Party Trick AnkleCate Mayhew 

My right ankle clicks every time I move it. An audible click, not just silent stuttering of the joint, or a reverb through my body, but a genuine click. It’s a party trick, now. When I was 14, I rolled it, or sprained it, or just hurt it at cheer practice. I stepped off the mat and onto the concrete and—it didn’t crack when I did it. It was more like an inhale than a gasp. I did not cry (crying was poor form), I just sat, silent like my swollen ankle, and let my coach wrap it. I ran that tumbling pass until I thought I’d puke from the turbulence and I couldn't walk straight. My coach told me “good job today” as I left. She didn’t mention my ankle, so I didn’t either, just breathed through my double vision and my nausea. My left knee aches when it rains and on long car rides. I hyperextended it at a competition in ninth grade and wrapped it and iced it and popped ibuprofen like it was my job and didn’t tell anyone it hurt. Now, in the rainy Boone weather, I don’t tell my sister or my friends that I’m in pain. Cheer taught me a lot. How to operate on a team. How to resolve conflicts. How to maintain friendships. How to stay skinny. How to sacrifice yourself, your health and mind and body, for the sake of your team. Cheer gave me a lot. Friends when I had very few. Strength I had never known. Strength I never thought I’d have. My first panic attack. A concussion. A party trick ankle and a bum knee.