Cheerleader Friend Quotes

I will love you with no regard to the actions of our enemies or the jealousies of actors. I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the world’s cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in blurry, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you no matter how your soccer team performed in the tournament or how many stains I received on my cheerleading uniform. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you if you cut your hair and I will love you if you cut the hair of others. I will love you if you abandon your baticeering, and I will love you if you if you retire from the theater to take up some other, less dangerous occupation. I will love you if you drop your raincoat on the floor instead of hanging it up and I will love you if you betray your father. I will love you even if you announce that the poetry of Edgar Guest is the best in the world and even if you announce that the work of Zilpha Keatley Snyder is unbearably tedious. I will love you if you abandon the theremin and take up the harmonica and I will love you if you donate your marmosets to the zoo and your tree frogs to M. I will love you as a starfish loves a coral reef and as a kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fettuccini and as the horseradish loves the miyagi, as the tempura loves the ikura and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness in the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged print of the document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. i will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey. I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and as an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of people who talk too much. I will love you as a cufflink loves to drop from its shirt and explore the party for itself and as a pair of white gloves loves to slip delicately into the punchbowl. I will love you as the taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock.

But that isn’t why. The why is that none of it matters. Not school, not cheerleading, not boyfriends or friends or parties or creative writing programs or …” She waves her arms at the world. “It’s all just time filler until we die.

Mom is calculated, logical, business-minded; kind but very, very direct. Makes you better by giving you these little pointers but doesn’t baby you. My dad is a Chatty Cathy, the social butterfly; friendly; knows everybody in the whole world by six degrees; tells me that every performance is the greatest he’s ever seen, every new outfit is the coolest. Constant cheerleader. It’s cool to have pie-in-the-sky Dad, down-to-earth Mom.

I love you because you’re funny and snarky, sarcastic as all hell, and the night we met, you told me to go fuck myself.” He ignores the way Cara shrieks his name. “You’re also kind and soft, sensitive and sweet, the best auntie, and a teacher I would’ve died to have in high school. You’re not just my girlfriend; you’re my biggest cheerleader and my best friend.

I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the world's cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in blurry, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you no matter how your soccer team performed in the tournament or how many stains I received on my cheerleading uniform. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday.

Our deepest healing occurs when we learn to be our own best friend, companion, and cheerleader.

I knew it. You’re an alien,” said her former best friend, the pale, bespectacled creature with the spectacular cleavage. “Yes, I’m an alien and I still made cheerleader. And now I’m going to steal your boyfriend to prove girls can’t really be friends.” “I sat back timidly when you torched my house, killed my parents, and ate my dog. But now you’re stealing my boyfriend? That’s a step too far!

But that isn't why. The why is that none of it matters. Not school, not cheerleading, not boyfriends or friends or parties or creative writing programs or... It's all just time filler until we die.

She was a soul-sucking vampire and I was a sixteen-year-old cheerleader, but I was damned if she was going to suck the life out of all my friends. High school was hard enough.

Let me tell you girls a story, short and sweet. In high school, I was a junior varsity cheerleader dating a senior who was up for football scholarships. I'd slept with him several times willingly. One night I wasn't in the mood, but he was. So he held me down and forced me. The few people I told about it - including my best friend - pointed out what would happen to him if I told. They stressed the fact that I hadn't been a virgin, that we were dating, that we'd had sex before. So I kept quiet. I never even told my mother. That boy put bruises on my body. I was crying and begging him to stop and he didn't. That's called rape, ladies.

The good news is good friends—make that great friends—will see you through everything. They are your sounding board, your cheerleading squad, your cross-my-heart-hope-to-die secret keepers. You may rely on an old one you’ve known since preschool or lean on a new one you met in homeroom. The point is, this person is going to have your back no matter how long you’ve known him or her.

