Brittany was nervous. She was surrounded by a lot of other girls in cheerleading uniforms doing warm-up stretches. These girls all looked like they were the popular ones in the school. The ones that were invited to parties and had a lot of friends and went out on dates. Those kind of girls. They chatted easily with each other, while Brittany was hesitant to open her mouth for fear that whatever she said would make them think she was stupid.
She had a lot of friends when she was little. Her outgoing and optimistic nature made other kids easily drawn to her. But as she got older, her wacky comments and struggles in class resulted in the other kids calling her weird and stupid. Once middle school started, nobody wanted to be friends with the girl who used crayons to take her notes except for Becky Jackson, who had Down Syndrome and wasn't all that nice of a person.
Suddenly, she was no longer invited to birthday or pool parties. People gave her funny looks when she talked about the multitude of thoughts that flitted through her brain on a constant basis. No one really understood her. It was hard to express what she was trying to say through words, especially when she sometimes mixed them up.
The closest friend she had now was her cat, Lord Tubbington. She told him all of her secrets and wishes, and he was always there to listen to her. Brittany could swear that he understood what she told him, and it got to the point where she really kind of thought he was a real person. At least, if she pretended he was real, then it would mean she had someone she could get advice from and who would be there for her when she needed it that wasn't her parents.
Most of the time, the only way she felt truly comfortable expressing herself anymore was through dance. She had always been in near constant motion since she was little. Her hands or feet had to be doing something, otherwise she felt restless. Brittany's mom enrolled her in dance classes at the age of three to help her get some of her energy out, and the blonde fell in love. She found as she got older that she was really good at it. She naturally knew how to move to music. She knew what her body was supposed to do from one motion to the next. It was as easy to her as breathing. And when she learned that she could express her emotions through movement, it became her outlet for everything she couldn't say with words.
As high school was nearing, her parents became worried about her. She was still a sweet and optimistic girl, but she wasn't looking forward to starting at a new school. She was nervous about how big the high school was and how the upperclassmen would treat her, and she still had no friends to help her through it all. So Brittany's mom talked about how she had been a cheerleader in high school and how it had helped her to make friends and enjoy her time in school. She suggested that Brittany try out for the high school squad in hopes that it would introduce her to some girls and give her the opportunity to make some friends.
So here she was, at cheerleading tryouts two weeks before the start of her freshman year at William McKinley High School. Brittany noticed right away that she didn't fit in. Most of the other girls were wearing their Cheerios uniforms with their hair up in perfect ponytails. Brittany was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, her blonde hair loose down her back. She was glad she had brought a hair band with her so she could pull her long locks up before they started so she could at least look like the others. But first, she needed to get some of her nerves out.
So she started to dance.
As Brittany was doing a spin, she noticed a dark-haired girl watching her from across the gym. Brittany couldn't quite tell what the look was on the other girl's face, but it caused her stomach to clench a little. It wasn't necessarily unpleasant, but she didn't know what the feeling was.
She took a closer look at the girl as she turned into another move, taking in the dark eyes and smooth, caramel skin. Brittany thought the girl was the prettiest girl she had ever seen. She really hoped she could meet her and talk to her and maybe be her friend. She thought that she had never wanted to be somebody's friend before more than she wanted to be this girl's friend. She didn't know exactly why she was so drawn to the girl.
