This is the story about my secret highschool friendship. https://twitter.com/banishedpoptart/status/1286448655482880000

As some of you know I was a competitive cheerleader in highschool.

And we were good.

Like really good.

Bringing home them trophies every weekend, good.

I was known for my jumps/tumbling, faces, dance attitude and hype. Winking, smirking, blowing kisses and yes, smiling. I still have judges score sheets that mention my facial expressions. I even won individual spirit awards.

Yes I was THAT girl.

I used to jump on my little brothers skateboard and roll down the driveway to practice my scorpions, heel stretches and arabesques and build my stability for stunts. (I’m actually cringing less at the pants and more at the lack of tightening up that knee)

Side note: our locker room hype songs were:

Juvenile ‘Back that azz up’

And

Ice Cube ‘You can do it’

We would stand in a big circle and on benches and twerk while getting ready to go out and crush.

I hear these songs and muscle memory kicks in and I still do the very nsfw moves that we did for certain parts.

WE WAZ HOES

Now to be this good you gotta be intense and work hard.

And work hard we did. Between cheering for football, basketball and soccer, we practiced. Every chance we could. 5am workouts at the gym and then stunting and tumbling before classes started and then again after school.

Another side note: Intense practicing brings intense injuries. I’ve sprained both ankles 6 times each, had a bruise on my left bicep and breast that literally stayed for all 4 years. Oh and I got my nipple torn off. ITS FINE RELAX.

We were so dedicated that we would hold unauthorized workouts in the parking lot during the summer (this doesn’t include cheer camp) when school was out.

This is where this story begins.

During one of these parking lot practices one of the seniors points out that “Tom” is riding by on his bike again. I’m a sophomore and had only moved there the year prior so I have no clue who this guy is.

Turns out he was a sophomore in college and was a bit weird. Whatever.

So these ride by’s continue but were harmless. I couldn’t be bothered anyway. School would be starting soon and that would mean homecoming pep rally and we had to be great.

We were. Nbd.

Also I had a crush on one of the soccer players. His name was Joel and I had to be on point. NOTICE ME!

He didn’t. He ended up coming back to school holding hands with a girl that I will just describe as “woof”. It was a very confusing time.

Bonus picture from the Cheerleaders VS Dance Squad homecoming touch foot ball game. We were in it to win it. And we did.

Ok back to business.

So one night while working on a paper I took a break and decided to check out some aol chat rooms. Shut up.

I started talking to this guy and we decided to take it to AIM. SHUT UP.

While talking we realize we live about two streets away from each other.

It’s 11pm at this point and he asks if I’d like to meet to walk his dog with him.

This is really weird.

So obviously I do it.

I walk down to where he says he’ll be and we walk around the block with his dog ‘snickers’.

His name?

Tom.

Nothing creepy happened but it was awkward af. He told me all about his girlfriend Michelle that he met at school. He was really crazy about her. We finally part ways and I go home and crash. Gotta be at the gym in the morning.

A few weeks go by and Tom messages me at 10:30pm and asks me if want to go jogging with him.

Another chance to work on cardio? Sounds good to me.

After this we became nightly jogging partners.

We would discuss WWII history while running.

Yes I’m a nerd. Fite me.

After months of sneaking out of the house to go jogging and discuss history (this was the extent of my teenage rebellion. Seriously.) he invited me into his house to see his room.

He lived at home with his parents so it was weird but I was safe.

He had binders upon binders of baseball cards which were accompanied with spreadsheets to catalog them. It was weird. But we all have our thing. We talked some more about Michelle and how she was starting to act weird and eventually I went home.

One rainy Saturday, the football game was cancelled and there would be no practice so I had nothing to do and I was bored. I message Tom and he invites me over to watch my favorite movie “Saving Private Ryan”. Good enough.

When I get there he says we’ll watch it in his room. Hmmm ok.

The only place to sit is his bed.

He insists I have to lay on the bed because he has a “surprise” for me.

So he sits at the top with his back leaning on the wall and I lay on my stomach with my head at the foot.

We start watching the movie and the first explosion happens and THE ENTIRE BED SHAKES.

I whip around and he starts laughing.

You know those things that some movie theatres have that shake the chairs?

He had installed 4 of those under his bed.

Yes. For real. It was weird.

Eventually we both got busier, he broke up with Michelle and was heart broken and we stopped meeting up to jog.

He would still ride by practices but I never acknowledged him.

One day out of the blue he asks me to swing by. I figure why not and head over.

He now had binders full of burned CD’s accompanied by spreadsheets that cataloged the songs and was going on about “Napster”. Sounded cool but not something I fully understood.

No problem. He’ll burn me a cd. Just pick a bunch of songs.

I decide I want a bunch of 80’s songs. So I write down the songs I like and he says he’ll get it to me in a day or two. Cool.

Sure enough I walk out the check the mail and their is a cd in the mail box with a little sticky note on it saying there was extra space so he added some songs. I bring it in and put it on. It’s everything I wanted. And the extra songs are good too

So some time goes by and I’d occasionally play this cd.

One day my mom asks me where I got it. I say a friend put it together for me.

As each song would play she’d ask “You picked this song?” And I’d answer either yes or no.

Finally she says “have you noticed the theme to the songs you didn’t pick?”

Huh?

She stares at me as if she can’t believe how dumb I am.

LISTEN TO THE SONGS AGAIN

The two songs that I distinctly remember were

Billy Ocean ‘Get out of my dreams, get into my car’



And

Peter Cetera ‘Glory of Love’

Uh... dude... I’m in highschool.

My mom wants to know who this guy is and I’m like

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA NOBODY BYEEEEE

So now things are really weird.

I definitely can’t be friends with this dude and nobody can find out about this.

Thankfully I was now in my senior year and busy af so I had a good excuse to be scarce.

The year goes by and I graduate.

Off to go be a nanny on Nantucket for the summer and then back to mainland to start school, be a pharmacy tech and work at best buy