After the New Year, everything moved faster.
The snow no longer fell gently—it slammed the sidewalks like it had something to prove. Days blurred together in a carousel of homework, work shifts, bruised knees, and glitter. Ellie lived on iced coffee and adrenaline. Her body ached in ways she'd never imagined possible. But she was alive.
More alive than she had ever been in her old life.
Basketball cheer had started before Christmas, but now competition season was in full swing. It was more than pom-poms and painted signs now. There were stunts, tosses, pyramids, and rules. Ellie was on all three teams—basketball cheer, competitive cheer, and stunt group. That meant three different practices, three sets of uniforms, and three different groups of girls, each with their own dramas and secrets and unspoken rules.
Ellie didn't care.
She wanted the pain in her thighs after late practices. She wanted to feel her hands shake on the steering wheel when she drove home after nailing a full twist in the air for the first time.
It felt like rebellion wrapped in ribbon.
It felt like power in a crop-top and bow.
It felt like healing.
Dylan was proud of her.
He'd stayed through the first week of January. Showed up to her first basketball game in a black hoodie and boots, clapping like he owned the team. He grinned like a fool when the crowd roared and Ellie hit her jumps dead center with a smile like fire.
They stayed up late that night. She told him every detail—how the basket toss was a little shaky, how Jenna messed up the chant, how their team won in the last quarter. He listened, arms around her waist, mouth pressed to her temple like she was the most fascinating girl in the world.
But then the next job came.
Three weeks in Indiana. A big contract. Good money.
He kissed her goodbye in the driveway, promised to call, promised to be back for her first real competition.
She smiled and waved as the taillights disappeared into the dark.
Then she went inside and buried herself in the chaos of cheer.
The first competition was an hour away in a gym that smelled like hairspray and nerves. Ellie could barely breathe in the sea of glitter and screaming moms. Her uniform itched. Her stomach flipped.
They were third in the rotation. She could hear the crowd pounding the bleachers. She looked over at the stunt group—four girls and one flyer. Her.
"You good?" one of the bases asked.
Ellie nodded. "Always."
The music started. Her heart took off.
Up she went—one foot in, locked tight, shoulders back. The world dropped beneath her as she rose. The crowd screamed. Her body hit every pose sharp as glass.
When she landed, the whole mat shook—and she didn't stumble. Not once.
They didn't take first that day. But they took second. And they were proud.
She got a text from Dylan an hour later:
"Saw the pics on your coach's page. You looked like you were flying, baby. So damn proud of you."
She cried in the locker room. Quietly. In the stall. Wiping her eyes with a crumpled receipt from the concession stand.
The next few weeks blurred. Dylan came and went in three-week shifts, like a tide that always returned.
When he was gone, she kept moving.
Early mornings for school. After-school practices. Evening shifts at the diner. Homework at midnight.
Sometimes Dylan FaceTimed her from motel rooms with peeling wallpaper. She'd show him new bruises from failed basket tosses and he'd wince and kiss the screen. Other times he'd fall asleep on the phone while she talked about pyramid positions and tumbling passes.
One night she confessed, "It feels like I'm living in two worlds."
"You're not," he said. "You're building one."
That stuck with her.
By mid-February, her body was held together by KT tape and sheer willpower. But she felt strong. She was eating better, sleeping less, laughing more. The girls on her team finally stopped looking at her like the weird church girl with the older boyfriend and started treating her like one of them.
Ellie learned how to French braid under pressure. How to fix a rip in a uniform with dental floss. How to cover a full-body panic attack with lip gloss and a megawatt smile.
She also learned that cheerleaders aren't weak.
They are warriors in mascara.
Dylan made it back for the regional competition.
He showed up with a thermos of hot chocolate and a paper bag filled with her favorite candy. She threw herself into his arms, still in full uniform and glitter, and cried into his chest.
He laughed and kissed her forehead. "You sparkle like a damn disco ball."
"That's the point," she said, wiping her eyes. "Now come watch me throw my body into the air like it owes me rent."
He watched from the stands, jaw clenched and arms folded. She caught his eye during her toss—saw the way his face changed when she hit the final pose. Pride. Awe. Love.
She lived for that look.
That night, they stayed up in his truck outside the house, windows fogged, music low. She sat on his lap, coat unzipped, his hands under her sweater tracing the bruises on her back from the fall last week.
"You're gonna kill yourself doing this," he muttered.
"I love it," she said.
"I love you," he replied. "And I don't wanna spend every job worrying you've broken your damn neck."
She cupped his face. "I'm tougher than I look."
He kissed her, slow and heavy. The kind of kiss that reminded her he'd always return.
By late February, Dylan had to leave again. The job in Pennsylvania couldn't wait.
She let him go, this time without tears.
Because something inside her had changed.
She wasn't waiting for him anymore.
She was building something for herself.
And when he returned, he wouldn't be coming back to a girl who needed him to survive.
He'd be coming back to a woman who chose him anyway.