After getting back from our family vacation across the Midwest, things settled back home in its usual busy way. We had cheerleading camp at the end of July, though I was more interested in hanging out with my friends than actually practicing for the upcoming school year. Erin came into her own, however, and made sure to keep the rest of us in line. I still felt silly wearing the uniform and shaking the pom poms, and what’s worse was that I was the designated shouter since my voice carried more than anyone else.
Still, I had to admit that I looked cute in my uniform. My hair came down past my shoulders, and tied into a pony tail very well. My chest continued to develop, and my hips were starting as well giving me the beginnings of a nice hourglass figure that the uniform accentuated. When I looked at myself in the mirror I was a far cry from how I looked when I awoke in 1991. I had looked exactly like the boy I had been in the previous timeline, but in the years since my face softened into a nice heart shape with large blue eyes. My features were a lot softer in general, and the porkiness that Matthew had had in middle school was replaced by Maya’s slimness. I had to admit; I was very attractive, for a thirteen year-old.
In September, eighth grade started to a small amount of fanfare, and after a blissful summer of setting my own schedule, I was stuck bored out of my mind during class. I wiled away the lectures reading up on investment trading or daydreaming, and continued to awe my classmates by getting high marks with little effort. I still had the reputation of being the smartest girl in school, which perhaps dismantled the stereotype of cheerleaders being airheads. Admittedly, I had that stereotype as well and I was overcoming that for myself. Cheerleaders were just girls, not ditzes.
I still found cheerleading to be more of a hassle than ever. Our school district had a robust football program which began in middle school and went into high school, and the cheerleaders followed suit. I grudgingly had to attend all of the games, and what’s more I had to force myself to be animated and spirited. I followed Erin’s lead, since she had become the de facto captain due to her hard work, and at the very least it was an excuse to spend time with my friends. However, they were all goo-goo eyes for the players, and I decidedly wasn’t.
Well, there was a possible exception. Jake had joined the team this year as a receiver, mostly at the behest of his basketball teammates. We had been friends since we met a year ago, but I only ever saw him during school. I hadn’t seen him at all during the summer, and was surprised to see he had grown a few inches since May.
It was odd, my friendship with Jake. I spent the majority of my time with my girlfriends, at first in order to learn how to act but now because I felt like I was one of them. While I wasn’t interested in most of the things they were – namely pop music and boys – I learned to appreciate other girlish things like makeup and fashion, which were things I never even gave a thought about as Matthew. It was safe spending time with the girls, and I had too many memories of specific boys in my grade bullying Matthew to even consider befriending them. I avoided boys like the plague, but Jake felt different somehow. He was smart, and I felt we were on the same wavelength somehow, unlike the other boys. And girls too, for that matter!
There was another troubling thing that was increasing these days. In addition to the changes in my body, there were times when it acted like it had a mind of its own. I found myself more emotional; my happy times were ecstatic, and my sad times were devastating. It felt as though my emotions were stronger and more vivid, and my new hormones were clearly to blame. I could cry at the slightest provocation, especially during certain times of the month. It was as if I was losing control of myself.
There was one particular football game where it was unusually hot out. Sort of like the last gasp of summer before fall weather kicked in. We were in the back football field where the eight graders played, and there was no shade. The remote field was so small they didn’t even have a scoreboard, and the mugginess of the day saturated everything. The itchy cotton of the uniform wasn’t helping, and we were all clearly dying. It was a decidedly uninteresting game, and even us cheerleaders couldn’t get the scattered crowd to focus past the heat.
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As I billowed my top to cool down during one of the offensive plays, Jake came off the bench to try and break through the defensive line of the other team. I always took note when Jake was on the field, because he was the only player on the team I actually liked. As usual, I found myself glued to the game when Jake was playing, and when the ball was hiked, Jake made a sprint past the defensive line, and the quarterback delivered a clean throw which Jake expertly caught, resulting in a touchdown.
I cheered with the rest of the girls, and after Jake’s teammates crowded him to congratulate him they went back to the bench, Jake and I made eye contact. My heart stopped for a moment, as Jake gave me the most winning smile before plopping down on the bench with the rest of the team. I let out an audible sigh, as a warm feeling filled my lower torso. It came in waves, rushing to my legs and my head, and I felt faint. I didn’t even remember to admonish myself, all I could think about was how Jake looked at me. We didn’t make eye contact again for the rest of the game, which they eventually won, but I desperately hoped he would have.
After the game, I helped carry the equipment back to storage, still floating on cloud nine and thinking of Jake. I was the last to get back to the locker room, where I was told by the coach to hit the showers. Dreamily, I undressed and wrapped a towel around myself to join the rest of the squad, who at this time were all showering together. I turned on the water and got under the jets, the warm feeling still permeating my body. It was then that I did what I had never done before: noticed all of the girls wordlessly showering around me.
The warm feeling I had before suddenly accentuated; I found my eyes darting from girl to girl as they showered, and my body reacting to the bare skin around me. In horror, I shut my eyes tight, yet the warm water cascading off of me and the sounds of lathering and splashing did nothing to diminish the heat growing in my pelvis. I turned to the wall and tried to settle down, but my body was still screaming at me. I quickly rinsed myself off and got out of the shower, hoping none of the other girls noticed anything. It didn’t seem like they did, so I dried off hurriedly and put my regular clothes back on before anyone else was finished.
Undressing in the girls’ locker room had been nothing but routine for some time now; it may have just been the familiarity of my own body that made it mundane. I was in shock that the shower had affected me in that way. I didn’t say much on the way home after Dad picked me up, but I was still a bit flushed and it was difficult to sit still. I got ready for bed as soon as I got home, locking the door and laying on my bed in my pajamas. Thank god no one knocked on my door, because I soon rolled onto my stomach and quietly buried my face into my pillow.
It was a moment of weakness, I admonished myself. I usually had such a tight reign on my behavior, but for whatever reason tonight I had lost control. I wasn’t ready for sexuality; it was so much calmer not having to deal with hormones, like I did when I first reawakened at 10 years of age, but now I had no choice and they were raging. Seeing Jake sparked something, but maybe the locker room had as well? Did this mean I was bisexual or something? I sobbed into my pillow harder. I couldn’t have these feelings; I shouldn’t have these feelings!
As the frustration and sheer heat coursed through me I tried unsuccessfully to push these thoughts from my mind. There was a point where I seemed to run out of tears, with my breathing muffled by my pillow. Once I started breathing again, I started shifting on my stomach, slowly at first, but gradually I began to start grinding my hips into the mattress. Bitterly, I sighed a little and before I knew what I was doing, my hand moved down my stomach and I started wriggling faster. I let out a soft moan.
My frustration melted away, and I lost cognitive thought.
