This choice: Cut Michelle from the squad • Go Back...Chapter #15Cracks in the Squad by: Seuzz   "We're sick of Michelle and her shit," Jessica-you snarls the next morning. The exclamation catches Yumi Saito right as she's climbing into the minivan, and she pauses with one foot in and one foot out, and a look of astonishment on her face.
"What?" she says.
"Michelle. We're sick of her shit."
"What are you—"
"Come on, Yumi," Marc-you honks from the driver's seat. "In or out. Wasn't my idea to pick you up anyway," he mutters, though only Eva-you, in the seat beside him, can hear.
Lin-you helps Yumi all the way in, and Jessica-you leans over to slide the door shut. Marc-you rockets away into the street; Eva-you grabs onto the shoulder strap for dear life.
Five names to go with five bodies. But there are only two people in the minivan: Yumi and you. Lin-you, who texted Yumi to say that she'd be getting a ride with "friends" this morning, leans over with a sly smile to present her with a blueberry Danish. The frosting gleams succulently.
"Is that what this ambush is about?" Yumi asks. She takes the Danish but only wrinkles her nose at it. "Michelle who? Our Michelle?"
"I wouldn't call her 'our Michelle'," Lin-you says, while Eva-you says, "Michelle Estrich" and Jessica-you says, "Ambush?" Marc-you concentrates on the road.
"What about Michelle? What shit?"
"She's taking up space on the squad."
"So? She's not bad."
"She's taking up space," Jessica-you insists. "She's helping to prop up Chelsea."
"I don't get the impression they like each other," Yumi says. She picks at the Danish with her fingertips.
"It doesn't have anything to do with liking," Lin-you says. You tuck a long strand of dark hair behind an ear and lean back in the seat. Lin is a healthy, busty girl with bowl-like hips and strong thighs, who effortlessly takes up more space than her actual volume would suggest. You surfaced early this morning inside her mind, drenched with humid desires, and satisfied yourself with grasping fingers while your other bodies sweated in sympathy. "As long as she's there, we don't have a chance of voting Chelsea out."
"Michelle's not going to vote for Chelsea."
"What makes you so sure? I think Michelle would vote for her 'cause she doesn't want to see the boat rocked."
"Well, even then—"
Marc-you interrupts: "What do you termagants have against Michelle?" (It pleases you to use a word that he was pleased to learn for a vocabulary quiz.)
"Shut up, Marc."
"No, I'm serious! She seems nice."
"Nobody likes her, Marc. She hasn't got any friends."
"Why not?"
It's a question you have no answer to, and Yumi doesn't volunteer an answer either. All you and your bodies know is that Michelle Estrich is new to both school and to Saratoga Falls; that she first showed up for the cheerleader tryouts and scored a spot thanks to shenanigans pulled by Chelsea Cooper; and that she is anti-social, and appears to have no friends at all at the school (or at least in the senior class). None of that seems to be a reason to hate her. It seems, though, that everyone hates her simply because everyone else seems to.
You could rehabilitate her, but it seems easier to force her off the squad and replace her with someone who would need the work.
So your four-girl collective tries to impress upon Yumi the advantages of pressuring her into quitting on her own. It would make the squad look unstable, which would weaken Chelsea; it would open up a slot for someone who could be more reliably anti-Chelsea; and while the squad was reduced in strength to only nine, there could be a chance to peel off one of Chelsea's friends' votes in a no-confidence motion.
Yumi is skeptical, and this early-morning "ambush" seems to put her in a bad mood. When she finally asks how you're going to "force" Michelle into quitting, and you reply that you all will "talk to her," she snorts that that sounds like the sort of thing that "Chelsea would say."
Maybe it puts her off her appetite, too. For though she fiddles with the Danish all during the drive, she never takes a bite from it. When Marc parks the minivan in the student parking lot, she thrusts it back on Lin-you.
* * * * *
"Hey girl," Kendra-you coos as you sidle up to Michelle Estrich during the break after second period. She gives you a quick, blank look, then goes back to changing out her books. "You were good out there on the floor this morning."
"Thanks."
"What lunch you got?"
"Fourth."
"Me too. Come take it with me?"
She gives you another glance, this one a little less blank so that the loathing shows behind her eyes. "You mean with the other girls?"
"No. Just you and me."
She stiffens. "What about?"
"Nothing," Kendra-you sing-songs back. "Well, a little bit of business. Friendly like."
