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Because of their scholarship, Eva would be moving from West High to Giles Corey High. The school had a pretty awesome science program, and since climatology was Eva’s special interest, they were really excited for that upgrade. But, like with so many things, there were some cons to this as well. And by “some cons”, they meant cheerleading.
She’d have to leave the team that she was the captain of, and they’d have to leave all the friends that they’d made on the team. And the team that they were switching to had a horrible reputation. For starters, obviously there was the fact that two girls on the team and another team member’s boyfriend had recently been murdered at a cheer sleepover. They’d be crazy to not have their guard up after something that awful.
But besides the obvious, there was the fact that this team was very well known for being the “worst team ever”. Eva, on the other hand, was the highest-ranked flyer in the state, as well as the captain of what she considered to be a really good team. They didn’t want to seem full of themself or anything, but they imagined that a switch like that was going to be pretty jarring for them. There was no way it wouldn’t be.
And then there was the fact that they’d had a conversation with two of the girls on that team...and their first impression was not great at all. It was the night of the murders, actually. She was there to deliver pizza to the girls, and one of them recognized her as West High’s flyer. They failed to recognized the girls at first until the other one said that they’d lost to West a bunch of times, which immediately told Eva that they were Giles Corey Tigers. And then she went on a whole sympathy rant about rooting for them and that one video that ruined their reputation until one of the girls interrupted them. Eva had been trying to be kind, but it didn’t occur to her how bad it sounded and how awkward it must have been for the girls until she was driving home. They knew they were bad with social cues, but they didn’t realize that they were that bad. So yeah, they were not eager to see those girls again after that interaction (although, in their defense, it was by far not the worst thing to have happened that night).
And it really didn’t help that there were rumors going around that the captain of the Giles Corey High cheer team, Riley Williams, had a crush on her. They were sure that Riley was nice, and maybe they’d get along great. But Eva just wasn’t looking for a relationship at the moment, and even if they were, they wanted to get to know the person before making that call. If the rumors were true, then that probably meant that Riley was really bad at hiding said crush. After all, people who are subtle about their crushes don’t have rumors about them started by people at other schools who don’t even know them. And if she was that obvious about it, it was probably going to show during practice, and that was just going to be super uncomfortable for everyone involved.
But hey, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe they’d make some awesome new friends on the team. Maybe they’d be good for the team. Maybe they were just overthinking the matter and things would turn out fine. But that didn’t change the nervousness and dread of finding out.