After my 7th hour, I headed to our schools gym and set my things down by the door. I had cheer practice again. I’d been doing cheerleading since 6th grade, it was my sophomore year in high school and it was my first year on varsity. It’s what I’d been working towards my whole life, I’d dreamed of making it on the varsity team. Now that I had made it I worked twice as hard as I did on the junior varsity team, and had practice more. As soon as I turned on the lights of the gym a few other girls from my team walked in. They admired themselves in the wall lined with mirrors and took pictures. A few more girls walked in and it was my stunt group. I smiled at them as they put their things down. 

“Hey Emily," I said to my back spot, “Want to help me roll out the mats?," I asked her. 

“Sure Allison," she replied, and we walked over to unroll the 7 large mats. 

“Do you guys need help?," my main base Becca asked us with a big smile. 

“Yeah grab Lizzy and get those other 3," I said. Becca grabbed my other base and they rolled out the last 3 mats. Becca was always smiling, positivity radiated off of her. 

“Too lazy to get these other ones huh Allison?,” Lizzy joked to me. 

“Ha ha so funny,” I said chuckling sarcastically. Lizzy was short for Elizabeth, she never failed to make me laugh. The other girls were still looking at themselves and taking pictures for their snap or insta stories. I changed into my cheer shoes and looked at my stunt group. I was the flyer, or the girl they throw in the air. I was also the youngest in my stunt group. Our head coach walked in and everyone immediately stopped talking. 

“Okay girls get your shoes on, phones away, and come sit in a circle," Coach Beck said. We all obeyed her orders and were neatly sat in a circle a minute later. “We have a big cheer competition in 4 weeks, that’s only 12 practices. You may think that seems like a lot but it’s not, it’s 12 practices to first put together a routine, learn it, then add in stunts and pyramid, then clean it up in every area. It’s gonna be hard work but if we make it past state we get to go to regionals, and then the finals. We could win a big award for our school. But right now we’re gonna focus on the state competition," Coach Beck said. My back spot raised her hand and my coach called on her to let her ask. 

“Do you know what kind of stunts we’ll be doing yet?,” Emily asked curiously. 

“I have a general idea, you probably won’t appreciate the difficulty level,” Coach replied. I immediately started worrying, there was one stunt I knew she’d ask my group to do, that I had trouble with. Emily looked at me as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. Emily was typically quiet, but she was very sweet. Our coach dismissed us to do our warm ups. We stretched and practiced our jumps. The whole time all I thought about was the competition. 

“Allison are you good?,” Becca asked me before we started working on our tumbling. 

“Yeah, I’m just worried about the competition,” I replied. 

“You mean the individual stunts and the pyramid?,” she asked crossing her arms. 

“Yes, the stunts,” I admitted looking down because I was embarrassed. 

“It’ll be okay, we’ll practice it till we get it,” Becca said smiling. 

“You don’t even know what stunts it is yet, it’s probably gonna be a lib," I said. 

“Well if it is don’t have a humpty dumpty moment and fall,” Lizzy said. 

“Now that’s really not helping,” I said frowning. 

“I was kidding Alli you won’t fall,” Lizzy replied. 

“Your getting all in your head Allison this is mental, if you believe you can do it then you can do it," Becca said encouragingly. I gave her a weak smile and she walked away to start her tumbling practices. I decided to push it out of my mind and continue on with practice as normal. I did my back hand spring with ease, it had taken me weeks to get, and weeks to perfect. 

“Alright girls come sit down in the circle so I can explain to you the routine," Coach Beck said. We all ran over and sat down, we were all squirming. Everyone was nervous and couldn’t wait till Coach Beck just spit it out. She ran through the routine, there were 2 stunt sequences in it. First the individual group stunts, then the pyramid where we’d all be connected. Along with these stunts we had to learn our opening, dance, formations, jump routines, and our ending. It was a lot, but all I was worried about what the stunts. All I ever worried about in regards to cheer was the stunting portion. We had three full stunt groups, that’s 12 girls, and half of them were seniors. That’s a lot of people to impress. For the individual stunts we’d all be doing the same thing. “For the first stunt sequence you’ll go into an extension, throw a cradle. Then load your flyers back up and to a half-up prep and do some hand movements. After that you’ll bring the flyers down and then they’ll all go up into a lib, but only to a prep," Coach Beck finished. I raised my hand and my coach let me ask my question. 

“Are you sure we can’t do the lib’s in the pyramid? So we can hold each other up," I said. 

“Doing them in the individual stunts will make you guys look better and impress the judges 5 times more than if you did it holding each other up. But surprise surprise, your doing libs in the pyramid too," Coach said. I frowned, but didn’t say another word. 

