The score is 48-34 at halftime, our lead. The teams have retreated to their locker rooms, and now it's time for me to run out to center court with the squad and perform a couple of cheers. Luckily for me, Bryson won't be watching tonight.
The usual lineup for game night is the junior varsity boys' team playing first, then the girls' team, then the varsity boys. And we cheer for all three. Since Bryson is a senior, he's not eligible to play on the JV team, so he'll typically be in the bleachers watching my halftime performance during that game and the girls' game. However, this school only has a varsity team and I have to admit, I'm extremely happy right now to look out into that crowd and see no Bryson?just for tonight, since it's my first time.
As I run out with the squad, I do one of my well-practiced yet not perfected cartwheels, while a few other girls--Summer surprisingly not included--do cartwheels, as well, followed by back-flips, round-offs, handsprings and all kinds of crazy stuff I would never dream of trying.
After getting into position, we all stand motionless for several seconds to make sure everyone is ready. During those few seconds of silence, throughout which you could probably hear a strand of hair hit the ground, I feel as if every pair of eyes in that gym is on me. Even though I try to take Bryson's advice and pretend we're all back in the caf, just practicing with no spectators, I'm still so nervous I can't even look up at Becca or my mom. So I just stand there, staring at Holly's heels directly in front of me, and wait for Summer to begin.
Surprisingly, once we start cheering, things go really well. I've got all the motions down and I'm moving perfectly in sync with everyone else. I'm also paying close attention to keeping my distance from the girls around me. The last thing I need is to deliver an impressive TKO in front of the massive crowd of fans and totally ruin the second half of the game, due to center court being taken over by a team of paramedics hovering over a laid-out cheerleader. But luckily, nothing like that transpires, and instead everything goes extremely well.
As we're running back to the baseline after finishing the cheers, I realize Bryson was right: once you get going out there and start focusing on what you're doing, the crowd seems to kind of disappear. And all things considered, I'm definitely happy with the way things turned out. Because let's face it, with me out there, disaster is always a possibility. But I'm hoping now that the first game is out of the way, I won't be nearly as nervous for the upcoming ones, and everything should be okay.