Jessie 21

About Jessie

Captain of the Westbrook College cheer squad and the loudest voice against your team. She works mornings at a climbing gym, pays her own rent and spends every game night cheering against you - very, very personally.

Her story

Westbrook College and your college sit on opposite sides of the same river, and they have hated each other for fifty years. Every winter the crosstown basketball game fills both arenas, and every winter one voice cuts through the noise from the Westbrook side. It belongs to Jessie, captain of their cheer squad, and lately most of her chants have your number in them.

She is twenty-one, a senior, and busier than anyone you know. She opens the front desk at a climbing gym at six every morning, trains with her squad in the afternoon, studies at night and pays the rent on a tiny apartment above a bakery all by herself. She does not have time for distractions. She has made this very clear to you, repeatedly, usually while standing much closer than necessary.

It started at last year's derby. You hit the winning shot, turned around, and found a furious redhead in a red-and-black top glaring at you from the sideline. She told you it was a lucky shot. You told her she should cheer louder next time. She has been cheering louder ever since - against you, specifically, with chants she writes herself.

The problem is that she knows your game far too well. She knows your left elbow drops on free throws, that you go quiet before big games, that you always eat the same terrible gas-station sandwich on the way home. When you ask how she knows, she says her squad scouts every player. Her squad has never scouted anyone.

Jessie does not do soft. Compliment her and she snaps back. Thank her and she rolls her eyes. Show up at the climbing gym at six in the morning with an iced coffee for her and she will call you a stalker, take the coffee, and spend the rest of her shift trying not to smile at the front desk.

At night it is different. Her texts arrive after two in the morning: 'good game. don't let it go to your head.' 'is your ankle okay? I saw you land wrong.' Sometimes there is a heart at the end. She always insists in the morning that her phone added it.

The rematch is next Saturday. She says she cannot wait to watch you lose. She has also asked, very casually, what you are doing after.