"I don't know about this." I said as I looked out to the field that was jam packed with a load of girls who were huddled together in their own little groups. Cadence stroked my arm, slightly looking nervous too.

I had spoken to barley any of these girls. It was I was some new stranger to this school even though I had been here since forever. I had grown up with these people yet I felt like I didn't know them. The closest I had ever gotten to them was just saying a random hi in the hall as we passed — which happened never!

"Come on. Let's try and merge in with someone people." Cadence whispered to me and pulled me along with her to a group that was closest to us. I bit down on my nails and looked over at the bleachers to see Charlotte and Angel waving at me, hopefulness spread across their faces.

Okay. Maybe I could try and talk to some people.

I gulped down the worried thoughts and the what if's and pushed myself forward. I saw Cadence wave to one girl and she waved back, her face radiating. "Do you know her?" I whispered to Cadence.

"Yes. I went to Kindergarten with her." She whispered back. She looked at my unsure look on my face and nudged my side. "She's really nice and she'll love you."

"..Okay." We walked over and the girl immediately engulfed Cadence into a hug. She had caramel blonde hair and a rounded face. An appearance so beautiful that even I was jealous. But it didn't take me much to be jealous of someone. She looked like the type of girl who was shy but could easily win over any boy she wanted.

"Evie! I missed you." Cadence whined, leaning back out of the hug. I fiddled with my top as I watched them both interact.

"I missed you too." She said. I gulped when I saw Evie's gaze fall onto me. "Hi. You're Willow, aren't you?" She asked and Cadence smiled, pulling me closer by my arm.

I nodded my head. "Yes." I smiled and Cadence interjected.

"She's my new best friend." I felt over the moon by the new term. Best friend. What had I done to deserve such a wonderful friendship group?

Evie's eyes lightened and she squealed. Immediately I was pulled into a swift hug. "Do you know pretty you are?"

I felt my cheeks burn with a glowing red tint. "No..Thank you. You're super pretty." I retracted back the compliment and she giggled. She was actually so pretty and I wasn't just complimenting her for the sake of it.

"So we're all here for the tryouts?" She asked excitedly and me and Cadence nodded. "This is going to be so great!"

"Are you doing your dance routine as a solo?" Cadence asked curiously and Evie nodded, her hands coming up to tighten her ponytail.

"What about you guys?"

"Me and Willow are doing our performance together." I sighed quietly and nodded my head in agreement. Least that was one good thing about this. At least I wouldn't have to do it all by myself.

"You guys are going to do amazing. I know it!" Evie clapped her hands together and I looked around the field, stopping at the popular group. These girls tryout for the cheer team every year and they always managed to get onto it. I always saw them dancing, doing flips up in the air, absolutely everything on that field every football game and I had always wondered what it would be like to be up in the air, twirling — and what kind of serotonin it would release when you make the perfect landing.

I guess I'd be able to know exactly what it felt like if I could get onto the cheer team. My final year left of school. I might as well do something exciting this year.

I squinted my eyes and looked closer. One thing that scared me was that I couldn't see Stephanie. Or any of her sidekicks. They always tryout.

"Have you heard that Stephanie and Theo broke up?" Evie's question made me regain my focus back on her. How did she know? One of Evie's friends walked over and wrapped her arm around her shoulder. She was also very, , pretty too.

"Were they really together, though?" The girl, Anna, pulled her arm away from Evie's shoulder and crossed her arms against her chest.

"True. I heard they were seeing other people whilst being "together." Who knows what's true and what's not." Evie said and I felt my chest tighten. I was way too nervous to gossip.

"Let's wait a week and they'll be back together." Anna rolled here eyes and I gave her a wan smile.

After hearing them fighting this morning, I really didn't think they'd get back together.

From behind us, a loud, high-pitch whistle was blown making us turn our attention towards the sound. I spun around and my heart dropped. I could feel Cadence tense from beside me.

Stephanie was standing proud and loud in her proper cheer uniform. Her black hair was pulled elegantly into a high pony tail, a colour matched bow clipped onto it — the same with Kimberly and Rachel.