So now, not only did my best friend leave, but the cheerleaders and their mindless followers assumed I was personally responsible for the petition (which, yeah, I was) and started being openly rude to me - shutting doors in my face, leaving nasty notes on my desk and in my locker, making fun of me when I could obviously hear them. That's when I started keeping really quiet in class, and finding ways to show the other kids I wasn't afraid of them - like staring them straight in the eye when they looked at me, taking a step toward them when they talked to me, or walking right up to them and getting their personal space if I heard them say my name. Saying the meanest things I could think of whenever I had the chance - repeating rumors, embellishing them. I found out Kira Conroy had been arrested for shoplifting at the mall, and made sure everyone knew about it. The girl who burped in a boy's face during her first kiss, the girl who tripped and fell off the stage at the Miss Teen California pageant - I shared those stories the moment I heard them. All's fair in war, right? Suddenly I wasn't a nobody anymore. I was a somebody. Somebody everyone was afraid of.

I'd always assumed Beth and I would be friends forever. But then in middle of the eighth grade, the Goldbergs went through the World's Nastiest Divorce. Beth went a little nuts. I don't blame her. When her dad got involved with this twenty-one year old dental hygienist, Beth got involved with the junk food aisle at the grocery store. She carried processed snack cakes the way toddlers carry teddy bears. She gained, like, twenty pounds, but I didn't think it was a big deal. I figured she'd get back to her usual weight once the shock wore off. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only person who noticed. May 14 was 'Fun and Fit Day" at Surry Middle School, so the gym was full of booths set up by local health clubs and doctors and dentists and sports leagues, all trying to entice us to not end up as couch potatoes. That part was fine. What wasn't fine was when the whole school sat down to watch the eighth-grade cheerleaders' program on physical fitness.

Uh-oh," Moni sang, and nodded her head in Chantal's direction. "I think someone's a wee bit upset with us." She turned and walked a few steps backward. "Careful," I said. "We're not out of range." "Have no fear, Super Brain is here." Moni whipped out her calculator, holding it up like a shield. "What are you going to do, daze her with denominators?" "Maybe. But first I'm going to pummel her with my Pythagorean theorem.

I will love you with no regard to the actions of our enemies or the jealousies of actors. I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the world’s cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in a blurring, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you no matter how your soccer team performed in the tournament or how many stains I received on my cheerleading uniform. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you if you cut your hair and I will love you if you cut the hair of others. I will love you if you abandon your baticeering, and I will love you if you retire from the theater to take up some other, less dangerous occupation. I will love you if you drop your raincoat on the floor instead of hanging it up and I will love you if you betray your father. I will love you even if you announce that the poetry of Edgar Guest is the best in the world and even if you announce that the work of Zilpha Keatley Snyder is unbearably tedious. I will love you if you abandon the theremin and take up the harmonica and I will love you if you donate your marmosets to the zoo and your tree frogs to M. I will love you as the starfish loves a coral reef and as kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fetuccini and as the horseradish loves the miyagi, as the tempura loves the ikura and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness in the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged print of the document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey. I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of the people who talk too much. I will love you as a taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock. I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.

She isn’t simply unafraid of a good fight, she lives for it, and will often actively go looking for a fight. This is what differentiates your run-of-the-mill fighter from a crusader. The Warrior Princess Submissive is no shrinking violet. She is that dyed-in-the-wool Republican who attends the Democratic National Convention wearing a Rand Paul t-shirt. She is the African-American woman who invites herself to a Ku Klux Klan rally without a hood... and hands out business cards to everyone there. She is the woman who invites the Jehovah's Witnesses into her home and feeds them dinner, just for the opportunity to defend Christmas - even though she may be a Pagan. When the other girls in high school or college were trying out for the pep squad or cheerleading, she set her sights on the debate team. While her friends agonize over how to “fit in” socially, she is war gaming ideas on how to change society to fit her ideals and principles. Are you someone she considers to be immoral or evil? Run. She will eviscerate you.

AFFABLE means good-natured and friendly. There are whole groups of people who are known for being affable. Cheerleaders, for example. Or Mormon missionaries.

