Only Fools - Chapter 46: Chapter 46

It was safe to say that I was dreading cheer practice.
Coach was already annoyed with us from yesterday, Tori is still vehement in her decision to not talk to me, and Ashley is absolutely thriving as a result of the decay in my life.
Truly, it was stupid of me to choose to sit with the cheer team at lunch rather than my girlfriend, who would have unfailingly brought me joy. However, the louder part of my brain said that I needed to hold on to hope that Tori might speak to me if I put the extra effort in.
And there's something so unsettling about Tori Torres giving you the silent treatment. Usually, it's not her forte. Tori would rather yell at someone about what they're doing wrong and come to a quick conclusion than play the long game and wait for them to come to their senses.
The issue with our fight lies in the fact that Tori is currently waiting for me to apologize and, while I feel bad for making her think that I don't value her as one of my best friends, I don't feel like I have much to apologize for.
Or, part of me thinks that. The other part of me is absolutely wracked with guilt to the point where I'll basically say anything to get my best friend back.
Of course, all the while, I'm trying to not assume the worst. I'm trying to get Tori back with faith in my best friend that her whispering to Ashley was out of context. While Tori has been known to let things slip from time to time, she's never been one to purposefully hurt her friends.
A small voice in the furthest corner of my brain, however, quickly reminds me that there's a first time for everything.
That small voice somehow rang the loudest as I sat down with my team to find Tori laughing along at something that Ashley just said, her eyes only briefly flitting over to me. The voice continued to note the possibility that they were laughing at me, which wasn't the most helpful thing that it could have done.
And so, I spent the entire lunch period in silence. I didn't mean to, but every time I looked up to try and say something to Tori, she was focused in on Ashley's voice instead. Or, even worse, I would catch Ashley's eye and she would give me a knowing smirk because she had to have realized that she was holding a conversation with the one person I wanted to talk to, and was therefore making my life that much more miserable.
I didn't even bother talking to the other girls. I could've if I wanted to, but I so badly wanted to talk to Tori, prove her innocence in regards to potentially telling Ashley about me, and then make up, that it became my single focus. So much so, that I had barely heard the bell ring.
After that, the rest of the day went by far too fast for my liking. Cheer practice was the last thing that I wanted to attend, especially if it was going to be anything like yesterday.
And yet, I soon found myself rolling out the mats and preparing for what I already assumed was going to be the worst practice to date.
As Coach Meghan greets us and reminds us of the upcoming competition, her tone is more firm than it's been in a while. She's clearly disappointed after yesterday, and I can't blame her. I just wish there was a way to tell her that the problem still hasn't been sorted and that this practice, while a good idea in theory, has the potential to be worse than yesterday's.
After our usual warm up, we all move to our stunt groups to warm up the stunts that were in our rounds, the part of practice that I'm justifiably the most nervous for if the group dynamic was going to be anything like it was yesterday.
Except, it isn't. It's somehow worse. Instead of silence, Tori has taken to animatedly talking about something with Ashley and Gabby by the time I make it to them from across the room. It isn't completely unusual for her to talk to them, given that she's just the type of person to be friendly with everyone, but it still stings more than it should've given the knowledge that she's only doing it so that she doesn't have to talk to me.
To make matters worse, the conversation quickly dies down with my arrival, successfully making my stomach drop in response. Tori avoids eye contact with me as she moves behind me to her position as backspot for the lift, and Ashley doesn't stop smiling as she holds out her hands and I place my palms on her shoulders.
I quickly call the name of the first lift that comes to mind, trying to break the sudden silence and get us quickly onto the task so that I can distract myself before my thoughts start to become more of a plague and the pit in my stomach continues to grow worse.
The stunt is easily a success, which is entirely unsurprising given that my group my have its personal issues, but nevertheless always comes together to correctly execute any lift. So, we quickly warm up the rest before Coach Meghan shouts that we're going to start running the rounds.
Rounds one and two go fine, not that I was worried about either. With the first being a visual round without any tricks, and the second being a synchronized round without stunts, I only have to rely on myself to make sure that my jumps are clean and my tumbling passes are stuck.
