🌹Rosalie🌹

The suffocating polyester fabric of my cheer uniform clings to my skin. I'm no stranger to tight uniforms, to thin fabrics and revealing cuts. It doesn't make it any easier to swallow as I slip into the small skirt. It barely ends just below my ass. I slide my fingers there now, feeling just how close it is to revealing the coveted crease where my ass meets my leg.

I know the last thing I should do right now is check my reflection in the mirror, but the way my stomach spins and my chest aches tells me I'll look. I have to.

I take two small steps and center myself in front of the full length mirror within my room. I start at my ankles, slowly lifting my eyes up my legs. I tug at the skirt, hating the way it hits my upper thigh, cutting my body in the worst possible place. I'm thankful for the top, for the way it touches the skirt, not revealing my stomach.

As my eyes travel across my chest, across the letters that spell out the name of the town, I look at myself directly in the mirror. My hair is pulled back, the vibrant red nearly glowing, the curls cascading down the high ponytail required to complete our uniform. Just to add icing to the cake, I have a massive blue and silver bow in my hair. But my eyes don't stay there for long, they drift to the features of my face. To the stubborn freckles that peer through the makeup I put on, to the red lipstick our coach insisted was a must, to the way it makes my lips look disproportionately large compared to the rest of my features.

I look away as my eyes begin to burn and let my arm slide across my stomach, my fingers trail the blue and silver lines across the front. Pulling my shoulders back, I suck in my stomach and turn in the mirror to get a better look.

It's then that I realize I've left my door open, that a set of blue-gray eyes catch mine. I drop my hand and spin around to face Nolan. He's in his jersey, his letterman jacket swung over his shoulder as he leans on the doorframe.

He doesn't say anything as he inspects me. A wave cascades my cheeks as I struggle to breathe, to know every single piece of me that he's judging at this very moment. His eyes drop to my chest, slowly lifting to see my rose colored cheeks before his eyes lock back on mine.

"Did you need something?" I finally ask.

He clears his throat, standing from the doorway. "I'm taking you to school. We leave in five." That's all he says before he walks away.

After he took me to dance earlier this week, we've fallen into a bit of a pattern. To keep up appearances, he's been taking me to school each day. We don't talk much on the drive, each of us doing our part to appease our parents. My mom smiles every morning we leave together, that same hopeful gleam hitting her eyes.

Today is different though. Today is the first pep rally, followed by the first game of the season. While the vast majority of this town is oozing with spirit and nauseating excitement, I'm filled with anxious dread.

Taking a breath, I walk down the long hallway to the kitchen. My mom is already bustling around, a table full of breakfast foods and a colorful arrangement of fruit.

"Oh!" she nearly screams when she sees me. "Rosie, you look beautiful!"

I smile, the same warmth across her eyes hits my chest. She's always been my biggest fan, the one person to always support me. "Thanks, Mom."

She steps forward and swings her arms around me. When she pulls back, her hands fall to the curls in my hair, sliding across one of them as she holds my gaze. "I can't wait to see you out there."

Nolan walks around her, grabs a plate from the counter as he piles it high with bacon, eggs, toast, and fruit. I glance at the clock above the stove, taking note in the fact there's only three minutes left in his little five minute warning.

He slips into a seat and begins to inhale his food at a ridiculous rate.

"I'm excited to see you too, Nolan," my mom adds. "I have only heard so many amazing things. I'm excited to see you in action tonight."

"Thank you," he says behind a mouthful of food. He glances at me, then the table, as if to say two minutes, eat now or forever hold your peace.

I step up to the table and grab a piece of bacon. Spinning to face my mom, I say, "Between the pep rally and needing to get to the game early, I'll be staying there. So, I won't see you until after."

"I figured as much," she says. "Know that I will be there in the stands, screaming your name. Both of your names."

I step forward and place the piece of bacon on the counter as I reach for my water bottle and fill it up. After placing it in my backpack, I glance over at Nolan. He's already standing, and for whatever reason, his eyes are already watching me. I quickly look away and slip my backpack on before I walk toward to the door.

"I'll see you at the game, Mom."

"I'll see you, Rosie-girl. Love you!"

"Love you too, Mom."

Once Nolan and I settle in the car, our usual silence falls over us both. Instead of placing my backpack on the floor, I lay it over my lap, covering the uncomfortable exposure of my legs. Reaching forward, I change the radio from the nauseating country twang. Nolan and I made another deal after our night of truce. We'd alternate days with the radio. A compromise I was not expecting him to make. But when he caved, I asked no questions and quickly took my victory in peace.