One of them was Kathy Newman, who in 1996 was a high school cheerleader and the daughter of a contractor. Kathy had just graduated from Portsmouth High School when she broke ribs in a car accident. The emergency room in town was wary of prescribing more than ibuprofen for pain. You should go see David Procter, her friends said: He’ll give you something that works.

In order to live a fulfilling life, you must do as much (if not more) for yourself as you do for others. Sometimes we spend so much time caring for the next person we neglect to invest in ourselves. Remind yourself every day: Your needs, your aspirations, your success, and your goals also matter. It’s ok to be a shoulder, cheerleader, friend and support system; but remember, you deserve as good as you give.

7. The way you treated yourself most of your life Every flaw you picked apart inside the mirror. Every lie you told yourself about your limitations. Every “I am not good enough” thought that ever flitted through the recesses of your mind, settling into a place where it mattered. We have to forgive ourselves for not being our own best friends, our own confidants and our own biggest cheerleaders. We didn’t know what a difference it would make to love ourselves, until we finally did.

I’ve brought myself here today, in front of Mother Nature, Neptune, and all the mermaids, to acknowledge that I, Cleo Wilder, do take myself, Cleo Wilder, to be my strongest advocate and my most loyal friend, my loudest cheerleader, and my most trusted confidante.

When you are unique and rare, be prepared to be hated on. Family, so-called friends, and associates will show their true character when they see you succeeding. Words of Wisdom: Stay focused! Don’t allow anybody to rob you of your purpose. Keep on shining! Keep on thriving! Hold your head up high and do the damn thing! Everybody will NOT be happy for you, everybody will NOT rejoice with you, and everybody will NOT believe in you. And that’s okay! Be your OWN personal cheerleader. This is about YOU, not them. Haters don’t deserve your time or energy. Do YOU. Your destiny is yours to keep!

Don’t hold back because you’re afraid of hurting someone else. If your best friend wants to be a cheerleader and you make the team but she doesn’t, don’t feel guilty. If you end up earning more than your sister, it’s not a betrayal. Your success might be an inspiration for someone else, while limiting yourself to avoid upsetting the balance doesn’t help anyone. Equally, rather than being paralysed by jealousy when someone else is coming out on top, use it to spur you on to greater things. Some of our best achievements will be triggered by envy at seeing someone else fulfilling our secret ambitions.

And maybe it works the other way, too. Maybe being friends with someone can make you shut yourself off to stuff that you want to be a part of.” She doesn’t speak, just shifts her weight back and forth a few times. I look up at Nicole and give her what I hope is my most sincere look, because she has to know that I’m speaking the truth. “I never meant to turn you into someone you didn’t want to be. I don’t care what you do. If you want to be a cheerleader, then awesome. You can be a nun or a backup dancer for the Jonas Brothers. I don’t care. I just don’t want you to think you can’t be my friend and the things you want to be.

I, Cleo Wilder, do take myself, Cleo Wilder, to be my strongest advocate and my most loyal friend, my loudest cheerleader, and my most trusted confidante.” I pause and gaze out to sea, my palms resting on my knees, my hair swirling around my shoulders in the wind. I acknowledge I haven’t always been my own best friend, and I certainly haven’t always been my own strongest advocate. I’ve lingered too long in toxic relationships, and I’ve told myself to put up with things I’d tell a friend not to tolerate. “I promise to listen to myself, to take the time to hear the voice in my gut, because I know myself better than anyone and I always have my own best interests at heart. I’m wise enough to know when someone is disingenuous, and I know when enough is enough. I also know that I am enough, and I’m brave, and I will succeed. I won’t judge myself too harshly when I get things wrong, because everyone gets things wrong sometimes, but I won’t let myself off the hook without learning lessons either.

If you’re simply looking for moral reformation (improved behavior), you might need a life coach, a cheerleading section, or a really good friend, but not a Savior. But if you require mortal resurrection, you’re going to need something beyond yourself, someone who will raise dead people to life, give sight to the blind, and set captives free.

