“Remy?” I call for him, my voice a pathetic whisper. “Remy?”
It feels like it takes an hour for his response, but when I feel his hand grip mine and I look up and into the blue of his eyes, relief fills my chest. “I’m here.”
“I’m so tired,” I tell him.
“Then close your eyes and rest,” he says and reaches out to brush loose strands of hair out of my face. “You and the baby are in good hands now.”
“Will you…will you stay?”
“Of course, babe.” His smile is so warm and cozy I want to wrap myself in it like a blanket. “Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
I want to say more, but I can’t hold my eyes open enough to speak, and the last thing I hear is the doors of the ambulance closing behind my gurney, Remy’s hand on mine the entire time.
Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, my mind whispers his words. Words that I’ve heard before, on one particular day, many, many years ago.
Twenty-Eight Years Ago…
Friday afternoon, the first week of school…
Maria
“Okay, ladies! I know it’s the weekend, but I need full focus for another hour, okay?” Emily, the captain of Hidden Hills’ varsity squad, shouts loud enough for all of us to hear over the football team practicing on the other end of the field. “It’s time to practice the first two stunts of our routine. Chrissy and Kate, I want you to be bases! Eden, you’re backspot. Maria, you’re going to fly!”
Oh boy. My hands shake, and I run clammy fingers over the material of my shorts.
“Let’s go, ladies! You can do it!” Emily exclaims as she stands off to the side, ready to watch me and three senior girls attempt a basket toss that kind of makes me want to puke.
Yes, I’ve done this type of stunt before, but I think the pressure of being the only freshman on the varsity cheerleading squad is starting to get the best of me.
“You ready, fresh meat?” Chrissy asks, and I push a smile to my face to cover my nerves.
No, not really. “Uh… Of course.”
“Well, let’s do it, then, girlfriend!” Kate chimes in.
I position myself between them, and with my head down, I inhale a deep breath.
You can do this.
I try to picture my little sister Isabella in the hope that I can draw some strength from her enthusiasm for all things cheerleading. The girl lives and breathes cheer. It’s always been her dream for us to cheer on the varsity squad together. And although, it’ll be another three years before that dream can even come to fruition, I figured I’d get used to it—establish myself on the squad before that.
And it doesn’t hurt that cheering affords you a front-row seat to Remy Winslow playing football either.
“Ready!” Eden shouts from behind me and claps her hands together. “Okay!”
My cue comes faster than I’d like, but I dig deep and find the strength to follow through. Hands together three times, I jump to the tips of my toes and straighten out the muscles of my body while I brace myself on Chrissy’s and Kate’s shoulders. They lock their arms together by holding each other’s wrists in a basket-weave pattern, and Eden grips my hips, counting it off, “One, two!”
With a bounce of my toes, I jump up to the surface of their hands, and Eden counts it again, “One, two!”
Chrissy’s and Kate’s hands move down under my feet and then up with amazing force. I’m catapulted up, my body flying toward the sky, and I focus on keeping my arm and leg muscles tight as I let my back stretch into the first flip of my stunt.
All is going well until my body starts its rotation into the second flip.
My equilibrium turns wonky when I forget to latch my eyes on to my spotting point, and my body overrotates all the way through the second flip and halfway into a third as gravity starts to pull me down. My momentum is too much for Chrissy, Kate, and Eden, especially in this awkward position, and as a result, the catch fails spectacularly. We have a rule in cheerleading—that a flyer never hits the floor. But even I have to admit, in this case, I’ve made it pretty much impossible for them to catch me. All that’s left is the ground.
Ohhhh noooooo!
After that much height and rotation, the impact is so sudden it forces my left hand to hit the ground at an awkward angle, and an audible crack! assaults my ears.
The pain that follows is so dang intense, it makes my vision burst into a kaleidoscope of indiscernible shades of reds and yellows and whites.
“Maria!”