Mrs. Christina watched me for less than two minutes before deciding my body was “wrong” for her team. I left believing I had failed my late mother. Then the school janitor found me beside the trophy case, asked me to meet her before sunrise, and promised I’d understand why soon enough.
The tryout lasted one minute and 43 seconds.
I know because the clock above the gym doors read 4:16 when Mrs. Christina called my number.
It read 4:18 when she lowered her clipboard.
The tryout lasted one minute and 43 seconds.
“That will be enough, Eva.”
Music still spilled from the speakers, bright and cheerful in a way that made stopping feel worse.
I brought my arms down slowly.
Around the gym, 16 girls waited along the bleachers in matching shorts and white sneakers. A few had already performed. The rest held numbered cards against their thighs.
“That will be enough, Eva.”
Mrs. Christina glanced at the assistant coach, then back at me.
“You learned the sequence quickly,” she said.
For one second, I thought that might be enough.
Then she gave me the practiced smile adults use when they want cruelty to sound reasonable.
“But you’re not quite the image the team is looking for.”
I thought that might be enough.
Nobody needed her to explain.
Her eyes had already done it.
They moved from my face to my middle, then back to the clipboard.
I stood beneath the gym lights with sweat cooling between my shoulder blades.
Her eyes had already done it.
“Is there another routine I could try?” I asked, holding my breath for the answer.
Mrs. Christina shifted the pencil in her hand.
“This team represents the school at games, competitions, and community events. Presentation matters.”
A girl on the lowest bleacher looked down at her shoes.
Another covered a smile by pretending to cough.
“Is there another routine I could try?”
Mrs. Christina’s voice stayed calm.
“You simply don’t fit in, Eva.”
The word fit followed me out of the gym.
It stayed behind my teeth while I pushed through the double doors.
It sat beside me when I lowered myself onto the hallway floor near the trophy case.
The word fit followed me out of the gym.
I kept my face turned toward the glass.
Inside, old photographs showed cheerleaders from different decades standing in neat rows. Blue skirts. Gold bows. White shoes arranged at identical angles.
My mother was in one of those photographs.
Second row.
Third from the left.
My mother was in one of those photographs.
Even through faded film, she looked as if the whole room had just told her a joke.
I had spent weeks pretending I didn’t expect to make the team.
That wasn’t true.
I wanted one hour wearing the same colors Mom once wore.
One practice in the same gym.
One small thing grief had not changed beyond recognition.
That wasn’t true.
Instead, the coach had looked at the body grief left me with and decided it did not belong near my mother’s memory.
I wiped both cheeks with the heel of my hand before anyone came through the doors.
Someone did anyway.
A mop bucket rolled to a stop beside me.
Mrs. Evelyn lowered herself onto the floor with the careful patience of someone whose knees had been arguing with her for years.
The coach had looked at the body grief left me with.
She did not ask why I was crying.
That was one of the reasons I trusted her.
For almost a minute, she simply sat beside me, smoothing the front of her faded work shirt.
The gym doors opened.
Two girls came out laughing, then lowered their voices when they saw us.
She did not ask why I was crying.
Mrs. Evelyn watched them disappear around the corner.
“Did she say it plainly?” she asked.
I stared at the trophy case.
“Plain enough.”
Mrs. Evelyn folded both hands over one knee.
“What did she say?”
“Did she say it plainly?”
I repeated the sentence.
Not quite the image.
Saying it out loud made it sound smaller and uglier.
Mrs. Evelyn’s mouth pressed into a line.
Then she patted the floor between us as if settling an argument with the building itself.
“Meet me behind the school tomorrow morning.”
Saying it out loud made it sound smaller and uglier.
I looked at her.
“What?”
“Six o’clock.”
“For what?”
She pushed herself upright using the mop handle.
“No one can know.”
“For what?”
I almost laughed; Mrs. Evelyn was well past 70 and had never done anything mysterious in her life.
She labeled leftover cupcakes.
She carried peppermints in both pockets.
She corrected students who called the cafeteria workers “lunch ladies” because everyone had names.
Still, something in her face stopped me from making a joke.
Mrs. Evelyn was well past 70.
“Six?” I repeated.
“Six.”
Then she wheeled the bucket down the hallway without another word.
***
Grandpa knew something had happened before I removed my coat.
He sat at our kitchen table repairing the clasp on an old tackle box. His glasses rested low on his nose, and a mug of hot chocolate waited across from him.
Grandpa knew something had happened.
He had already made it.
He always seemed to hear sadness in the driveway.
“How bad?” he asked.
I hung my coat on the wrong hook, corrected it, then sat down.
“I didn’t make it.”
“How bad?”
Grandpa turned the tiny metal clasp between his fingers.
“Did you get to finish?”
“No.”
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