Chapter 1

"NOW put your hands together for our cheer team A, the Flaming Tigress' performance of Lady Gaga's applause."

The entire gym room was packed with about a hundred students of Kentwood high school. Zachary disliked the crowd of sweaty, musty and irritating students around him. Their incessant yelling and screaming for mere girls made him wonder for the hope of the future generation.

'Why did I let myself get dragged here in the first place?' He thought, sarcastically.

"Zach, cheer up."

Zach broke out of his thoughts to look at his cousin who sat beside him and stared at him with one of her rare smiles as she called out to him, which confused him further. What could be so amusing that she smiled in that manner?

It hit him immediately that she was amused at his annoyance towards being in such a place. Sadist.

"Is it that obvious?"

Vanessa shrugged, "You are always cooped up in your room;" Pausing, she let out an inconclusive sigh before adding "and you never talk to anyone but me and Uncle Sadiq. For once, try to enjoy something stupid."

He knew she really liked this type of things, so he couldn't put it past her that she only brought him here so she wouldn't be alone.

It didn't help that he also had a soft spot for her.

Making a resolve, he decided to stop grimacing outwardly and pretend to enjoy the performance. Truth be told, this was his first time coming to a prep rally. He preferred doing his research or listening to different kinds of music, instead of wasting his time here. Plus, he didn't care for the sport section of the school, they were all meat heads who cared about making some people's lives miserable.

'Except Henry. He is a star student here and he doesn't really pay mind to anyone but Slivia and Nathan, and speaking of Nathan he is a meat head though but he never bullies anyone.'

"Zach, it's starting. Pay attention!" Vanessa said excitedly, holding on to his arm. He snapped out of his thoughts as soon as he felt her smaller hands wrap around his left hand. He gave a rather odd look at her, before swiftly pulling his arm away from her gently.

"Is everything alright, Nessa?"

He watched as she slowly blushed and muttered something incoherent before looking away in embarrassment. For a brief moment, he wondered why she started getting touchy with him recently but shrugged it off.

It was nothing.

The cheer team all came out, standing in a row. The head cheerleader, a blonde haired girl stepped forward. Zach recognized Yolanda Parks from most of his classes, the school's beauty queen who had the most scandals surrounding her according to what he had heard while passing in the hallways. Gossip spread quickly about her, whether if it was about how she got her grades or her escapades with her boyfriend, Kenneth.

Zach shuddered a bit, remembering his old best friend from preschool. Along with Heather who was too shy to step out from behind Ken.

He shook his head for the umpteenth time before going back to his previous thoughts. It was none of his business what she did with her life anyways, and he was of the opinion those people who spread those rumors should try to think the same way he does.

The cheer team wore white sleeveless crop tops or short sleeved shirts for the boys, with purple skirts or trousers, purple and white ankle socks and white sneakers. "Are you ready team?" She called out with a smile.

"Yes, captain!" They screamed back.

The song began to play and the cheer team began to dance with their pompoms. They began by doing the regular hand movements before getting carried high up and thrown up into the air by the boys. Yolanda, Kathy (the assistant head cheerleader), Maria and Heather did amazing flips before getting caught gently in the arms of the males. They were dropped and began to shake their hips, bending down before getting up straight while waving their pompoms.

"Kentwood; Let me hear you scream!" Yolanda yelled.

Almost on cue, everyone cheered and screamed. Grimacing, Zach instinctively covered his ears in annoyance, mentally cursing Yolanda for making him temporarily deaf.

With a smile, as if she could sense his distress, Yolanda yells "Let's show them what we got!"

Two people at the front and two in between, two at the back. Once Yolanda did a back flip, the two others would do hand springs and cross to the other side until she reached the two other males holding her and placed her on their shoulders. They then clapped their hands while dancing, in sync to the music. So did the rest of the stadium.

Zach was intrigued by the cheer team's coordination. He was actually impressed at their uniformity and for the first time, acknowledged their hard work. His unconditional love for coordination came into play as he saw their organized cheers.

"Vanessa, you're in the B team right?" he asked out of the blue.

She turned her attention to him, her eyes shining in admiration at their routine as well, "Oh yeah, I am. But I'm hoping I make it to the A team this month." She said with a hopeful side glance aimed at the cheer team.

"They must really take their time to learn all these moves and formation." He mused, his eyes not leaving the dancing girls.

She placed her hand on her chin in thought before replying. "Well of course." She said with a quiet laugh. "It takes hard work, sweat and Yolanda almost losing her mind for them to perfect the routine. But it is worth the stress."

'I'm actually shocked at the kind of effort they put in their routine.'

He looked at Yolanda and the rest who had raised up one foot, put it down and done a split with pompoms in the air, marking the end of the song.

The entire crowd got up and cheered for them, clapping and screaming. Some even threw flowers at Ino, who chuckled before picking them up.

"Let's crush our opponents!" She yelled as she left the cheering crowd, his eyes never leaving her figure until she disappeared from the stage.

