nora's pov

me and niles had the house to ourselves for a few hours because our 2 older brothers were away for an rwe tournament and our parents had gone out for dinner together. we were sat in the upstairs living room watching tiktok on our phones bored out of our minds until i got an idea.

"you know what we should do?" i say to niles who was next to me.
"what?" he asked putting his phone down.
"we should go live on instagram" i suggest.
niles agreed so we set up my phone and went live on my account.

"hi live!" i exclaim watching comments roll in.
"we're bored so ask us questions" niles tell the chat.

@user29: where's your jewellery from and do they have any sentimental value? i only ask because you wear the same all the time
@user83: where's nelson?
@user37: what cheer level are you?

" 'why do i always wear the same jewellery and do they have any sentimental value' ?" i read out "ok so my necklace is a present i got from noah on my 8th birthday"
"you mean our 8th birthday?" niles interrupts
"yes our 8th birthday anyways so i have no idea where it's from but it's like a locket with a diamond cross on it and inside there is a picture of me and noah when we were younger on one side and a picture of us now on the other. then my bracelet is from nomination and all the charms are all the important things that have happened in my life because i've had this bracelet forever. earrings from pandora but they don't have sentimental value." i explain

" 'where's nelson?' he's at an aau tournament" niles answers.
" 'what cheer level am i?' level 6" i tell the chat.

niles and i continued on live for about another hour just reading comments and making jokes with each other until we decided to end the live and make dinner for ourselves.

time skip

the next afternoon i walked into cheer practice and sat down at one of the benches. we had practice every day this week for 3 hours straight because we had a competition this weekend.

i put my cheer shoes on and took a sip of my water bottle as a girl in my stunt group, piper, came up to me.
"hey nora!" she said cheerfully.
"oh hi piper!" i respond.
"are your brothers picking you up from practice tonight?" she asked with a big smile on her face.
"no not today. noah and nelson are at a tournament and nile's has a game so my mom will pick me up." i tell her

after i gave her that information i watched her face turn stone cold and her voice become a much lower pitch as she replied with a short "oh".

"anyways... i love your new hair! it looks so good!" i complement to try and brighten the mood.
"yeah, thanks." is all she said as she walked away from me and went to talk to her friends.

after a few minutes of me continuing to get ready for practice indie walked into the foyer of the gym and sat down next to me.
"heyyyy" shes said as she slung her cheer bag off her back.
"hiii. oh my god guess who just came and talked to me" i say to her.
"who?" she questions.
"piper. and guess what it was about" i tell her while i started stretching.
"let me guess your brothers?" indie says with an eye roll.

i just nod with an annoyed look on my face.
"oh my god does she talk about anything else?" indie responds
"no real and have you seen her new hair? it's cute but like it's not her-"
"GIRLS LETS GO!" coach jayden calls from the gym cutting me off and making us jump up.

we all walked into the gym and did our warm ups until we were told the instructions of the session.
"today we will be doing our routine full out until we can get it consistent with no mistakes. we will also be doing this for the rest of the week." coach lillian instructs us.

we all ran to our spots to start the routine, me and indie being at the very front of the floor. we started doing our routine until we got to the pyramid part of it. i was meant to be in the middle and hold 2 of the other flyers' feet up but as i was lifted up to do so i immediately fell on the floor.

i knew what had happened as soon as i looked up at who dropped me. when i fell it was because of my right leg that wasn't supported and guess who was on my right as my base. piper. i glared at her as i quickly got up and continued what i was meant to be doing for the rest of the routine, missing the pyramid aka the most important part of the routine.

we finished up the first run and awaited our coaches critiques. i stood next to indie knowing damn well i was about to get yelled at.
"i totally get what you're saying about pipers hair. it's good but it really doesn't suit her" my best friend whispered to me.
"oh i'm not worried about her hair anymore just wait until you find out why i fell in the pyramid." i whispered back looking straight ahead at our coaches.

coach lillian and coach jayden's faces says it all. they were definitely not happy.
"most of that routine was alright..." coach jayden started.

he was always the positive one out of the two.
"can someone tell me what was wrong with that?" coach lillian interrogated.

the girl who raised her hand's name was chloe, the "teachers pet" you could say. "the pyramid? especially in the middle." she answered the rhetorical question looking specifically in my direction.
i just rolled my eyes at her my bit the side of my cheek anxiously.
"now nora's group. what happened there huh?" coach jayden asked.

