"I don't think it was malicious," Jaimie insists over dinner. The tasting menu is delicious, but the conversation between courses is infuriating. "I know you're angry about it – and I get where you're coming from – but she seemed like she meant what she said, from what you've told me." I thought my sister was going to agree with me. I was wrong.

"Why would she do that?" Alexia could not care less about my personal well-being. Surely.

"She understands what it's like? She also deals with pressure. They literally call her 'La Reina'. The Queen. You're refusing to believe she did you a favour, even if you don't perceive it to be that way."

"So you're saying that she did the right thing?" I challenge, my eyes narrowing as I stare at her somewhat incredulously. She's supposed to be on my side.

"No," Jaimie replies, growing bored of the conversation as though it is not something important. "I'm saying that she thinks she did what was best for you, regardless of whether it was or wasn't. Her intentions weren't to 'destroy your career', as you have so dramatically put it. Even if she has caused a bit of attention for you, it's not going to be that big of a problem. People are understanding."

"I don't want them to be understanding," I grit out through a clenched jaw.

The waiter brings the next dish out, and Jaimie and I pause our increasingly heated conversation to listen to him explain what the lobster on our plates signifies in the gastronomical journey we have embarked on. For €184 each. Jaimie is paying.

When he leaves, Jaimie picks up her fork and prods the food on her plate, frowning. "I wish you would let yourself see what she means. You can be stubborn as you want about it, but Alexia is right. There is a lot of pressure on you, and it isn't healthy to ignore it. Yes, she may have caused a stir, but she's human and she makes mistakes. And, for what it's worth, I think she actually cares about you. Past the benefit of the team."

I sit back in my chair, averting my eyes from hers so that she doesn't see the confusion in them. "Stop humanising her." Though I know it is impossible for Jaimie to hear my panic, it feels like she has finally unravelled a tightly wound coil that I had never intended to acknowledge.

━━━━━━━

In therapy the next day, we make a list of differences between here and Chelsea. The psychologist, Emma, is growing on me. She is good at her job. She gets to the point, and she lets me avoid certain topics as much as I want until I cave and divulge into them.

Which, despite being an irritating skill for her to possess, gives me a lot more control of what we talk about.

Staring at the list of comparisons, I realise that I have plonked myself in a totally different situation during a difficult time. "This makes sense," I say with a tired chuckle, setting the pencil on the grass of the field we have sat down in. We don't use her office. I still can't talk in there.

"Do you feel isolated here?" she asks me, referencing the last point I have written down.

I shrug. "At times." They speak a language I can't speak, and they have an atmosphere that holds no similarity to any other team I have been a part of. Plus, the general way of life in Spain is unique enough to rattle my daily routine. Jaimie and I have started eating an hour later than usual. "When I first arrived, the team felt like it was divided between Alexia and me."

"And now?"

"The same, but not as obviously." She still has the undying faith of the younger girls, and I remain the favoured company of Ingrid, Frido, and Caro. But, with Jaimie here, it is easy to slip out of team dinners with a valid excuse. "I don't want to get close to anyone here."

"Why?" I walked right into that one.

"Because..." I squint as the sun shines in my eyes, trying to think of another reason that is less pathetic than the truth. "I don't know," I sigh, defeated.

It's clear that I am lying, so Emma tries once more to push for the answer, but I withhold it from her. "Okay," she concedes. "What about Alexia? Do you think the nature of your relationship might make it harder for you to connect with your teammates?"

"Maybe. She is a thorn in my side."

And, unfortunately for me, there is another fifteen minutes left of our session, and we are continuing to walk. Emma is at liberty to pick apart my statement, one that she is interested to find I can back with a list of irritating things Alexia has done to make me not like her. My immediate uneasiness as the topic dives deeper into the stressed bond between us only seems to intrigue her further. Prior to starting our sessions, she had been made aware of the tension. This is the first time we are talking about it.

The vague details become slightly less blurry until Emma touches upon the game last night. I avoided the topic when she asked me about it earlier, but now she is coming at it from a different angle. An angle that still angers me to think about.

The dam bursts.

Once again, I have to instruct somebody not to take her side. It makes it hard to keep standing on my own hill. "I agree with Jaimie," Emma replies when I snap, which catches me off guard.

I had expected her to defend the captain like everyone always seems to do.

"Your sister makes a valid point. It isn't healthy to ignore the pressure put on you by the media to perform well in a very complicated circumstance. I know you don't like to think of yourself this way, but, Fleur, the manner in which Scarlett died was a traumatic event in your life. The match yesterday was very big without the context of the location and teams, but your personal investment in it was exploited as a way to gain more views." I had heard about it, but it's easy to ignore the outside world when I'm getting myself ready to play. The aftermath, however, is a different story. "It is not right, and it shouldn't have happened, but it did. No one would blame you if you had wanted to come off."

"But I didn't want to," I tell her honestly. "Alexia wanted me to." Alexia said that she could see something I am adamant does not exist, but she also told me she could feel it too. "Emma, I think it's unfair what has been made of a simple semi-final, and I know that people were also just watching it for the drama. But football is entertainment, and we are made out to be gladiators battling for the favour of the crowd. It is part of my job to feel like this, isn't it? Pressure is a privilege, right?"

"If you truly believe that, why are you asking me?" Her expertise is exactly why she has been hired. She checks her watch, offering me a satisfied smile. "This is good, Fleur. I want you to challenge your own thought process. Have fun at the party, and why don't we pick this up again on the third? I will send you a confirmation email later on." I can see my car in the distance.

