The Cheerleader's Freak (In Progress)

8

The crowd of students in the gym went wild when Lucas Sinclair swished the basketball into the hoop as the bass buzzer echoed in the air. The cheerleaders went crazy, shaking their pom poms and yelling as the basketball team surrounded Sinclair, his face overcome with pride. 

Chris was sweating, his strawberry blonde hair slick and sticking to his forehead from dancing and yelling all of the game. His other friends were tired and excited as well as the basketball team walked to the locker room, leaving the crowd to slowly start filing out of the gym. 

The cheerleaders began filing to the girl's locker room to get out of their small, sweaty uniforms while Chris was making his way to the boy's locker room. He walked inside, ignoring the large whooping crowd of the basketballers as he walked to locker 14 and switched the lock back and forth until the lock clicked, and the locker swung wide open.

Chris got his clothes that he had stashed in his locker before the games and quickly changed out of his cheerleading uniform. He got a small green duffel bag out of the locker and his small black backpack. He stuffed his uniform in the duffel bag and zipped it up, walking past the currently changing basketball team and opened the door, stepping out. 

He walked to the exit of the school and stepped outside, immediately shivering in his letterman jacket as the brisk cool wind blew, flapping the open sides of his jacket and ruffling his hair slightly. He was standing outside to wait for Evelyn, as she said to meet him after her DnD meeting. 

It wasn't long before the door slammed open behind him, multiple boys and a short dark-skinned girl filed out of the door, chatting loudly as they ignored Chris who was standing to the side. 

"Holy shit that was the best campaign ever!" the dark-skinned guy Chris had talked to earlier had said. 

"I told you to never tell me the odds!" the brown curly haired boy said. 

"I'm the one who rolled the dice, dipshit," the shorter dark-skinned girl said, rolling her eyes as they walked further away, out of earshot. Chris patiently waited, not hearing any noise come out from the door. He looked towards the door after a couple of minutes and jumped when he saw Evelyn standing there, crossing her arms and smirking. She snorted when he jumped.

"Was wondering when you'd notice me standing here, Cunningham," she says as Chris composes himself and awkwardly smiled. 

"Y-yeah, sorry I didn't notice you there,"

"I get it if the sky is more interesting than me," Evelyn says, jokingly winking at Chris as she tossed her keys in the air and caught them. "Let's go," she says as she walks towards a tan and brown striped van. Chris followed her, feeling the goosebumps on his arms prickle. 

Evelyn unlocked the van and opened the door, jumping inside the driver door as Chris opened the passenger door to see Evelyn throwing some wrappers and cans in the backseat. 

"Sorry, I forgot to clean the van. Didn't know I was going to have visitors in my van today," she puffed a lock of hair out of her face as she got a can out of the bottom floor of the seat. "Alright, all clean- wait that's a lie, MOSTLY clean,"

Chris slightly laughed as he hopped in the passenger side, closing the door. The van wasn't the cleanest place, but it at least had warm air conditioning. Evelyn geared the car in drive and slowly backed out of the parking lot before turning the wheel and driving off into the road. 

Chris sat there, knowing he wasn't going to be home for a while and his dad was going to lose his mind when he found out he came home with drugs in tow, and he would absolutely kill him if he saw the school's freak driving him there. 

"So Cunningham," Evelyn began as they stopped at a red stop light. She looked over at him. "If you remember the talent show, then do you necessarily remember us hanging out?"

Chris tilted his head, trying to remember if he ever hung out with Evelyn before, and then the memories hit him. Walking with her through the halls of the middle school, giggling with her in class as she cracked jokes. Gaining feelings for her slowly as they both matured.

Then that fantasy came crashing down as his father had forced him to ask Justina out. She forced him not to hang with Evelyn, taking him away every time he tried to talk to her. He stopped fighting against her and gave up, leaving Evelyn when they reached high school. 

Chris gulped, his Adam's apple bobbing nervously. "Yeah, I do remember," he said, his voice dropping a pitch in anxiety as the light turned green and Evelyn continued driving. 

"If you do," she says, her voice hard with an edge Chris couldn't fully recognize, but it sounded a lot like hurt. "Then why come to me now, four years later when we're two people of two very different social circles and you don't bother to try and talk to me?"

Chris's throat clogged with emotion. "Because I couldn't talk to you,"

Evelyn's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "And why is that?" she said as they passed a sign as they pulled into a gravel driveway, the sign saying 'Forest Hill Trailer Park'. 

"My father wouldn't let me talk to you, or my girlfriend," Chris says as Evelyn pulls into the parking area of a blue trailer. 

Evelyn was quiet for a moment as she turned the key out of ignition and the car and the hot air conditioning died down. "You mean to tell me you've been afraid of them too much to even bother to talk to me? When in the hell does that make any kind of sense?"

Chris went quiet, his hand reaching up to the cheek that Justina had slapped earlier. "You don't understand why," he says quietly.

Evelyn sighs and shakes her head as she looked over and noticed something that made her eyes widen. "He's home?"

Chris looked at her in confusion and Evelyn unbuckles her seatbelt. "Stay here til I come back," she says, hopping out of the car when she opens the door, closing it behind her. 

Who was she talking about? Chris wondered curiously as he waited inside patiently.