The Count of Monte Cristo, Edgar Allan Poe, Robinson Crusoe, Ivanhoe, Gogol, The Last of the Mohicans, Dickens, Twain, Austen, Billy Budd…By the time I was twelve, I was picking them out myself, and my brother Suman was sending me the books he had read in college: The Prince, Don Quixote, Candide, Le Morte D’Arthur, Beowulf, Thoreau, Sartre, Camus. Some left more of a mark than others. Brave New World founded my nascent moral philosophy and became the subject of my college admissions essay, in which I argued that happiness was not the point of life. Hamlet bore me a thousand times through the usual adolescent crises. “To His Coy Mistress” and other romantic poems led me and my friends on various joyful misadventures throughout high school—we often sneaked out at night to, for example, sing “American Pie” beneath the window of the captain of the cheerleading team. (Her father was a local minister and so, we reasoned, less likely to shoot.) After I was caught returning at dawn from one such late-night escapade, my worried mother thoroughly interrogated me regarding every drug teenagers take, never suspecting that the most intoxicating thing I’d experienced, by far, was the volume of romantic poetry she’d handed me the previous week. Books became my closest confidants, finely ground lenses providing new views of the world.

I’m here because I spend all of my spare time watching you and wanting to be like you but you’re mean to me and won’t be my best friend forever like I sooo wish you would. So I decided to become you instead. I’m starting off by creeping up here to seduce your precious Darius and screw him senseless just to make you cry. Then I’m going to dye my hair the cheapest, shittiest shade of red I can find and finally I’ll become the head cheerleader because I fucking love being cheery. Mostly I’m going to do it because I’m obsessed with you but partly because I’m a psycho bitch who just wants to ruin your life.

As much as I find the soulmate concept sappy and silly, I also understand its appeal. The soulmate promises an all-in-one solution. Find that one perfect person and you have—for starters—your best friend, your sexual partner, your comforter and caretaker, your cheerleader, your escort to every social function, your consultant on matters large and small, and the one and only teammate you will ever need in home management, money management, and vacation planning. And that list doesn’t even include any of the potential coparenting possibilities. The soulmate mythology is the ultimate seduction: Find that one right person and all of your wishes will come true.

The people and events that had come along and healed me never went unnoticed. My dad pointed out recently that after my botched baptism, I started to gather people--congregants, squads, cheerleaders. I knew in some way that if I was ever going to see this or any dream come true, I needed people. I now realized where this instinct had come from. It was an early childhood tactic that I had been given by being the first child born on both sides of my family. I was adored by my grandparents, parents, and aunts and uncles. Showered with affection. that religious rejection was enough to send me back to one of my earliest and most primitive instincts: to simply surround myself with love and acceptance. It saved my life many times.

began to walk home, very quickly. A car full of high-school girls screeched around the corner. They were the girls who ran all the clubs and won all the elections in Allison’s high-school class: little Lisa Leavitt; Pam McCormick, with her dark ponytail, and Ginger Herbert, who had won the Beauty Revue; Sissy Arnold, who wasn’t as pretty as the rest of them but just as popular. Their faces—like movie starlets’, universally worshiped in the lower grades—smiled from practically every page of the yearbook. There they were, triumphant, on the yellowed, floodlit turf of the football field—in cheerleader uniform, in majorette spangles, gloved and gowned for homecoming; convulsed with laughter on a carnival ride (Favorites) or tumbling elated in the back of a September haywagon (Sweethearts)—and despite the range of costume, athletic to casual to formal wear, they were like dolls whose smiles and hair-dos never changed.

