The Flip Side

[Tuesday, Apr 9th]

I wake up at 6:00 when the alarm interrupts a perfectly fabulous dream. Annoying little bugger! Getting up, I shower, dress and eat.

After Mom puts my hair up in a tight reverse french braid bun since I have cheer practice this afternoon, I give her a hug, tell her I’ll see her later and leave a little early to go to Alla’s house. At Alla’s, I ring the bell and her Mom answers the door.

“Hello, is Alla ready?”

She smiles at me as she says, “Hello. You must be Andie.”

I return her smile and reply, “That I am. Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Bayanova”

“You as well, but please call me Nadia. Alla told me she made a new friend, but she didn’t say you were this cute.”

Smiling, I reply, “Thank you.”

She chuckles and tells me, “Alla just went up to get dressed. Why don’t you go on up to her room?”

I again tell her, “Thank you,” and head upstairs to Alla’s room. I knock on her door and enter to find her standing in her bra, panties and pantyhose.

When she sees me, she smiles and says, “Good morning, Andie.”

I return her smile, reply, “Good morning, Alla,” as I unconsciously eye her from top to bottom and think, ‘Damn, she’s so friggin gorgeous.’

All I want to do it walk over to her, take her in my arms and kiss her. Then push her into bed and make love to her for the rest of the day. I know, I realize that I’m the one that stopped our first kiss from happening and everything that led to. That doesn’t mean my heart likes it one damn bit.

She asks, “What’s with the look?”

Damn, she caught me. Thinking quickly, I reply, “Oh, uh, I just think you have a killer figure.”

She chuckles and says, “Thank you, Andie, but it’s not as if you don’t as well,” as she buttons up her blouse. She picks up her skirt, tucks in her blouse, hooks and zips it up. After she slips on her shoes, she picks up her purse and bookbag and says, “Okay. I’m ready when you are.”

We make our way out to the car and I start it up. I tell her, “Why don’t you find us some music to listen to?”

“Do you have Sirius?”

I nod. “Of course.”

“Good. Do you like K-Pop?”

Grinning, I say, “Hell yes!”

She giggles and says, “I’m so glad I talked to you. We have so much in common.” She finds a K-Pop station and turns it to it as I pull off. A few minutes later, we are heading north on Highway 1. When one of my favorite songs sung by Hyunjin of LOONA. ‘Around You,’ comes on, I begin singing and I see her amazed expression out of the corner of my eye.

Glancing at her after the song is over, I ask, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing at all, I just think you have a beautiful voice.”

Grinning at her, I say, “Thank you. I love to sing.”

“I wish I was half as good at singing as you. You were in key the whole song.”

I reach over, grab her hand, and squeeze it. “Thank you.”

I’m so happy that we were able to become friends. I don’t think I’d have liked it very much if we didn’t.

Twenty minutes later, we arrive at school and park. Making our way to the entrance, Mia sees us, waves and comes over to us. Smiling sunnily, she says, “Good morning!”

I reply, “Good morning,” as does Alla.

“I hope you’re ready, because word has already gotten around that you’re a cheerleader now.”

I say, “Damn, that was fast.”

She giggles. “The grapevine around here is very efficient.”

She takes my arm as we continue to the entrance and I say, “It seems so. So, is anything else being said about me?”

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad. A lot of people are saying they are amazed at how much you’ve changed.”

“I haven’t really changed that much, other than no longer hiding and instead trying to be more sociable.”

“Andie, that’s one hell of a change for you. I heard you have a lot of boys that are drooling over you.”

I giggle and say, “Yuck! That’s gross!”

She grins at me and asks, “What? The drooling, or the fact that they find you attractive?”

I shrug. “Alla said I’m gorgeous, so I suppose them finding me attractive is normal, but the drooling is gross.”

“Andie, you’re gorgeous. Have no doubts there. I’ve also heard a couple of guys are going to ask you out.”

I make my eyes widen like I’m surprised. “Oh really? Who might they be?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. The rumors didn’t say. Oh, by the way, we have a home game on Friday. Do you think you’ll be up to performing with us?”

I shrug. “We can hope so. Do you have any videos of all the cheers we perform?”

“I do, why?”

“I can learn the cheers using them. That way you don’t have to spend all your time working with me to get me up to speed.”

“Alright. Do you have a computer?” I nod. “Okay, I’ll send you the links for them when I get home.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it. I’ll text you my email address.”

“It would be great if you can perform with us. Oh, you’ll need some sheer nude, glossy pantyhose since we wear them with our uniforms.”

“Then I’ll have to get some.”

We walk inside and as we’re making our way to the stairs I feel a touch on my shoulder. Turning, I again see John Bailey standing there.

He smiles and asks, “Can I talk to you alone for a moment?”

I reply, “Umm, sure.” I look back to Alla and Mia. “Excuse me for a minute.” I follow him as he walks over to the side. Turning around, he looks down at me. I have to say, even though I’ve already been through this, it still feels awkward as hell. “Would you mind sitting down, you’re too tall to look at comfortably.” He chuckles and sits on the bench beside him. “Much better, thank you. So, who are you and what can I do for you?”

