January 2023. 

Boxes sit on top of one another in my flat, forming new walls and rooms. Some of these will go back to Scarlett's family in Birmingham, where they will sort through her things and mourn the loss of her in a way that makes sense for those who loved her to do. The boxes that her parents told me, as her girlfriend, to keep are the ones full of her clothes, her things from her adulthood. Sam and Erin are taking me to the airport. We're dropping them off at a storage facility along the way.

They come inside to help me bring them downstairs, saying nothing apart from a confirmation that the boxes going to Birmingham will be at Sam's place until Scarlett's parents drive down to collect them. We go back and forth a few times until the place is emptied. I sold the furniture I'm not taking with me a week ago, and the rest is on its way already. All that remains of this once loved, once shared, and once lived in flat, are the scuff marks on the floor from when we first moved in. If they want to know whether I'm okay, they don't ask.

The car journey to the storage place is quiet. It's been three weeks since she died, but everyone is still in shock. Fair enough. The players on the pitch and the crowd at Camp Nou and the viewers safe at home pretty much saw her die. (I watched her die, but we can unpack that later.)

That night, I got to the hospital before the game had ended. The doctor called time of death at the 75th minute of the match. I notified Emma Hayes just after the 76th. The team found out as soon as the match had ended, forgoing shaking hands with the Barcelona players in order to huddle while Emma broke the news to them. Magda, unfortunately, was being interviewed, so she only caught sight of her manager's face. The clip of her rushing over to her teammates was everywhere the next day.

Sam tries to act normally in front of me, but every time she closes her eyes, she sees Scarlett's body sprawled out on the pitch. Erin tightens her grip on the steering wheel whenever she hears the boxes in the boot thud against the rear window of her car.

"What's even in these boxes?" I have been waiting for one of them to ask. I didn't label them. What are you supposed to do with your dead ex-girlfriend's things?

"Just stuff I can't get rid of," I say easily. I practised that lie in the mirror this morning. "I'm trying to declutter." The conversation ends there. Erin turns on the radio, avoiding anything with the news on just in case they bring her up.

We repeat the to-ing and fro-ing once more at the storage centre. The boxes stack neatly around the room, forming skyscrapers of stuff I will never look at again. Erin and Sam sigh once we are finished, Sam rubbing her hands together as though she has done some hard labour. I roll my eyes at the glimpse of humour, shutting the metal door with a crash, and locking it with a sense of finality.

Goodbye, old life.

Erin wraps an arm around my shoulders, a difficult task seeing as I am fourteen centimetres taller than her. I crouch unnecessarily low, eliciting a laugh from Sam and a grumble from Erin. "Okay," I tell them both, "that's done. Airport time."

"Your flight leaves at half five, right?" Sam asks distantly. I'm sure they understand my need to get away from this situation. If not now, then they will eventually. Once they find out everything. "Do you not want to get something to eat quickly?" She's going to miss me, I can tell. This may be the time when she needs her best friend, but the transfer has been finalised and I don't want to be in London anymore. I don't want to be at Chelsea anymore.

"I'll eat at the airport," comes my short declination. She shrugs and gets into the car, as do I. Erin starts driving and all of us mentally distance ourselves as far as possible. No one talks for this leg of the car journey either.

I pay for Erin's short-stay parking, after she insists she and Sam take me all the way to check-in. There is no queue at the desk for passengers flying Business Class, but we wait in the Economy queue after a silent agreement to prolong this interaction for as long as possible. Being in the airport makes everything, for the most fleeting of moments, feel sharp again. Like I am actually living life, not just letting time pass.

My suitcase is gone now, and Sam and Erin can no longer stay. They look at me hesitantly. I laugh, despite the tears rolling down my cheeks.

Erin is the first to speak. "I will miss being your teammate. You are something else, and you haven't stopped annoying me since you came from Lyon in 2017." She is crying too, though these tears are different from the ones shed by our team of late. "I know you've been told this repeatedly for the last three weeks, but if you ever need someone to talk to when you're tanning in Barcelona, I'm here. Through the phone. Or maybe we'll visit you on holiday–"

"You're definitely visiting me," I interrupt. It's only Spain, it could be further away.