i looked over to my stunt group and waited for one of them to speak up. when none of them did i knew i had to.
"when i was lifted i dont think everyone was stable and i fell." i cautiously replied.
"bases! what happened?" coach lillian angrily questioned.
"i wasn't paying attention and wasn't ready to lift her so when she was up in the air i couldnt hold her for that long." piper finally owned up
"let this be a lesson to all you girls. in cheer you have to be paying attention all off the time or people can get injured." coach jayden says to us
"now back to your starting places we will run this again and again until we get it consistently with no mistakes." coach lillian instructed us.

time skip

our practices had finished and everyone was leaving the gym when i got called over by coach lillian. 'oh shit' was all i could think. you NEVER want to be called out singularly by coach lillian because it's never good.

"yes coach?" i asked nervously.
"so i just wanted to talk to you about your necklace. you know you aren't allowed to wear jewellery to practice" she tells me.
"oh it's a religious necklace. otherwise i wouldn't wear it to practice." i tell her which was true but wasn't really the only reason why i wore it.
"and i understand that completely but piper told me that your necklace is a locket with other pictures instead of just a religious symbol." she crossed her arms.

is this girl a stalker or something? why is she always in my business? was all i could think
"oh yeah it has pictures of me and my older brother but that's only because he gave it to me." i argue.
"if it is not only a religious symbol, then i'm going to need you to take it off during practices." she stood her ground.

"yes ma'am." i said with my head down giving up.

i walked back to my bag in the foyer where my mom was waiting.
"what was your coach talking to you about?" she asked as i sat down and took my shoes off.
"she said that i can't wear my necklace anymore," i responded in defeat.
"why not?" she asked very confused.
"she said because it's not 'only' a religious symbol then i can't wear it" i tell my mom.
"how would she even know it's not 'only' a religious symbol?" my mom questioned still confused.
"apparently piper told her. she probably saw niles and i's instagram live last night and told on me." i sighed picking up my bag and walking with mom out the door.

she could tell i was upset at the situation. i mean she knows how important my necklace is to me and knows that i never take it off. i walked out to the car slumped down in my seat as i put my seatbelt on.
"how about i talk to her tomorrow about it and see if they can make an exception?" she suggested.
" i mean you can try but i'm not to sure it will work, she's very stubborn." i say about my coach.
"that is true. anyways did you want to go to the boys' rwe game? niles is going as back up because nelson got ejected from his last game." my mom laughed.
"oh shit really? yeah we should go." i tell her as she put the stadium address into her gps.

time skip

we pulled up right as the game started and walked in. i had to barge threw all the rwe fans (taking pictures with a few) to get to our bench where i sat down next to nelson and nile's. noah as already in the game making some good shots and passes.

"did you really get ejected?" i whispered to my older brother.
"yeah, did mom tell you? i have the video wait," he told me pulling out his phone.
"yeah she did." i said looking at the video he had.

honestly it wasn't even that bad all that happened was that he blocked some kid's shot and then bumped into him. wether that bump was on purpose or not is a different story but it all seemed harmless. in my opinion didn't seem like something he should be ejected for.

"you got ejected because of that?" i asked completely confused.
"i know right. we only had 7 players to begin with, so now that i can't play that makes 6. that's why niles has to fill in for me." nelson explained grabbing onto my twin brother's shoulder making him look at the both of us.

in that moment we heard a huge thump on the floor. the three of us looked over and saw one of the rwe players, nate, on the floor holding his hand. the ref called time while cam went over to help nate off the floor. his hand was bleeding indicating he had to get benched for a bit.

that's when niles checked into the game. he was making 3s left right and center. even when nate wasn't bleeding anymore and was alright to go back on cam still didn't take niles out of the game. when the game ended he had a total of 42 points thanks to a last minute foul against the other team. what a way to start off your rwe career

author speaks
GUYS JUST SO YOU KNOW THE NECKLACE IS VERY IMPORTANT TO THIS SEASON so uhm here is sort of what it would look like with my amazing editing skills on google slides:

ok ignore how shit it is but like you guys get the idea

sorry if i'm a little slow with updates i switch between my ipad and my laptop when writing can can i just say WRITING ON THE WATTPAD WEBSITE IS THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD. it doesn't automatically save so i always forget to save and then i got to rewrite everything i wrote like 3 times bc i'm so use to the automatic save on mobile. AND THEN WHEN I DO SAVE IT IT SAVES FOR LIKE 2 DAYS AND THEN IT GETS RID OF ALL MY WORK LIKE I CANT WIN