Pineapple Girl

Prologue

 "Oooh, ouch." I inwardly cringe as I look at the girl sprawled on the floor as her stunt group crowds around her and helps her up. "Landed on her neck. That's gotta hurt."

"No kidding," I mutter as her bases ask her if she's okay while she only continues to rub her neck and nod. "I thought she broke it for a second," I said. Tyler takes a pretzel from my bag and shoves it into his mouth, keeping his eyes trained on the stunt group we had been watching.

"I don't understand you flyers. I wouldn't trust somebody to hold me up, especially after I fall the first time," he says with his mouth full. Tyler, a dark-skinned boy with a tall frame, was my base for my elite stunt last year and is also one of my best friends. He has short hair, almost to the point where he was bald and dark brown eyes. To make a long description short, he is pretty handsome, and many girls try to flirt with him until they find out he's gay.

"Meh. You get used to it. Besides, it doesn't hurt that much unless you land on something like your neck like she just did," I said, gesturing to the girl.

"Whatever. I still don't like the idea of somebody throwing me around. You're crazy," he said, rolling his eyes playfully.

"So I've been told," I laugh. We were sitting off to the side of the tumbling gym, watching everybody who decided to take advantage of the open gym that we have every night at Woodward cheer camp. The tumbling gym was a massive wooden building with a cabin-like feel, except for the fact that the floor is covered in mats, trampolines, tumble tracks and foam pit(or as I like to call it, "the abyss.")

Me and Tyler both usually took part in open gyms, but tonight we were too tired after how rough our practice was today. Top Gun 005 went to Woodward camp as a team for two weeks every summer both for team bonding and practice. It was probably the best two weeks of the year for me aside from Worlds week.

This was my fourth and final year on 005. The thought of leaving 005 after the end of the season was enough to make me want to cry. As much as I was excited for college and what it would bring me, I didn't want to leave my team or my friends.

"I can't believe this is our last time coming here," he said, taking another pretzel from my bag.

"Yeah," I said with a sigh. "But hey, at least we'll still be cheering together," I said. We both applied for a cheer scholarship at the University of Kentucky, which has one of the best collegiate cheer teams in the country and maybe even the world.

"If we get in," he said with a shrug.

"Oh, don't ruin the moment," I said, causing him to chuckle. He reached to take another one of my pretzels, but I slapped his hand away.

"Ow! What was that for?" he asked.

"Stop taking my pretzels. There's only two left," I said before eating one myself.

"But sharing is caring," he whined.

"You do have a point," I said, taking the last pretzel out of the bag and pretending to ponder whether I should give it to him while he looks at it longingly. "Too bad I don't care about you," I said before popping it into my mouth. I laugh as he falls down on the floor, groaning and saying something about betrayal and how "you can't trust anybody but yourself."

"Oh, stop being such a big baby," I said. "You can get your own from the cafeteria."

"But it's so far away," he whimpered as he sat back up. "You know what isn't far away though? The first day of school. Doesn't yours start a week after we get back? You have two weeks left."

"Ugh," I groaned. "Stop. Great, now you have me thinking about it."

"That's for breaking my heart and betraying me," he said.