It sounds worse than it actually was. I was nine years old and bored to tears when my parents were away on vacation. Our nanny was with me, but she was pre-occupied by a book and was content to let me play on my own. I thought it would be really fun to play with a frayed phone charger.
In that split second that I was shocked by that exposed wire, my entire body buzzed. It was the wildest sensation, like every nerve had been exposed and touched all at once, like all my muscles were locked up in that split second. It hurt, yes, but it also felt… oddly satisfying. It was like that feeling when you lick a battery — you know it’s not great for you but something about it feels fun.
I thought I’d never feel that again.
But here I was, on the field for my first Seattle Seahawks game, and the buzz was back in full force.
The moment the music hit, it surged through me like I had toyed with that wire again.
Sixty-eight-thousand people roared around us — a living, breathing wall of sound that rattled the air in my lungs. The stadium lights blazed down from above, so bright it almost felt like standing inside the sun, and everywhere I looked there were flashes of neon green and navy, the iconic twelve flags waving like thunderclouds around the bowl of the stadium.
The twelves.
I’d heard about them my whole life. Everyone had. But hearing them through the television speakers in your living room was nothing like this. The announcers and players always said how loud it was, but until you were in it, you just couldn’t understand.
Out here, in the middle of it, their energy crashed over me like a tidal wave.
Marcus was to my left and behind me one row. Our eyes caught for a brief moment, both of us already panting before we’d even started dancing. His smile was so wide it stretched his whole face, and I knew mine mirrored it.
My gaze slid to Darcy next, who was to my right, her blonde hair tumbling down in gorgeous platinum waves as she waved her pompoms together and smiled brilliantly up at the crowd. She glanced over at me, scrunching her nose with an excited shuffle of her feet.
Marcus winked at both of us right before the music started, and we all silently said our mantra.
Let’s kill this shit.
My pulse synced with the bass of the music as we snapped into the first move of the routine, and suddenly every nerve ending in my body was alive.
Every turn of my head, every flick of my hair, every sharp pop of my hips sent electricity shooting down my spine. The field lights reflected off the sequins of our uniforms like sparks flyingoff a live wire, and the cheers rose higher every time we hit a formation change.
This.
This was why we auditioned.
This was why hundreds of us lined up every year hoping for a chance.
Because for these few minutes on the field, you weren’t just a dancer, you weren’t just part of the game.
You were the whole damn show.
We weren’t an accessory to this sport — we were its heartbeat right along with the fans.
And God, I loved it.
I loved the way the crowd responded to us. I craved the way the lights made everything feel bigger than life. I was enamored by the way the attention wrapped around me like heat, like I could soak it in through my skin and store it somewhere deep in my bones.
For the first time in a long time, I felt… useful.
Alive.
Like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
But even as the music carried us through the routine and the roar of the twelves vibrated through the soles of my boots, there was a quiet flicker beneath the electricity.
A strange, hollow space under all the noise.
It was like the circuit had been completed — the current rushing through me, lighting everything up — but somewhere deep in the wiring, one tiny connection was still missing.
And until I figured out what it was… the buzz would never quite feel whole.