Michelle hesitates, then says, "Where do you want to meet?"
"Out by the theater? We can watch the guys going in and out of the gym," you add in a titter.
She nods, and Kendra-you squeezes her arm. "Lookin' forward to it. Later." With swinging hips you slip back into the stream of students, and let a biting smile creep onto your face.
Hannah Westrick looms up, and Kendra-you flinches.
But it's Marc-you she's looking in the face. He wraps a strong hand around the back of her neck and pulls her in for a deep kiss.
* * * * *
"So what the fuck is going on?"
Cindy Vredenburg is standing on the porch and leaning against the doorframe as she asks the question, and Eva-you does a double-take down at her phone as she asks it, for she was just texting with Cindy when the bell rang. "Uh," she says.
Cindy pushes past into the house. "Is Jessica here? I assume so. Anyone else?"
"Hey, Cinders," Marc-you says. He's munching on a sandwich as he saunters in from the kitchen. "Seth with you?"
"No, he dropped me off. What about Lin? Yumi?" she demands of Eva-you.
"It's just us, Cindy. What are you yelling about?"
"I told you. Michelle. She quit the squad after school."
"But why are you yell—?"
"No shit?" Marc-you mumbles around a mouthful of peanut butter. "What's the story?"
"The story," Cindy says, rounding on him with a glare, "is that people were going around school saying that she was gonna get cut from the squad. That you and Jessica and Lin and Yumi were—"
"We weren't saying anything!" you protest.
"What's going on?" Jessica-you shouts from the stairs.
"Cinders is having a conniption!" Marc-you shouts back. She kicks at him.
"I swear, Cindy, none of us were— Why would we? And we'd talk about it with you first!"
"Is this about Michelle quitting the squad?" Jessica-you asks as she piles into the room. "It just hit Snapchat," she adds, waggling her phone.
Cindy says, "Yumi told me—" and inwardly you groan. Tipping your plan to Yumi without first digesting her was a mistake; obviously she's told Cindy that you were going to try forcing her from the squad.
"Look, can we take this upstairs?" Eva-you asks. "Mom and Dad aren't home, but—"
"Are you going to tell me that Yumi was lying?"
Your three Garners exchange glances. Marc-you snorts and turns back into the kitchen; the girls tuck their arms and tug at Cindy. "Let's just talk, okay?" Jessica-you urges.
The full story—delivered in terse, misspelt fragments over text—comes out upstairs. After school, Michelle came into the gym to tell Chelsea that she was resigning from the squad immediately, giving as her reason that she had heard that Chelsea was planning to cut her anyway. Chelsea, surprised, had protested that she'd had no such plans; Michelle retorted that the rumors were already spreading around the school and had gotten back to her.
Of course, you knew this already, for Kendra-you was sitting there the whole time, and heard it all. She also got to hear as Chelsea summoned Cindy from across the gym to demand if Cindy had been spreading such rumors, which Cindy hotly denied.
Kendra-you didn't say anything, naturally; and you're glad that Michelle didn't either, for it was Kendra-you at lunch who told Michelle that Cindy's friends were telling people that Chelsea was going to force Michelle off the squad.
So Cindy's news isn't a surprise; but it is a surprise that Michelle folded so quickly. It's another unpleasant surprise to hear that Yumi confessed to Cindy that there was a scheme afoot against Michelle, one being undertaken without Cindy's knowledge or approval.
So you're left stammering out a lot of ineffective excuses—"We were just talking about it" and "We were going to talk to you about it" and "Maybe it was Chelsea who started the rumors"—that even you quickly tire of. Cindy looks round with a pinched expression when Marc-you slams the girls' bedroom door open, and she gasps as he lunges at her with an open palm and slaps something blue and gooey at her mouth. She thrashes, but Marc-you is tall, broad-shouldered, and very strong, and you have no problem hurling her onto the bed and pinning her there until the goo has sunk into her.
"We'll have to keep her here tonight," Eva-you mutters as your trio stares down at Cindy as you twist your will into her body, like a corkscrew into a wine bottle. "At least until we get her memories. We can't let her loose after—"
"Shut up, Eva," Marc-you growls. "I know exactly what we can do with her. At least until Mom and Dad get home." He yanks his jeans open and lets his cock flop out.
The better question at the moment is: Do you end all the feuding now by possessing Chelsea as soon as you can?  | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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