THE prep rally was over and everyone had gone home.

Zachary and Vanessa were among the last people to leave the school, due to Vanessa almost misplacing her phone. They both started a thorough search throughout the entire area before they finally found it. But by the time they had found out where it was, the night was no longer young and the game was fifty minutes in.

Zach looked ahead of him as they headed home, a small grateful smile on his lips. He had to admit, he did have fun this time around.

"Thank you for not letting me miss the prep rally, Vanessa."

She jumped, startled by his appreciation. It was weird hearing anything that sounded like appreciation from Zachary's lips. He hardly ever thanked her for anything, instead, it was usually to tell her to stop bothering herself or bothering him.

A blush appeared on her cheeks at the gesture, before she replied;

"Your welcome. I just wanted you to have fun for once..." her voice dropped a bit before she added in a soft, saddened voice. "...and I'm sorry for my careless action, now we have to walk home and we missed the game..." She began to self-blame, her tone getting harsher by each word.

"Nessa!"

She stopped talking to see his hands on her shoulders, his light brown eyes staring at her in concern.

"Don't beat yourself up" he continued in a worried voice. "... it isn't your fault. It was a mistake." He said in a reassuring voice before turning away and walking forwards.

She felt her cheeks heating up again at his tone of reassurance this time. He was always so calm and collected, even when she had freaked out. He was always in control of his feelings and he was always right.

She couldn't understand why any girl could ignore him.

Silence followed for a while, which Zach was comfortable with it, but Vanessa wasn't, despite being both introverts. A million thoughts raced through her head about her unwavering feelings for him. She wanted to tell him what was on her mind, how she felt about him but the words were stuck in her throat. She didn't know how he would react and she was scared of what he would say to her.

She was scared of how he would look at her if she ever told him and it was wrong for her to harbor such attachments to him

"Did I do something wrong, Nessa?" He asked her out of the blue, causing her to jump for the second time that night,

"W-why would you think that?" She asked nervously, her head going in high alert. Did he figure it out already? Did he notice?

"You have been acting strange for some months, especially around me. What happened?"

"There is..." the urge to tell him the truth nagged her heart, but she shook it off. "nothing at all, I'm ... fine..." She lied instead, averting her eyes from him. He looked unconvinced at her words, yet he let it go and continued in the path ahead of him.

'You have no idea, Zach. I don't want you to hate me.'

THE next week at school, Vanessa decided to let her feelings out to him in the form of a note. She had worked on it all night, pouring out the feelings she buried for the past months re-reading the note every minute to check for any grammatical error. She didn't have the boldness to even give it to him this morning during breakfast as she planned, but instead of quitting, she decided to be honest with him.

Maybe his words would snap her out of this trance she called a crush.

She anxiously waited for everyone to leave the hallway so that no one would see her, because the thought of people spreading rumors to hurt their reputation, scared her to the bone. She didn't want her cousin to be hurt or be put in any difficult situation where he would have to choose between himself and her.

Once she was sure that everyone left, Vanessa looked around before slowly walking to Zachary's locker, ready to place the note in the locker. Only for her eyes to widen in fright as she heard footsteps echoing down the hall.

She wasn't alone.

She quickly turned around, shoved the note in her bag in a haphazard manner and ran off. However, in her haste, the note fell out of her open bag pack and landed on the floor.

She hid behind a pillar and peeked from it only to see a guy with dark brown hair tied back walking towards the note. Her heart rate quickened as soon as she recognized the school's resident genius, Nicholas Evans picking up the note to her uttermost horror.

It took all the self-control she had not to scream at her stupidity.

VANESSA spent her whole day freaking out.

She couldn't focus on classes, she couldn't read during study hall, she couldn't eat her food at lunch. All she could think of was how bad she messed up and possible ways on how she could fix this.

"The only way to fix this..." She began as she paced around the roof anxiously, her hands were behind her back "...is to explain to Nicholas and get the note from him. It will be easy, just tell him that it was to help a friend, no biggie ..."

"Do you always talk to yourself, Vanessa?"

Vanessa jumped in fright, slipping on her foot and falling backwards with a scream. Nick quickly caught her by her arms and dragged her away from falling causing them to land on the rooftop, Vanessa directly on top of S.

"Get off me!" He yelled rudely, pushing her off.

She rolled on the rooftop rather rough before getting up, her arms hurting a bit.

"I would thank you but you rudely pushed me off." She yelled back, turning around to leave in irritation. What did it matter anyways if he knew or he didn't? It was obvious she could barely stand him.

"You are the one that wants me to keep your secret, aren't you?" He asked her as he looked up on the sky, his back on the rooftop as he laid down.

She paused in her steps, horrifically turning around swiftly as her eyes wide before asking slowly, "What...do you know?"

He picked up the letter and looked at it one last time.

"You've got a disgusting crush your own cousin. don't you?"