As a flyer, it's always round three that makes me nervous. It doesn't matter if we complete the stunts perfectly in warm up or even if my stunt group didn't hate me for that matter, there will always be a voice in the back of my mind warning me that something could go wrong.
Finding myself on the floor when I should've been flying in a stunt definitely meant that something went wrong.
One moment I was up in the air, the next moment I was on the ground with a searing pain in my ankle. I don't remember letting out a scream, but I must have because almost instantly, everyone went dead silent.
I'm vaguely aware of Tori's arms tightly wrapped around my torso as my upper body weight is shifted back on top of her. She must've dived in to try and catch me.
"Holy shit, Aspen. Are you ok?" Tori asks quietly, not having to raise her voice much given our close proximity.
I begin to nod, completely aware of the throbbing pain in my ankle, but not entirely willing to accept that it could be more than just rolling my ankle a little bit, something I've probably done just about a million times.
"Yeah. Just help me up maybe?" I suggest with a shrug, trying to downplay the entire thing. Tori hesitates for a moment, but eventually does as I ask, hooking her arms underneath my armpits to haul me upright.
"Aspen," Coach Meghan calls out to me just before I can place weight onto my foot. I snap my head up to look at her to find her face filled with concern.
"Don't you dare put weight on that ankle, Greyson. Not until I check it out. Sit back down," she demands.
Still decidedly not accepting that there's anything to even check out in the first place, I do exactly what she advised against and shift so that my left foot takes just a little bit of my weight. Almost instantly, I regret going against her demands as pain shoots from my ankle up my leg and I crumble back into Tori.
"Sorry," I mutter to no one in particular, though I'm pretty sure it's aimed more at Tori than coach given that I just fell back into her. As Tori lowers me back to the ground, I hear coach murmur under her breath something about me being stupid, which I can't particularly deny at the moment.
After a few minutes of her prodding at my ankle which is consistently followed by me either hissing in pain or attempting to yank my ankle out of her grasp, Coach Meghan lets out a long sigh.
"It's most likely sprained. Can someone help Greyson up so she can go get her stuff?"
"I can," Tori and Naomi say almost simultaneously.
"Ok. Torres can go, but hurry back," Coach waves us off as she pulls herself off the ground and stalks back over to her seat at the front of the gym, likely already trying to brainstorm how the fuck our team is going to compete in the upcoming competition.
Shit. The competition.
As soon as it clicks, the waterworks start. Luckily for me, Tori is already herding me away by that time. I send one last look back to Naomi, giving her a quick nod in hopes that it gives her some sort of reassurance before turning back around and continuing to hop along.
"Shit," I mutter quietly as soon as we enter the locker rooms.
"Aspen. You have to believe me that I tried to catch you. I have no clue what the fuck happened in that stunt, but just know that I'm going to get to the bottom of it because we practiced that perfectly in warm up and-"
"Tori," I say interrupting her, "I know."
She lets out a short sigh, still obviously reeling from what just happened.
"I might've been mad at you but I would never...." she trails off.
"Tori. About that, I'm sorry I snapped at you, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I just.... Really, most people kind of just found out organically. And even though it's honestly been weighing down on me that you didn't know, you did tell Tyler when Naomi had a crush on him. Of course, I know that was forever ago but what Margot and I have going is so good and of course I trust you but.... I'm just really sorry, Tori. If I could do it over and tell you sooner then I would,"
Tori lets out another short sigh before pulling me into a tight hug.
"I'm sorry I made you feel like shit for not telling me. And I'm sorry I ever made it feel like you couldn't trust me. You have to realize that I'm not like that though," Tori says sadly.
"I do. Believe me. I do. It's just that Naomi got in my head with her whole Tyler thing. And I'm not saying it's her fault, but it definitely persuaded me to push back telling you longer than I should've. I mean, that was years ago. I shouldn't have even taken it into account. Again, I'm so sorry,"
"So what you're saying is that our entire fight is basically Naomi's fault and I should make her pay for turning one of my best friends against me?" Tori says with a small smile.