Okay,like I could write about being new to this school and feeling really self-conscious already, you know, 'cause I'm new and haven't really gotten my growth spurt yet...in any capacity." This gets a few chuckles and I plow forward. "Then,at this meeting, maybe some cool, hot jock is sitting next to me and asks me to stand up, only to have the entire classroom staring at me as I say, 'But I am standing up!' Except,you know, funnier." A few kids giggle and the big guy next to me grunts, "Pretty funny." I smile over at my new comrade and smack his massive shoulder like we're old friends.I'm going to have to get his name. "I mean, obviously it'd be better than that. But I just think it'd be good comif relief," I add, doing what my dad calls laying it on thick. "And we could put it near the pet obits to balance out all the high-school-is-depressing-enough vibes!" Now the laughs are easy and everyone's smiling, and I feel myself loosen up a bit. Just like Mom and Dad with cheerleading, these folks are cracking under my spell, and I start really amping up the drama. "And I know I couldn't use 'Traumarama' as a title since Seventeen already does, but I'm thinking 'Trauma and Drama-Terrible Tales of Teenagedom,' or something like that, with some real-life gossip mixed in.

house with a great view. You’ll see that at the party tonight. Wish Char would be here for that, too, but we’ll all be together soon.” At least, Kate thought, Jack Lockwood, alias former father, would not be here tonight, so she could enjoy herself. Not only was she curious to see Grant Mason, but she also couldn’t wait to examine the Adena burial site she’d found on an old map in the university archives when she was back in the States at Christmas. The so-called Mason Mound was about twenty yards behind Grant’s house, and she was much more eager to see it than him. * * * The caterers Grant had hired from the upscale Lake Azure area had taken over the kitchen, and he didn’t want to disturb the setup for the buffet or the bar at the far end of the living room. So he sat in his favorite chair looking out over the back forest view through his massive picture window. The guests for the party he was throwing for his best friend, Gabe, and his fiancée, Tess, would be here soon—eighteen people, a nice number for mixing and chatting. He’d laid in champagne for toasts to the happy couple. Gabe and Grant had been best friends since elementary school, when a teacher had seated them in alphabetical order by first names. Grant had been the first to marry. Lacey had been his high-school sweetheart, head of the cheerleaders, prom queen to his king. How unoriginal—and what a disaster.

announced that Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays would be performing in Madison, two friends and I cut class and raced to the Factory, where we plunked down three bucks apiece for tickets. In the weeks leading up to the concert, Steve Kruvant, Rick Kleiner, and I wore out the grooves of Otis’s Live in Europe LP. From the emcee’s introductory cheerleading (“Gimme an O!”) to the final horn blasts

We simply don’t believe that friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4). Many Christians have the mistaken notion that if only we were better Christians, everyone would appreciate us. They don’t realize that holiness comes with a cost. Sure, you can focus on the virtues the world likes. But if you pursue true religion that cares for orphans and promotes purity (James 1:27), you’ll lose some of the friends you were so desperate to make. Becoming a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, requires you to resist the world which wants to press you into its mold (Rom. 12:1–2). Saving yourself for marriage, staying sober on Friday night, turning down a promotion to stay at your church, refusing to say the f-word, turning off the television—these are the kinds of things the world doesn’t understand. Don’t expect them to. The world provides no cheerleaders on the pathway to godliness. THE

and Dad, for their unending support and confidence; and to all of my husband’s family for being wonderful cheerleaders. Skeleton’s Key is my toughest novel to date, and I relied heavily on Dr. Erin Barnhart, Deputy Medical Examiner for the state of Mississippi. Thank you for your patience and eagerness to answer questions and for putting so much time into my writing. Many thanks to the Natchez Historical Society for its guidance in getting the historical details correct. I have to thank my good friend Kristine Kelly for her faith my writing and her diligence

Another study compared fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds who had close friendships to those who were popular, with larger friend groups but fewer close relationships—so the cheerleaders and partiers on the A-list. The study found that at age twenty-five, those who had fewer but closer friends had higher feelings of self-worth and less social anxiety and depression than the cool kids. 174 The lesson here is you should never peak in high school.