We spent the rest of practice learning just the movements and formations of the routine with no actual stunting. That was Wednesday, at our practice on Friday we did the same thing but cleaned it up a little. Coach Beck told us we weren’t adding in stunts till our dances and moves were clean. At our Sunday morning practice we practiced the routine some more and conditioned. That next week, at all 3 of our practices we worked on just stunts, we didn’t even pretend they were in the routine, we needed to get them down first. We spent those 6 practices doing it all separately. Then, on our 7th practice we tried to put it all together. We got through to opening and jumps fine, then we got in our stunt group and they loaded me in. They pushed me up to an extension which I had to focus to balance at, they threw the cradle and caught me. I got back down and turned around, they immediately pushed me into the half-up and I did my movements along with the music. I could hear their strained breathing when they brought me back down quickly to keep up with the music and that’s when I started to get nervous. They grabbed just my right leg and shoved me up into the air. I held it for a moment before I lost my balance, I fell back into Emily’s arms, my bases only catching my feet. Becca patted me on the back quickly before we had to move to our next formation. Then, it came up to pyramid. 

All the stunt groups got next to each other, I was on the left. The middle group put up their flyer who was supposed to hold me and the stunt groups flyer on the far right. The other group and I’s flyer grabbed each of the girls hands and were also lifted into the air. We were lifted into extensions, and while holding the middle girls hand I was able to get up into my lib and hold it. I could only hold it if I was holding onto someone, embarrassingly. We put our legs back into our bases hands so it was just a regular extension. We turned to face the middle girl and held onto her while she did a front flip, and then stood back up in the stunt to a prep. We let go of each other and all fell into cradles. We then got out of the stunts and in line to do our dance and finish it there. After the music ended our coach started talking about what we did right and wrong. We tried it again and I missed it, then we tried again and I got the lib in our individual stunts, and then I missed it again. We finished off practice and we went home. That Friday, our 8th practice till the comp we did it all again. I got it only half the time and missed it the other half. 

“You’ll get it and stick it every time soon, don’t worry Allison," Lizzy said to me at the end of that practice. “And if not well we’ll have to give you back to the JV girls,” she said winking. 

“Yeah I really hope so, I’ll die of embarrassment if we fall at competition in front of the judges. And I mean it," I said feeling defeated. 

“It’s gonna be great, it’ll be all smooth sailing from here don’t you worry," Becca added. For all of our practices after that our jumps, formations, and dance look great and clean. Our pyramid was great too, the middle girl was having a little trouble getting back up after the flip but by the 11th practice she hit it every time. By the end of our 12th and final practice before competition by lib was still inconsistent and I wasn’t feeling confident about it at all even though we’d been working at it non stop and for weeks. It was my first year on varsity, I was one of the youngest girls on the team. I had to get this, or the older girls were gonna think I don’t belong here. I couldn’t disappoint them I had to make them look good. But it felt no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it every time.  

“Allison and her group come here," Coach Beck said, and she waved us over to her. 

“Yes Coach Beck?," I asked her with my arms crossed. 

“Will you be able to do this at the competition? If you feel you need to we can change it to a simpler stunt if you think you really can’t hit it," Coach Beck said. I though about it for a moment, was it really that bad? I couldn’t worry about what everyone else saw anymore.

“No you don’t have to change it, we’ll hit it," I said, and I walked away. I gathered my things and left to go home. I tried to go to sleep early, but the anxiety about tomorrow’s competition kept me up for hours. I fell asleep biting my nails so much there was no nail left anymore. I woke up early after my horrible nights sleep and I put on my make-up and uniform. The place we were performing at was only a 35 minute bus ride. I got to school and everyone loaded on the bus, we got to the other school before I knew it. We all unloaded and went to the practice area, there were a lot of other teams there. We had to wait in line for 15 minutes before we got to a mat to practice just our stunts. I hit the lib the first time we tried it, but not the second. We only had time to do the stunts twice before we had to go. We got in a little back room to wait, after 40 minutes it was our turn to perform. We ran out on the big blue mats smiling, hooting, and hollering. We got to our places and waited for the music to start. I looked around at the judges and they looked mean, I looked down at my white, but very worn cheer shoes. I could feel the anxiety bunching up inside me as I heard the few beats of the music before our routine really started. We started moving at the perfect time and hit all our movements on time and cleanly. We moved to our stunts and did the first part, it went well. The half-up went beautifully too and it was finally the moment of truth. They grabbed my one leg and hoisted me up in the arm only holding my right leg. I put my arms up in a high V, locked my knee, and kept my head up. I hit the stunt and I did it well. My teammates parents, including mine started cheering. We got down and did our next formation and headed to pyramid. Everyone hit their stunts beautifully there as well. We all got down and headed to our dance spots. The dance was amazing. We hit every move with sass, on point facial expressions, and it was clean. We finished the routine then ran off the mats cheering and saying our schools name. When we go to the back room we all started screaming and hugging each other. 

“You did it!," Emily shouted, my whole group hugged me. My coach congratulated me too. We went back out and sat to watch the rest of the teams. After an hour we were called down to announce the winners. They announced 3rd, it wasn’t us. They announced 2nd, it also wasn’t us. We either didn’t place or get first, we all held each other’s hands and wished it was us. They announced 1st place, it was us. My whole team got up and started screaming, our coach started crying because she was so happy. They handed her the plaque we get for first and we all took a group picture. I’d never felt so proud of myself in my life. Regionals, here we come.