"That's definitely not what I said,"
"That's what I heard," Tori says in a sing-song voice.
I just roll my eyes at her as I carefully take off my cheer shoes before throwing them into my bag and then begin working on putting on my street shoes with my ankle swollen to the size of a tennis ball.
"You said you were going to get to the bottom of what happened with the stunt. What did you mean?" I ask Tori quietly, her words from earlier finally clicking.
"I.... I don't wanna assume anything, but with Ashley.... she just seemed extra aggressive with you in the locker room yesterday and she was whispering to me after practice about how she didn't understand why someone like you got to be captain. But every time I tried to ask what she meant, she avoided answering," Tori goes silent for a moment as she shakes her head, "From my view during the stunt, she moved away when you fell. Her and Gabby didn't even try to catch you."
With her words fully registering, I instantly feel nauseous. Part of me is relieved. If this is the worst that Ashley can do, if this was her masterplan, then at least it's over with and I can ignore her for the rest of the year. Another part of me, though, fully realizes that Ashley is clearly aware that I'm not straight and is certainly bothered enough by it to take action, and she's doing so in ways that I can't necessarily get her in trouble for which implies that there may be no end in sight for now.
"You better get back, Tori. Coach is probably gonna make you guys stay to fix the routines to fill my spot," I break the tense silence in the air as I finally finish putting on my shoes and sling my cheer bag over my shoulder, "I'll call my dad to come pick me up."
Tori nods slowly as she helps me up before letting me lean on her yet again so that I can exit the locker room and make my way to the main entrance of the school where I'm going to tell my dad to pick me up from.
"We're good then?" Tori asks me softly as she unwraps my arm from around her shoulders and takes a step back after making sure that I'm totally balanced on my own.
"Of course we're good, dude," I simply reply. It's the truth, and I don't feel the need to say anymore than that as it's already been said.
With a small smile, Tori nods before taking a couple steps back and bringing her hand up to her forehead in a salute.
"See you later, Cap," Tori says jokingly.
"See you," I reply before she turns on her heel and walks away. Once she's out of sight, I tug my phone out of my pocket and dial my dad's number. He picks up after four rings.
"Hey, dad," I say softly into the phone, silently grateful that he actually picked up.
"Hey, kiddo. What's up?" he asks, concern clearly laced into his voice.
"Um, I got dropped in a cheer stunt, so you need to drive me to urgent care. Don't worry. It's probably just a sprained ankle,"
"You're my kid. I'm gonna worry,"
"Well maybe focus on getting here now and worry once we make it to urgent care?" I offer.
"I can do that,"
————
It's a grade two ankle sprain.
I'm told that I'm lucky that it's not more severe, but I can't help but think that the fact of the matter is that it happened because I'm clearly not lucky at all.
My dad and I are told to make a quick pharmacy run to pick up an ankle brace, multiple wrap bandages, and crutches, though my father insists that we don't need new crutches because we definitely still have some somewhere in the house from Alex's football days, and all he needs to do is find them.
I'm vaguely aware of the treatment plan: no weight on the foot for 2-3 days, continue to monitor it as I start to put weight on it and wear my ankle brace and wraps religiously, eventually I'll have to do physical therapy exercises to speed up the healing process.
However, throughout the whole ordeal, I stay silent, still in my head about how I'm most likely out of cheer for the rest of the season, and about how it's most likely Ashley's fault and there's nothing I can really do about that.
So when my dad finally lets out a cheer, clearly as a result of finding the crutches nearly two hours after we get home, I can't even bring myself to smile.
Recognizing this, I pull out my phone with a sigh, ignoring the concerned messages from Naomi and instead clicking on the name just below hers.
Me: Kinda down. Got anything that might cheer me up??
After a little over five minutes, I get a response.
Margot: what? you're special and can't just be depressed like the rest of us?
I let out a snort at her response, which I'm utterly grateful she isn't here to witness.
Me: Nice going. You just made me more sad.
Margot: darn. did you just want me to call you beautiful or something?
Margot: because that seems cheesy. and pretty fucking obvious.
Me: :)