You’d have no idea from the way she’s looking at me that Claire and I have known each other for years, been good enough friends to ride bikes together down the path behind her house in the springtime as kids and go shopping for the best Cheer Camp Casual that Thrifty Nick’s had to offer just this past summer. It’s scary to think how much has changed so quickly, and scarier still to know this is only the tip of the iceberg, assuming Cara hasn’t outed me yet.

But if captainship is gone, and my sort-of girlfriend is gone, and my best friends are gone … what else really matters at this point?

Claire doesn’t answer me. Instead, she whirls around to face everyone else, hands balled into fists. “No one was happy when Jack came here and joined the team. Not one of you. So why are we pretending she belongs? If you write her into that cheer, you’re saying she has a place on our team.”

“And if we don’t, we look to every single person in the stands like we don’t really support the Gators,” I shoot back. “Is that who you wanna be? We’re cheerleaders. This is our job.”

“Welcoming some lesbo with open arms is not my job.”

Both the sentiment and the word hit harder than I expected, and standing tall physically hurts when all I want to do is curl up into a ball. But this is it—this is when I see how the other girls view me, even if they don’t know it.

The room is silent, charged, the air feeling like a weighted blanket on my fiery skin.

And then, into the quiet, a voice I absolutely do not expect speaks up. “So let me get something clear,” says Nia, her voice as soft as always. “Wanting Jack gone—was that ever really about Robbie for you and the others? Or was it always because you’re a raging homophobe?”

Nia. Of all the girls on the team to stand up, it’s the one I’ve least bothered to get to know. The one who had nothing to offer me to get ahead, because she always just felt like another limb of Crystal’s. I know this is Claire’s moment of shame, but right now, it’s seeping into me, too, just a little bit.

Claire opens her mouth, and shuts it. None of us have ever been confronted by Nia, and I wouldn’t know how to answer her any more than Claire does. Piss her off, and you’re pissing off the captain. And Claire seems well past having pissed her off right now.