Daisy in a Meadow

36 - Acceptance

"Alright, ladies, practice is over. Enjoy your evenings, and remember, the football team is playing next Thursday, so you each need to bring your A game. Now get outta here!" Coach Sharma blew her whistle, dismissing us from cheerleading practice.

My shoulders sagged in relief at the fact that practice was finally over. Making the cheer team was a challenge in itself. However, actually practicing alongside the other cheerleaders was an entirely new issue which I hadn't prepared myself for.

Since I happened to be one of the lighter girls on the team, today Coach Sharma decided to test out what things would look like if I was at the top of the pyramid. More than once, the other girls had accidentally dropped me, leaving me with a number of bruises and an agonizing pain in my knees. Needless to say, they weren't entirely accepting of me being on the team.

Slowly limping, it took me a little bit longer than usual to make it to the changeroom. The moment I entered, the other girls began to shoot me looks and whisper amongst each other. Last year, this likely would've sent me into a whirlwind of anxiety. However, now that I was a senior, I'd come to realize that I simply didn't care what any of these people thought of me. Besides, in a few months, I'd never have to see them again.

With that, I decided to ignore the attention I was receiving and head straight for my locker. Just as I entered the combination and opened my locker, a note slowly descended from it. No doubt, someone had slipped an unpleasant message into my locker. It had been a while since someone had tried this tactic on me—it was a classic, anonymous form of bullying. Ugh, could they at least be creative?

"Something fell from your locker, Crazy Daisy," Heather smirked at me. "Aren't you gonna pick it up?"

The other cheerleaders eagerly looked on in interest. I didn't say a word, refusing to give Heather the satisfaction of a reaction. Nonetheless, she sashayed towards me and plucked the note off the ground.

"Here, I'll read it out for you," Heather sweetly said, as if she was doing me a favor. "It says, your a loser who doesn't deserve to be on the team, so quit now and save yourself the embarrassment of being kicked off later."

She handed me the note to read for myself. My eyes flickered over it before crumpling it and shoving it into my pocket for future use.

"This note was obviously written by your dumb ass, which I can tell because you used the wrong your," I calmly stated.

Her face contorted in anger. "Whatever, bitch! I hope you know what you're getting yourself into, because if you mess up, we'll all suffer, and I won't hesitate to make sure you pay for it."

I was completely unimpressed by her attempt at scaring me. "I made this team fair and square."

"Except it's not fair!" she screeched. "You don't deserve to be on the team."

"Why not?"

The question caused her to incredulously laugh. "Why not?" she repeated, taking a step towards me. "Because you don't have what it takes to be one of us, Johnson. You're nothing but a loser. No one likes you, and no one ever will."

I frowned. Not in sadness, but rather, in pity. After all these years, Heather had never changed. She was still the same mean girl she'd always been, playing on other people's insecurities. The only difference this time was that her words no longer affected me.

"Listen here. If you think for one second that I'm going to let you bully me or intimidate me, you've got another thing coming. I may be new to the team, but I didn't make it because of luck. I worked hard and I earned my spot, so there's nothing you can do except cry about it, captain," I mocked.