but, in terms of cheerleading, two months might as well have been forever. She was supposed to have been on strict bed rest since her release from the hospital, and she tried, but everyone who knew Ali knew it would have been impossible to demand that from her.

Even then, she could feel the effects of her inactivity. She reached down to touch her toes and felt the pull on her shoulders, a pressure where the cortisone shot had pierced her skin. Her calves burned as she splayed her hands on the ground and pushed down, stretching until the heat started to feel good again.

After her muscles felt loose enough, she set off up the bleachers, like they always did before practice. Each step was like trying to lift double her weight with her feet, but the pounding of her feet against the metal was so familiar it was almost like coming home. For those precious minutes, she could barely give a fuck about how stale the air was inside the stadium, or how the sun was so scorching she'd definitely be up all night nursing a sunburn.

She stopped after twenty repeats, on the last row beneath the V.I.P. booths, and watched as it looked like the guys' game was coming to an end.

From her perch atop the bleachers, she could tell that they all seemed to be putting an effort, except for Andrew. Neil, especially, ran up and down the court after the ball, but Kevin wouldn't let him get close enough to even try and take it from him. And Kevin seemed irritated about his own lack of sportsmanship.

And then, Kevin, Aaron and Nicky walked out of the court, leaving only Neil and Andrew inside. Suddenly, it was like a switch had been flipped inside of Andrew. All of the effort he had not been putting against Kevin when he tried to score, he was putting in now, against Neil. And by the way Kevin stood and watched, Ali knew that it was because of him.

Her blood simmered inside her veins, making her skin prickle as it rushed to her ears, but Ali knew she didn't have time to deal with that right now. Andrew would only stop when Kevin told him so.

And that, for some reason, was more infuriating to her than anything else. 

NOTE

heyyyy guys! sorry it took me longer than expected to update, but I was having a really annoying block with that second part of the chapter, so that's why lol

I'm excited to keep writing tho, so I hope I don't take so long to publish chapter four

thank you for reading, as always <3 mwah