But Jack’s the first female football player in the entire county. She’s got her thing that makes her a safe bet for college. She’s got her thing that makes her special, even if people don’t wanna acknowledge it. And she can handle herself; if push came to shove, she could snap the entire squad in half, and a good portion of the football team, too.

What do I have?

“Amber—”

“I know. God, I know it’s bad, okay? But cheerleading is my entire life. All my friends are on the squad or the football team. You’ve watched me work my ass off at this basically since I could walk and now you’re telling me to give all that up for a girl I’ve known for, like, five minutes because she’s a good kisser.”

My mother narrows her eyes. “Well, if that’s all she is.” And because my mother is the queen at making you feel like dirt when she wants to, she turns away and walks out of the kitchen.

-JACK-

Even after taking a long, hot shower at home, I’m still feeling completely wiped from practice, but nothing is going to keep me from chatting with Sage and Morgan tonight. I haven’t seen their faces since the game, and I’m excited to finally have hopeful, fun, and, most importantly, true things to share.

The second the screen opens up and I see the windows with their faces, I feel a knot loosen in my chest. It doesn’t even matter that they don’t look the same as I left them—Morgan’s purple-streaked hair is now spiky and green all over, and Sage has already scrubbed off her trademark shiny red lips and washed out her huge curls for the night. I’m just so glad to see friendly, excited faces.

“Oh man, Jack, you look so happy,” Sage says immediately, breaking into that familiar huge smile that could bring even a jackass like Dan Sanchez to his knees.

“I told you we had nothing to be nervous about,” Morgan adds, sticking their tongue out.

“You were worried about me?” The knot loosens a little bit further, just knowing they didn’t really expect it to be sunshine and roses from day one. “You both seemed so optimistic.”

“Yeah, because we believe you can do anything,” says Sage. “But we all know how cis boys can be when they feel threatened by a girl. We’ve been so glad you’re not dealing with that shit over there, but we were a little afraid that maybe you were downplaying stuff, being brave and all that. But you look really happy.”