"You think I should go to the party?" I question, not yet convinced. Yesterday was also Scarlett's birthday. To add to my unluckiness. On the 30th, Keira and I are flying to London after our match against Sporting Huelva. If we win, we will win the league, but the mid-afternoon kick-off means that we have time to celebrate, get on a plane, and go to Scarlett's birthday party. They want to keep up the tradition. It will mark a year since Jaimie and Leah met, too. Getting out of going is proving to be quite difficult.

"Yes, I do. Please enjoy yourself, Fleur."

━━━━━━━

The bar is heaving. It has been rented out just for the party, but it feels like Keira, Jaimie, Leah, and I have just walked into a busy club. The stickiness of the floor and the music I recognise all too well bring back pleasant memories, and I allow myself to get lost in them for a moment, following Jaimie as we walk further inside.

Today, I proudly watched Talia make her starting debut for Barcelona from the bench. She scored a goal, assisted by Pina, and then joined me in the technical area at half-time. Jonatan used the match as a way to give minutes to different members of the squad. Talia thinks I didn't notice her focus on a certain midfielder, but she is incredibly unsubtle.

We lifted the trophy and celebrated winning the league as though it wasn't obvious we would from the start of the season, and then Keira and I left them to it.

I wish I were still in Spain. London doesn't feel like home anymore.

"Are you going to be okay?" Jaimie asks, shouting over the music as she pushes Leah's hand off her waist. "Leah wants to introduce me to someone." I lean against the wall, covering the face of some model plastered on a poster that has been wallpapered on as decoration. "I'm taking your silence as a yes!" Jaimie promised not to leave my side, but that has lasted all of five minutes.

Great. This is going to be fun.

I just knocked my old team out of the running for the biggest achievement in European domestic football, and now I have to socialise with them as if nothing ever happened. As if Scarlett hadn't died. As if I hadn't run away to Spain.

"Toots!" A drunk Sam Kerr slings an arm around my shoulders and drags me into the circle of Chelsea players she is standing in. "Congratulations, darls. You could've won the WSL with us, but hey ho." I wave at my ex-teammates and their significant others. And Erin! Who kisses my cheek.

"You're not even top of the league, Sam," Hayley Raso retorts, quick to humble her. I know her decently well, and she probably has come with one of the City players who played with Scarlett when she was there. Upon further inspection of the attendees, I realise that a lot of the WSL have come. It's like one massive event. It would have been strange if I had been absent. More so than not attending her funeral. "Hi, Fleur. It's been ages."

She gives me a friendly hug. I notice the woman standing beside her. Leila breaks out into a grin.

"Hola, Fleur." Hayley and Sam exchange a glance, but I am too focused on Leila to care. "Enhorabuena."

"Gracias," I reply, proud to know what that means in Spanish. I am getting quite good at it. María is set on having me fluent by the end of the year. "¿Qué tal?"

We drift from the group, making our way over to the bar, still engaged in small talk. "What would you like to drink?" Leila asks, lips grazing my ear lobe as she leans close so I can hear her.

"Vodka soda," I tell the bartender, who nods with a smirk but says nothing about the way Leila's hand snakes around my waist as we wait. Maybe the party won't be that bad.

━━━━━━━

I was wrong.

And incorrectly hopeful.

Leila's affection decreases as soon as we find a seat. She declares she wants to keep me company when I tell her I am too tired to dance. She says I look beautiful and that I played well.

But I am somehow misguided in believing I know her intentions.

Because, while I had believed that I could possibly be spending the night at Leila's hotel and not Leah's house, I am incredibly mistaken.

The Spanish defender starts out flirtatiously, sure, and is even blushing when I reciprocate, but she soon moves onto the worst topic of conversation I could have conceived: Alexia Putellas.

It's like she's being paid to talk her up. Even when I try my best to turn Leila's opinion of her around.

Each one of my negative statements is met by some saint-like feat of hers, and I want to curl up into a ball and roll into oncoming traffic. Leila was supposed to be my saving grace, and instead I think I'd rather go watch Jaimie and Leah make out in the bathroom like everyone knows they're doing.

Only once does Leila pause her preaching, and that is when I get briefly forced to dance with Erin. She checks her phone, reading it as though there is a list of things for her to cover about Alexia, and then has a whole new story of her ex-teammate's greatness prepared for when I sit back down.

I only suffer through it because the thought of talking to anyone else is repulsive.

I wonder if Leila has been dared to do this by someone, as some cruel, torturous joke.

She bores me to the point of near-suicide, when I lean too far back on the bar stool and almost hit the floor. And, when the bar starts to clear out, and Keira calls me over because our taxi has arrived, I am certain that I am going to steer clear of all Spanish footballers for a while in case they attempt put me through another Alexia Putellas cult initiation.

"I thought you were going to sleep with her," Jaimie whispers drunkenly to me in the taxi, sprawled over Leah and me. Thankfully, she speaks in Dutch. "You didn't even kiss. Have you lost your game?"

Have I?

Was Leila just being strange?

Or, worse, had someone put her up to it?  

notes: 

the restaurant jaimie and fleur go to is called alkimia and the food is apparently really good (but i def cannot afford it so ur not going to get a review anytime soon lol)

i'm also starting a side hustle of woso one shots on tumblr, so if i'm not posting this i;m probably posting those!

AND ENGLAND THROUGH TO SEMIS WOOOOHHHHOOO 

thanks for reading babes xx