Life's A Witch

Chapter Seventeen

When I woke up the next morning and reached over to my cell phone to see what time it was, I nearly fell out of bed in shock. I'd slept for about fifteen hours, but hadn't dreamed and I didn't remember falling asleep. My initial plans to begin training today appeared to be out of the question now that the day was practically over.

I got up and stretched, feeling every single muscle as it screamed in pain. As athletic as I was, cheerleading had in no way prepared me for the damage of magical warfare. My tailbone throbbed with every step. I went over to the mirror that was hanging on the back of my door and surveyed the damage. I might as well have been rolling around in the dirt, because that's how torn up I looked.

Somebody was badly in need of a shower.

Making it my first order of business, I headed over to my closet and swung the doors open to survey my choices.

Hello, clothes! Oh, how I've missed you!

I ran my hand across the rainbow of materials, feeling the familiar twinge I got over fabulous fashion. Given all that had happened in the last week, this particular passion had taken a major backseat to everything else. But it wasn't until I stood there in front of designs by Carolina Herrera and Vivienne Westwood (both fellow witches, I might add) that I realized just how much I'd been ignoring that part of me.

That wasn't the only thing I'd suppressed, though. As I touched the stretchy polyester fabric of my cheerleading uniform, I felt the pang of sadness grow even heavier. And then my heart sank into my stomach as I had a horrific thought.

If the Parrishables were going after everyone I was close to, then could that include my best friends? Sofia, Trish, and Bethany weren't witches, but that didn't necessarily mean they were free from danger. In fact, it was possible that if the Parrishables couldn't get at me while I was with the rest of the Cleri, they might go after my friends to lure me out. I'd learned from the mall incident that they weren't worried about the nonmagical world knowing they existed. The Parrishables could attack at any time, knowing that I would come running to save my friends. And I would, because although they were able to flip their way across a field, my cheer-mates didn't stand a chance against the Parrishables.

I had to make sure they were okay.

Looking back at my uniform, I realized that my teammates would be lining up to cheer on our football team in less than half an hour. If I rushed to get ready, I could probably make it to the game before halftime.

Ahhh, halftime.

If I was being honest with myself, checking on the others wasn't the only reason I wanted to go to the game. The truth was, I missed cheer, desperately. It had been the biggest part of my life for such a long time that not having it now felt like going through another loss. It was the one thing that always made me feel like myself again.

And if there was a chance that I wasn't going to win this fight with the Parrishables, then this would be my last chance to be a regular sixteen-year-old doing what she loved. Even if I wouldn't be able to cheer along with the squad, I'd still be able to cheer them on, to feel the excitement of the crowd and dance to the music. I'd have to stay out of sight, but it would be like my final performance before retiring my pom-poms.

I hadn't realized I'd needed this, but I did. And I deserved it.

As soon as I'd made the decision to go, I got moving. I looked at myself in the mirror again and made a face at what I saw. It was not pretty. Even though I had no intention of being seen, I couldn't take the risk of going out looking the way I did. Just like celebrities when they go out of their house without makeup on and then are bombarded by the paparazzi, you never know when you might need to impress.