Without moving apart, Zev moaned and whispered into Jonah’s mouth, “Damn, Blondie, you’re a great kisser.” Jonah moved his arms up to Zev’s back, wrapping the young man in his embrace and stroking his smooth, firm skin. “You’re not so bad yourself, Hassick. You been practicing this with someone without me knowing?” Zev snickered. “You jealous?” Jonah didn’t return the smile. He looked into Zev’s eyes and answered without any guile, “Yeah. I’m jealous of anyone who got to touch you.” Instead of looking freaked out, as Jonah had half expected, Zev remained completely calm. He gazed into Jonah’s eyes with such powerful emotion that Jonah’s heart raced and his breath hitched. “Unless you can manage being jealous of yourself, you don’t have to worry. Like I told you yesterday, I haven’t ever thought about anyone else—girls or guys—let alone touched anyone else. It’s just you, Blondie. It’s always been you.” Zev let his words sink in, then he reversed the tables on the discussion. “What about you? Been hiding out behind the bleachers sneaking kisses with cheerleaders?” Jonah snorted more than laughed. “Uh, Zev, I was teasing about the whole not-so-smart thing earlier, but now I’m thinking I may have been on to something. That hardness you feel against your stomach isn’t a banana. That’s me happy to see you, or feel you, in this case. And you’re a guy. With that background in place, we can add two and two together here and even someone with your limited math skills can come up with the correct answer. I’m gay. I’ve got no deep dark cheerleader secrets in my past.” Zev was amazed at how easily Jonah said the words. He admired how his friend so completely accepted this part of himself. No shame, no hesitation. Just a matter-of-fact statement. In that moment, Zev decided he’d take the same approach. He knew it’d shock his parents. Hell, it’d rock his whole community. But he was attracted to a man. He had a male mate. That meant he was gay. Zev Hassick was a gay shifter. The pack would just have to find a way to deal with that truth even though they’d always believed it to be impossible. “And in case you’re wondering,” Jonah continued, his hand still rubbing Zev’s back but now moving lower, skating over his ass, “I don’t have any deep dark football player secrets, either. I’ve had a crush on one guy for as long as I can remember and I kinda put all my eggs in that basket.” Zev took another kiss, slow, soft and sweet this time. “I better be the egg-basket guy in that story, Blondie, or the tickles are coming back in full force.

Marrying one woman doesn’t mean spending your life with one woman, because the funny girl you fall in love with on a first date at twenty-eight eventually becomes the fascinating creature you propose to at thirty, then evolves into the stunning bride you wait for at the end of an aisle at thirty-two, and finally grows into the astounding mother to your children at thirty-four. By forty, she has blossomed into the businesswoman, the force to be reckoned with. By the time you’re fifty or sixty or seventy or a hundred, she’s been everything — your wife, your lover, your friend, your companion, your sous-chef, your travel partner, your life coach, your confidant, your cheerleader, your critic, your most stalwart advisor. She grows with you. She changes with you. She is always stable, but never stagnant. She is not one woman. She is a thousand versions of herself, a multitude of layers, an infinite ocean whose depths you plumb over a lifetime, whose many treasures and intricacies, quirks and idiosyncrasies you need an entire marriage to explore.” His voice softens. “A man should be so lucky to spend his life stuck with one woman such as that.

Wyatt’s lips flatten into a serious line. His voice goes low, laced with passion. “Marrying one woman doesn’t mean spending your life with one woman, because the funny girl you fall in love with on a first date at twenty-eight eventually becomes the fascinating creature you propose to at thirty, then evolves into the stunning bride you wait for at the end of an aisle at thirty-two, and finally grows into the astounding mother to your children at thirty-four. By forty, she has blossomed into the businesswoman, the force to be reckoned with. By the time you’re fifty or sixty or seventy or a hundred, she’s been everything — your wife, your lover, your friend, your companion, your sous-chef, your travel partner, your life coach, your confidant, your cheerleader, your critic, your most stalwart advisor. She grows with you. She changes with you. She is always stable, but never stagnant. She is not one woman. She is a thousand versions of herself, a multitude of layers, an infinite ocean whose depths you plumb over a lifetime, whose many treasures and intricacies, quirks and idiosyncrasies you need an entire marriage to explore.” His voice softens. “A man should be so lucky to spend his life stuck with one woman such as that.” -Julie Johnson, "The Monday Girl