Stephanie har a clipboard in her hands and a harsh look written over her face. "I didn't know she was running the tryouts." Cadence whispered to me, a worried look on her face.

"I feel like we don't stand a chance now." I whispered back and Cadence locked her arm with mine. I felt so sick.

Stephanie blew her whistle again, eyes locked with mine. I gulped and tightened my grip on Cadence's arm.

"Listen up!" Stephanie shouted, her two friends standing further back. It was like some sort of Mean Girls movie. This might as well be the third. "You are all here for the tryouts for the cheer team. So this is how it's going to work. All of you stand in a line and we'll get your name and some other information regarding your performance!" She shouted. "After you've done your performance you're free to go. We'll let everyone who has made it onto the team, know. And if you don't find out if you made the team or not, then you can probably guess you haven't." She blew her whistle again and I jolted from the sound. Was it really necessary to blow the whistle that loud?

Everyone quickly lined up in silence — probably too nervous to mess up or say the wrong thing. I had heard Stephanie held grudges, and for a very long time too. Me and Cadence weaved ourselves through the people and managed to get in line near the front.

I grew even more nervous as Stephanie came forwards to start to take the names of the girls in front of us. I didn't know why Stephanie was glaring at me in the cafeteria. I hadn't done anything to her.

"Why do I find this really daunting?" Cadence asked me and she wiped her forehead. "I'm literally sweating."

I chortled and wiped down my clammy hands onto my leggings. Luckily everyone here was wearing something similar to me. I was always paranoid that I overdressed — or in some cases, underdressed.

The line got shorter and Stephanie got closer. She was an intimidating person but she was also hella pretty. I wish I could look like her. I knew most — maybe even all of the girls wanted to look like her.

"Name." Stephanie said, aggressively tapping her pen against the clipboard.

"Cadence."

"Are you doing your performance alone or with another person?" Stephanie asked bluntly, staring directly into her eyes.

Cadence crushed under her gaze and looked at me, her eyes wide. I stepped forwards and locked my arm with Cadences in reassurance. "We're doing ours together."

If Stephanie didn't look annoyed, she certainly did now. She stood up straighter, her face pulling into a grimace as she looked at me. "Willow. Isn't it?" She tilted her head to the side, eyes piercing into mine. Her teeth clenched together.

"Yes." I smiled partially but my insides were practically exploding.

She huffed, smacking her lips together. "Wait over there. We'll call you when it's your turn." She rolled her eyes and moved to the next lot of girls behind us.

That was when me and Cadence could finally breathe.

Me and Cadence made our way over to the group of girls who were also waiting. Rachel and Kimberly were standing here too, but with some space between them. I wondered why..

"Sorry about that." Cadence said, sighing to herself. I almost forgot what she was talking about.

"No it's okay. Don't worry." I smiled and comfortingly locked my arm with hers again.

"I don't know what came over me. I just froze." She continued but I looked back over to the line to see a girl looking scared out of her mind.

"You're not the only one who froze." I pointed to the girl and Cadence looked over, letting out a loud sigh of relief. I snorted and shook my head. "You don't have to worry. I'm sure she didn't even notice."

Cadence looked at me with a funny face. "Oh she definitely saw that. That girl never seems to miss a thing."

I ignored the very obvious glare coming from Stephanie. She definitely didn't miss a thing.

The tryouts slowly began to start and me and Cadence waited nervously in line as we watched various girls and boys perform their routines. Some were good and some I thought hadn't quite made the cut — seeing the looks on Stephanie's face said it all. That made me even more nervous considering this was my first time trying out for anything in my life, especially when it was something active and required a lot of movement.

I watched in silence as the girl who had just performed her socks off — she was absolutely amazing — walked off and over to her friend, squealing. Stephanie dragged her pen down the list of people and she then suddenly stopped, mouth itching into a smirk.

I could feel my heart beating rapidly. Why did I agree to do this in the first place?

"Cadence and Willow. You're up next." I cracked my knuckles and hesitantly stood up, Cadence right beside me. We already had everything set up, it was just up to us now.