“Oh, right, I’m John Bailey. Andrea, I was wondering if you’d like to go on a date this weekend?”

“Umm, I’m busy this weekend, but may I ask you why you’re asking me out? We’ve never even spoken before.”

He nods. “That’s true, we haven’t and that’s one reason I’d like to take you out, to get to know you.”

“I’m sorry, but as I said, I’m busy this weekend.”

He shrugs, and asks, “Next weekend then?

“Can you give me some time to think about it?”

He nods. “Sure, no problem at all.”

“Okay, I need to get to class. I’ll talk to you later.”

I’m not even sure I like guys, but even if I do, dating him would be problematic since he’s so tall. Can you even imagine tiny little me trying to kiss someone who’s more than a foot taller than I am? I’d have to climb him like a tree to do it. I shake my head and head upstairs to my classroom.

Once inside, I sit down and sigh dramatically. Alla asks, “What did he want?”

I roll my eyes and say, “Take a wild guess.”

“Did he ask you out?” I nod. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him I was busy. He then asked me about next weekend. I asked if I could think about it.”

Chris comes into the classroom, glances at me and goes to sit down. Thankfully, he didn’t come over to start a fight like last time. Ms. Edison comes in and the bell rings a few moments later.

The rest of my morning is fairly normal. As Alla and I make our way down to the canteen for lunch, a lot of people look at us and then whisper to each other. What that’s about I have no idea, but I’m going to ignore it unless it becomes a problem. In the canteen, we get our food and join Mia and the other cheerleaders. After we eat, all of us head outside to enjoy the weather and talk.

As we exit the building, I catch Chris staring at me. Sighing, I think, ‘I wish he would just forget about me and move on to his next victim.’

Alla asks, “Is something wrong?”

I shrug and tell her, “It’s Chris. He keeps staring at me and it’s creeping me out.”

Mia stops and looks at me. “Andie, if you want I can talk to him and tell him to leave you alone.”

“Thanks, Mia. I’ve already told him to leave me alone. Not that it seems to have had much impact on him.”

She nods and says, “Mhmm. Chris is stubborn. I have ways to make him leave you alone. I’ll talk to him and I’m sure it’ll stop.”

“Thank you, Mia. It’d be great if he would since he’s making my skin crawl.”

She nods and says, “Don’t worry. Excuse me for a few minutes.” She walks over to Chris and talks to him for a few minutes, then he turns and heads inside. Mia comes back over to join the rest of us on the benches.

Smiling at me, she says, “There. I’m pretty sure he’ll stop bothering you now.”

I smile at her and say, “Thanks Mia, I really appreciate your help. He’s very persistent in chasing me for some reason.”

Soon, the warning bell rings and we head up to class. The rest of the day flies by, and when it’s finally over, Alla and I gather our things and make our way to the gym for practice. I’ll skip telling you about it since it went like it did the first time around.

After practice, I shower and change clothes, then Alla comes over and asks, “You ready to go shopping?”

“Yep.” As we head out to my car, I ask, “So, where are we going?”

“How about the Mall of the Americas? You can get your pantyhose at Macy’s and the mall also has a cosplay store. We can get the contacts to change our eye colors there.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Once we arrive at the mall, we head to the cosplay shop, where we buy the contacts we need. Then we looked through the different costumes they offered. I won’t bother to repeat what you already know here.

Next, we head to Macy’s where I buy two pairs of the pantyhose to wear with my cheer uniform. We head back out to my car and make our way to Alla’s house. Once we arrive she asks, “Do you want to come in?”

“Sorry, I need to get home so I can start dinner.”

She asks, “You cook?”

“Of course. I’m a very good cook.”

She shakes her head and says, “I wish I was. More often than not, I overcook it or burn it.”

“If you’d like, I’d be happy to work with you on that.”

She smiles and says, “That would be great. Thank you.”

I smile in return. “We’ll make some time to work on it sometime soon.”

“Cool, thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Later, Andie.”

“Later.”

She gets out and goes into her house. Once she’s inside, I head home. At home, I go up to my room to change clothes. I undress and pull out a fuschia halter top, black skirt and black ankle socks. After I dress, I head downstairs and start dinner. I’m just about done when Mom comes in and announces, “I’m home.”

I call out, “Welcome home, Mom.”

She walks into the kitchen and asks, “How was school and practice, baby girl?”

I shrug, “School went fine and I had a lot of fun at practice.” I make two plates for us and set them on the table. “Mia wants me to be able to perform with them on Friday.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to do it?”

I shrug again. “She’s sending me links to the videos of the cheers we do, so I’ll practice them here at the house. I should be able to do it, but we’ll just have to see.”

After we eat and clean up, I tell Mom, “I’m going to go practice my cheers for a while, take a hot bath and then go to bed. It’s been a long day.”

She hugs me and says, “Okay. Goodnight, baby girl. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Night Mom.”

I practice for about an hour and I believe I have most of them down, but repetition never hurts. I grab a nightgown out of my drawer and head into the bathroom. I set down my nightgown, undress and drop my clothes into the hamper, then take a shower. After pinning my hair up, I soak in a nice hot bubble bath for about half an hour and then climb into bed. I doubt it was more than a few minutes before I fell asleep.