I never really wanted anything other than us all being together as a family. I just wanted to be left alone. He had to get his hands on me! It was as if I was not even allowed to have a childhood, in all truthfulness. I know I had to grow up too fast. He violated me! Why would he do such a thing to me, was it love or hate? It just started with a touch of the hand, and then more and more, I was not going to stop it, because I think I liked it? Yes, I think I did…? He made me feel good and bad all at the same time! I need my friends like I need my dad, and without his love, in my life, my needing for life ran on low, and he drained the rest out of me. I never wanted to do what he wanted me to do. I just wanted to be a kid; I just wanted to be the average girl, like I have seen all around me in school. I do not think anyone loves me, the only one, which loved me like that was my dad. There were no boys out there that wanted me because they knew, only one but he does not count to me. Because he would have done anything to get me to say yes, even if I said no. It was hard to find real love, because of who my mom is, and what my dad was. Yet I thought it was my mom, which destroyed my life. That she stopped me from being who I was meant to become. I wanted to do so much and see so much. Yes, I love her for being my mom, but why did she have to be my mom. Dad was the only one I wanted, then. After everything fell apart, I just needed to get away from the craziness, so I did, and that is why I am here now. The way I am, with my mom, it is so crazy I know. I never loved life; to me, there was no point in living at all. If I could not love who I wanted to love and be with the one I wanted, it would have been so wrong. It was so wrong! I remember my first school bus ride and I met my two friends that were Lexi Cruosin and Stephanie Colt. Lexi was a mouthy friend she grew up to become a cheerleader in school, and she left me behind.

From that day on I stopped comparing myself to my peers and started to actively take joy in the success of others. Not only has this made me a happier person in my professional life, but also in my personal interactions. Indeed, I have found that rejecting envy helps you appreciate others more, and helps build lasting friendships and relationships. I hope that my friends and family know that I’m their biggest cheerleader and I always will be, thanks to Richard.

I, Cleo Wilder, do take myself, Cleo Wilder, to be my strongest advocate and my most loyal friend, my loudest cheerleader and my most trusted confidante.

But I couldn’t do it alone; my success relied heavily on my crew. Unlike most endurance events, Ultraman is a completely self-supported adventure. From a van that was packed floor to ceiling with spare bicycle parts, tools, food bins, canisters of race nutrition, coolers of ice water, overnight luggage, and enough race apparel to suit all weather conditions, it was up to my crew to not just cheerlead, but monitor my hydration and caloric intake, manage unforeseen obstacles like equipment failure, and navigate the many tricky turns necessary to keep me on course. Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan. But I’d assembled a great team that was captained by my cyclist friend Chris Uettwiller. Also helping out: the Buddha-like L. W. Walman, and my dad, who’d flown in from Washington, D.C., and was thrilled to be handling driving duties.

... but books made good company. My favorites were the Point Horror series, because I desperately wanted to be a teenager. I understood that that was when you really started living and being an American Teenager appeared to come with a certain glamour. When I was a kid it seemed that everything good happened in America. Like cheerleading and yearbooks and proms, Satanism and the Manson family. I pictured myself hanging out at the mall, at the drive-in, at the ice skating rink with friends with names like Stacy & Chuck and one of them would be murdered.

Agency is the motivational aspect of hope. It is often associated with cheerleaders, close friends, or mentors in our lives that spur us on to pursue our goals. Agency is a complex term used to describe your ability to dedicate mental energy (willpower) to begin and sustain the journey toward your goals.

I no longer need to be the center of their attention, I no longer need to be Chelsea Fierce, queen bitch, head cheerleader, and the girl no one liked. I’m now Chelsea Fierce, girlfriend, friend, and soon-to-be mother. I smile to myself, happiness washing over me once again.