We walked onto the supposed area and I bent down to get the music ready on the radio. I quickly got into place straight after and my face paled. Cadence gave me one nod of the head and we soon started.

As much fear and anxiousness was bubbling up inside me, I felt the adrenaline and concentration take over more. I tare out the bad thoughts from my mind and focused on every single move. Hitting every right position, balancing correctly on my feet, jumping up high and best of all, landing that cartwheel.

I smiled out of pure happiness at Cadence as we heard Charlotte and Angel cheer loudly at us, shouting all sorts of things. One thing I could make out without messing up a dance move was, "YOU CAN DO THIS GIRLS!!"

Even some of the other girls watching began to cheer and clap, making me push even harder. I stared directly in the eyes of Stephanie and smiled right at her. I bet she thought I couldn't dance this well — even I was surprised myself!

The music faded out and me and Cadence landed in our last position, the splits. It took me all day on Sunday to master it. It hurt, I must admit, but I still did it. I used to dance a bit when I was younger so I thought this was what helped me do well today.

The music stopped and everyone around us clapped. I stood up from my end position and pulled Cadence into a bone crushing hug — whilst panting. "That was amazing!"

She squeezed me with as much intensity and I heard her squeal right into my ear. "We did so well! Come on I need a drink!" She pulled me off by my hand and we ran over to our bags that we had set down with Angel and Charlotte. We didn't want anyone nicking our stuff.

Just before we left, I caught the deadly eyes of Stephanie's. She looked insanely pissed. Like any day, I'd look away because I didn't like the feeling of her eyes on me, but this time; I stared right back at her and even had the courage to smile. She looked as if she didn't like that because she rolled her eyes and smacked down the clipboard onto the table.

I saw Kimberly crossing her arms, looking at Stephanie with beady eyes. Clearly wanting her attention or some sort of brownie points. But Rachel looked totally different. She looked happy, a genuine smile on her face.

Rachel turned in her seat and looked at me and smiled. She gave me a quick thumbs up before Kimberly was hitting her arm to get her to stop.

I turned away and pulled out my drink from my bag, gulping down most of its contents. "OH MY GOODNESS! YOU BOTH DID AMAZING!" Angels shouted, jumping up from her seat and squeezing us tightly. For once, seeing a smile of Charlotte's face, she joined in on the hug too.

"Thank you, guys." I said; though my words were muffled as I was squeezed up against Angels shoulder. I laughed and we all pulled back.

Cadence smiled and pushed her bottle back into her bag. "I think this deserves ice cream."

We all nodded in unison and I quickly messaged my Mom that tryouts went really well. She responded back instantly with a bunch of well done messages and a load of love hearts and kisses. Telling her that I'd be back later on, I put my phone away back into my bag and swung it onto my shoulder, my gym bag in my hands as we walked off the field.

We all made it to our cars. "Everyone follow behind me!" Angel shouted from her car. I sent her a nod and quickly shoved in all my stuff into the trunk, hurriedly running round to the drivers side.

I plugger my phone into the aux cord and played my favourite playlist. The windows were down and my blonde hair was not so gracefully blowing in the breeze. LA was a super pretty place and I'd do everything to stay living here — but in a much richer area.

I carefully continued to follow on behind Angels car with Cadence and Charlotte behind me, and we drive down several roads. The clock blinked four and I sigher in relief. Usually around this time everyone would back home. Sometimes when I'd be driving home, I'd see students walking or hanging around in places. But that hopefully wouldn't be happening since it was now four o'clock and it was also straight after school. Well, that was if they weren't hiding in the ice cream parlour.

I really hoped no one from school was hiding in there.

We all turned into the ice cream parlour parking lot and I parked my car next to Angels. This place had the best ice cream in the whole entire world. It was also the best ice cream place because it also lead down to the beach. I pulled the hair tie from my head-aching ponytail and fluffed my hair up before stepping out and locking the car door.