Though our car rides have been cordial, and mostly riddled in the quiet passing of open fields and small town bliss, there have been moments of small talk. Glimpses of actually not hating to share the air with the person beside me.

I look out the window at the open fields, counting the cows out in the early morning. It's become a habit, wondering if I can actually count them all fast enough before we pass them.

I get all the way to twenty-three before Nolan interrupts me. "Cheer looks good on you, Red."

I nearly choke on my saliva at his words, my eyes practically falling from their sockets as I look over at him.

He smiles. A cocky smile that reveals that dimple of his. I drop my gaze and cross my arms over my chest. "You're mocking me."

He laughs. "I mean, I think it's the scowl that really completes the whole look. There's nothing that says school spirit like hatred covered eyes."

"I'm just adding depth to the team. We can't all be sparkles and pompoms."

"No, we definitely can't," he agrees. "Why did you even join the team in the first place? If you're this against it, why do it?"

"I didn't really have a choice."

"We always have a choice."

"Okay, wise one," I mock him this time, patting myself on the back for getting that dimple of his to return. "I need it for my application."

He nods. "That makes sense. Can never have too many extracurriculars. Colleges eat that shit up."

"Yeah," I breathe out. "Seeing as I don't have a credited recommendation from a renowned dance studio, I need every leg up I can get."

"Wait, a what?"

I look over at him. "The National Academy of Ballet has a list of requirements that nearly every trained ballet dancer can meet. So, having a recommendation from a renowned dance studio puts a highlight on your application, sets it apart from the rest and allows it to actually get reviewed by a panel that matters."

"And I'm guessing a small town studio doesn't give you that kind of clout?"

I laugh. "Blueridge isn't really on the map. So, no, it doesn't give me any clout. The counselor suggested I add cheer. Show that I can be part of a team while also showing commitment to school spirit."

"Makes sense," he acknowledges. "So, this National Ballet Academy...it's a big deal?"

"A big deal?" I huff. "If I have any shot at becoming a principal dancer, then I have to get into the academy."

"Principal dancer...is that like some prima ballerina shit?"

I laugh at the way he so casually pieces together what I'm trying to get at. "It's Tom Brady meets Joe Montana, NFL level shit."

I'm pretty sure his eyes are the ones about ready to leave his face. "You know football?"

"What, a girl can't know football?"

"Not what I said," he quickly states. "I guess I just didn't expect it. With the whole hating the world vibe you put out, I didn't think football would be your thing."

"I don't hate the world." He glances over at me, a playful smile across his mouth that brings that shade of my favorite flower to my cheeks. I try to fight a smile, but that damn dimple of his has me cracking. "I don't. But I don't necessarily love everything about it either."

He nods in his victory, his eyes on the road. The car is quiet again, the open fields turn into shops as we make our way into town and closer to school.

"I used to watch it with my dad," I admit, unsure of why the words are leaving my mouth. I haven't thought about my dad in a long time, at least not the good moments. He worked a lot, was rarely home. The majority of my childhood memories involve me and my mom. She was always there for everything. But there are these small moments in time where my dad and I would spend time together. I used to cherish them. Like I knew they wouldn't last. Football was something we had together. He didn't understand ballet, and there was a time when all I wanted was to have something in common with him. When I sat beside him one Sunday and let him explain the game to me, I found something that was just ours.

He glances at me, the heat of his gaze warm against my cheek before he looks back at the road. "Do you miss him?" he asks, and my stomach aches.

"No," I quickly answer. That short, simple word burns my throat. I don't miss him. How could I miss someone who did something so terrible? Someone who left us with nothing? Who stole from others? "Do you miss your mom?" I ask, taking the heat off me and turning it on him.

"No," he answers just as quick. His hands squeeze the wheel. It's brief. If I didn't happen to be looking, I would have missed it. "I can't miss something I never had."

I study him, watching the tension along his jaw, the stiff stature of his shoulders. "I think those are the things we might miss the most. The things we never got to know."

We pull into the school and he parks in the same spot he chooses each and every day. When he cuts the ignition, he sits back in his seat, letting the silence swim between us both. With a breath, he brings those bluish-gray eyes my way.

The tension drops from his shoulders, that familiar smirk replaces the remnants of pain. "And who's the wise one now?" He winks. And in the one playful gesture, my cheeks heat again.

I don't know a whole lot about my soon to be stepbrother, but I know his guard is up. And I know that walls don't get built overnight, they take time. We might not want the current path our parents have taken, but I'm beginning to wonder if our reasons for keeping our distance are far more closer than either one of us expected.