Have I told you today why I love you?” Carter takes a step toward me, then another, his smile growing with each inch he eliminates. “I love you because you’re funny and snarky, sarcastic as all hell, and the night we met, you told me to go fuck myself.” He ignores the way Cara shrieks his name. “You’re also kind and soft, sensitive and sweet, the best auntie, and a teacher I would’ve died to have in high school. You’re not just my girlfriend; you’re my biggest cheerleader and my best friend.” He takes my face in his hands, thumbs wiping at the overflowing tears dripping down my cheeks. I don’t even know where they came from. “Why are you crying, Ollie girl? I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.” “I don’t know what’s going on, but you called me your best friend and your girlfriend,” I sob, folding toward his chest as I grip the loosened collar of his shirt. His soft chuckle is warm against my lips as he tips my chin up to kiss me. He takes a step backward, dipping his hand in his pocket, pulling out a small velvet box, and he sinks to one knee. “I’m hoping to call you something else when I’m done doing what I need to do here.

Which was not very smart. Indeed the most giddy of high school cheerleaders, say, managing to be friendly with everyone and therefore universally popular, seemed to Sax to be exercising an intelligence at least as powerful as any awkward brilliant mathematician’s—the calculus of human interaction being so much more subtle and variable than any physics, somewhat like the emerging field of math called cascading recombinant chaos, only less simple. So that there were at least two kinds of intelligence, and probably many more: spatial, aesthetic, moral or ethical, interactional, analytic, synthetic, and so forth. And it was those people who were intelligent in a number of different ways who were truly exceptional, who stood out as something special.

The why is that none of it matters. Not school, not cheerleading, not boyfriends or friends or parties or creative writing programs or…” She waves her arms at the world. “It’s all just time filler until we die.” “Maybe. Maybe not. Whether it’s filler or not, I’m pretty glad to be here.” If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that you need to make the most of it.

Friends are important to your work. Without peers and cheerleaders, we’re doomed to live lives of solitude and limited impact. And writers are generally known to be an introverted bunch. So sometimes, it’s hard to make friends, hard to meet new people.

Genesis shrugged. “Why would it bother me? I’m gay too… well, bisexual I guess. I had a boyfriend for a while, but now I’m dating a girl. She’s a cheerleader at my school. She’s pretty cool.” God nearly had to pick his lip up from the floor. He’s bisexual. How the hell did I miss that? Where the hell was all this coming from and why the hell was Genesis having such an easy conversation with him like they were best friends? “Genesis,

When you become a parent, you become a personal security guard, a counselor, a best friend, a cheerleader and above all you become your child’s voice.

Even what passes as heterosexual intimacy is often resented by straight women who find themselves doing the emotional heavy lifting for men who have no close friends and won’t go to therapy. Men are less likely than women to discuss mental health with friends and family, to seek out psychotherapy, or to recognize they are depressed—a pattern so common as to be termed “normative male alexithymia” by psychologists.51 For straight men in relationships, all of these needs get aimed at women partners. In 2016, the writer Erin Rodgers coined the term “emotional gold digger” to describe straight men’s reliance on women partners to “play best friend, lover, career advisor, stylist, social secretary, emotional cheerleader, mom.”52 Elaborating on this dynamic and the emotional burnout it produces in straight women, Melanie Hamlett further explains that the concept of the emotional gold digger “has gained more traction recently as women, feeling increasingly burdened by unpaid emotional labor, have wised up to the toll of toxic masculinity, which keeps men isolated and incapable of leaning on each other. . . . While [women] read countless self-help books, listen to podcasts, seek out career advisors, turn to female friends for advice and support, or spend a small fortune on therapists to deal with old wounds and current problems, the men in their lives simply rely on them.

My Mom can be so embarrassing. At my basketball game last week, she came to the game dressed as a cheerleader with pom-poms and a sign that said, ‘GO BAKE.’ Clearly, she forgot the letter ‘L’ in my name, and the other team thought that she was telling them to go to the kitchen. Now everyone at school calls me ‘Bake’. Thanks, Mom.  “Your friend Fred is nice,