Dysphoria

Chapter Twenty Five

It was hard acting like everything was okay after word spread about the raid.

I knew who had made the call, and he was in almost all of my classes. He would smile smile at me, that smug shit eating Jacobs smile whenever he could. What I didn't understand was what had prompted him to make the call. I had kept my side of the bargain and not told the cops about the carnival but something obviously made him lash out I just didn't know what it was.

Worse still was having all the hype around the last Blackhawk's football game of the season. We had been practicing our cheer routine all week, my coordination had gotten a lot better and at least it kept my mind off of things. But practice wasn't as much fun now that me, Maddy and Cassie weren't really talking.

Game day was a lot of pressure. My hair was in a high pony tail, we all went extra on our makeup, I did teal graphic eyeliner and put some rhinestones along my cheek bones to hide the stitches.

It looked like things with Maddy and Nate had cooled off again and Kristal had swooped in on him ASAP. Dumb bitch. She made a big show of how friendly she was with Cal and Marsha in the stands before coming back to the pitch with the rest of us mere mortals.

This girl thinks she's hot shit when she's literally store brand Taylor Swift.

It made me want to choke shaking my pom poms and cheering as Nate Jacobs ran onto the field. He loved all the attention and the applause, it was never for the team, it was always just for him.

I jumped and cheered and the entire time I was hoping for him to fumble every fucking ball. Or some 300lb linebacker would fall on him and crush both his legs.

No such luck.

But he did get distracted before he threw the ball and absolutely flattened onto the ground. It looked painful, and I found myself cheering for the opposite team.

But of course we won. Or I should say Nate won, the big asshole whooped and cheered for himself when he got the final touchdown. I know I was supposed to show support but I really couldn't be bothered, and neither could Maddy. It was all just so fake.

Everyone in the crowd was going wild with excitement. Officer Hernandez and one of his coworker buddies even came down onto the field to get a picture, I pulled in a few of the other cheerleaders and posed happily like I hadn't just been on my knees in front of this man scared out of my brains telling him my social security number at 4 a.m.

He gave me a pat on the back. "Your old man would be real proud of you out there."

How fucking wrong you are dude.

There was a massive after party happening at one of guys on the teams house, I think his name was Kyle. Even though I was invited,  I would rather shit glass than go anywhere with those jerks.

I grabbed my gym bag and started walking to the car.

Maddy approached me. "Hey. Can we talk?"

"Yeah. Sure." I swallowed. I hoped this wouldn't become a screaming match. Even if I was still annoyed at her, deep down I really missed my friend.

"Me and Nate broke up." She said looking at her manicure. Kat would be rolling her fucking eyes right now.

"Yeah, I kind of guessed. I'd be lying if I said I was sorry about it." I looked at her.

"I know. I'm sorry about Fez." She said chewing the side of her lip.

"It's not your faults it's Nate's. And look...I still think what you did was shitty. But I know why you did it. We all do dumb shit for people we love or think love us. Trust me, I know all about it." I sigh remembering the shit that's gone down lately and the scary lengths I was going to to keep Fez out of danger. "But I don't think Nate cares about anyone but himself, and I don't want him to use you."