Angel pulled open the door to the parlour and held the door open for all of us. I hummed in excitement as my eyes fell on the array of ice cream flavours. But bot only did this place sell ice cream, but it also sold milkshakes.

I walked over to the glass container and looked at my choices. My fingers grazed the glass as I thought hard. "What are you going to get?" Cadence asked me, smiling and waving to the young girl behind the counter just before she looked back down at the ice cream.

I felt my stomach rumble at the sight and smell. "Cookies N'Cream in a cone with a huge flake," I paused. "and a strawberry shake."

Cadence sniggered beside me and pulled me into the line. "You better share some of your ice cream with me."

I stared at her, contemplating. "Only if you share some of yours."

She tapped her finger against her chin teasingly. "That's a big offer."

I widened my mouth and poked her shoulder. "You want some of mine so how does that work?"

"Because you're getting a cone. I'm getting a cup. A small, small cup." She looked at me with puppy dog eyes.

I crossed my arms over my chest, my phone and card in my hand. "I'll see how I feel when I get it."

She rolled her eyes playfully. "I'll give you half of my chocolate shake in return."

I blinked. "Okay. Deal."

She cheered and turned around to the lady at the counter, pointing to something on the menu. After a few minutes Cadence took her cup of ice cream and shake with her over to a seat whilst waiting for us all to order.

"Hiya! What can I get for you?" The young girl asker and I could only imagine she was around the same age as me.

"Can I get a Cookies N'Cream ice cream in a cone with a flake and a strawberry shake, please?" The girl nodded and tapped it down on the system.

"Would you like whipped cream on your shake?" She looked up from the register.

"Yes please."

"Sprinkles, too?"

"Yes." I smiled.

"Okay that will be $7.60." She said and I tapped my card down. "Would you like your receipt?"

I shook my head. "No thanks." With a nod of her head she scooped out some of the ice cream onto the cone, shortly after wrapping a pink and white checkered napkin around it. She passed it to me and I felt my stomach growl. A few minutes after, she slid my strawberry shake towards me and I gave her one last smile. "Thank you. Have a good day."

As I was about to be have the first taste of my very delicious looking ice cream, Cadence jumped from her seat and shoved her shook in front of me. "I already have a shake." I told her.

"Yeah, but not chocolate." She reasoned. She did have a fair point..

"Fine." We exchanged goods and I took a couple; big, sips from her shake. I mean I might as well since one scoop of my ice cream was already gone.

"That's so good." Cadence groaned as she passed back my ice cream. I smirked and blow on my ice cream. I didn't personally like it when someone else's mouth had been on my food, or on me, if I was being brutally honest, but oh well..

"What's good?" Angel chipped in, slurping on her own milkshake.

"Yeah, what's good?" Charlotte asked and I laughed.

"Her ice cream. I should've gotten Cookie's N'Cream now." Cadence whined as she stared down at her half drunken shake with a sad look. Angel rolled her eyes dramatically, smirking at me as she pushed Cadence out the door.

Charlotte turned back and waved at the girl before walking out behind me. I hadn't really spoken to Charlotte much and I didn't even know if she really liked me. But that could of been my own paranoia playing up.

We both followed on behind Cadence and Angel down the sandy pathway to the beach with our ice creams and milkshakes in our hands and I thought of how this was a perfect time for a picture. I loaded up my camera and snapped a shot of the view of Cadence and Angel walking with the pretty blue sky there, up above them.

"Can you send me that?" I heard Charlotte ask.

"Of course!" I smiled and snapped a couple more shots. I flipped the camera around and took a few by myself and some with Charlotte. They didn't look the most pleasing as the light wind was blowing our hair and sand into our faces, but at least we captured the raw moments. The reality of 'aesthetic visits to the beach'.

I placed my phone into the pit of my arm and ate the rest of my ice cream. By the time we got to the bottom of the pathway and onto the actual beach, we had eaten the whole of our ice creams. I placed down my phone, card and milkshake onto the sand, pulling off my shoes and socks, the girls were doing the same thing.

"Doesn't this look amazing?" Angel shouted, spinning around in the breeze, her arms flying around.