"Aye, we will." I nod for her to go on. "I'm gonna mourn you as well," she jokes, though it might be partly true. Of course my two closest friends on the team know that I'm not aiming to keep in touch. At least, not until the initial grief subsides.

"Me too," Sam mumbles, eyes red. "I'm gonna miss you so fucking much, Toots. I know it's for the best, I get it. I just... I fucking love you, dude. And you're leaving and she's left us too." Her voice cracks and I wrap my arms around her, squeezing her tightly. She shakes in my hold for a moment, face buried in my shoulder, before sniffling and pulling away. "Chels will be weird without you both." I wipe my wet cheeks with the heels of my hands. "Call us if you need anything, yeah? And think about playing for the Matildas so we can see each other again, because we're going to kick your Dutch arse in the World Cup anyway."

Erin adds, "and we'll beat your Barcelona bottom in the Champions League, just like we did last time." All three of us choose to forget that the last time we beat Barcelona was the day Scarlett died, in favour of finding Erin's joke mildly funny.

"I'm not sure about that..." I tease her, shaking my head. They glare, holding it for as long as they can until their eyes soften and fill with another wave of tears. "I think I should probably get in line for security." I gesture to the increasingly long queue. They nod, forcing smiles.

Erin surges forward before I can leave just yet, hugging me for what I presume is going to be the last time in a while. After a moment, Sam joins in. We stay like that for a bit, until breaking out into giggles, feeling silly for having such a dramatic goodbye. Us three are not necessarily the most serious people ever.

We part and I walk away, not looking back. Someone once told me to never look back. I can feel Erin and Sam watching me as I join the queue, and I know that they leave once they can no longer pinpoint me in the crowd. I force my eyes to stay trained on the person in front of me. I'm not going to look back.

When I signed to Chelsea five years ago, I was in a bad state. I had been playing at Lyon and my two year contract ended, but neither them nor me wished to draft another one. My second year there had been terrible: I played very little, and resented the others for their success. I arrived in London feeling sorry for myself, but ended up flourishing. I mean, playing in England was something I wanted to tick off the list, but Chelsea became more than that to me.

I had been at the club a year when Scarlett arrived. We had heard about a new forward signing from Manchester City, a young English girl – at the time we had so many Lionesses who had first-hand information on it. Obviously, I knew who Scarlett was after playing a season in the Women's Super League, but she came and we seemed to really hit it off.

Scarlett and I didn't try to hide our relationship. We were both out and had publicly dated people previously; her being with someone at Man City, and me with a girl I'd played through the Ajax Youth Academy alongside. At the World Cup, when the Netherlands lost to the USA in the final, she wiped my tears as I leant over the barrier, kissing me without caring about articles and the like. No one was focused on us, and they didn't need to be.

The Chelsea girls knew from the beginning, but we never really talked about the inner workings of our relationship with the team. We agreed to keep it safe from work, from the professional environment. If we wanted to rant about each other, we knew telling our teammates wouldn't be fair. Scarlett was really close with some of the Arsenal girls, having played with them at England her whole youth career, and if she wanted someone further away from London, she had Georgia and Keira up in Manchester. For me, I could talk to Daan and Viv, who play with me on the national team, or my sister or friends from Australia. No one at Chelsea really knew about the fighting, or the impending explosion.

We broke up the morning before the Barcelona match.

The previous evening was filled with shouting and angry text messages. Why are you leaving me and everything we've built here? she had sent me after we'd had a screaming match in her hotel room. I had told her that I was going to accept Barcelona's offer. She told me I was putting more strain on a relationship that already felt like a chore.

I couldn't sleep that night. I tossed and turned for hours, thinking about how I had no other option. People grow and grow apart. We're young, nothing lasts forever. I don't have to marry the first person I fall in love with.

She met me in my hotel room, Sam leaving early to go to breakfast, knowing we needed to talk. About what, she wasn't sure, but she could sense the tension. I wonder even now if she has her suspicions, or if she thought we had just had a regular couples' row. She hasn't brought it up – why would she?

"This isn't working, is it?" she had asked me, looking exhausted. Putting so much time and energy into something and watching it crumble and fall nonetheless was becoming too draining for the both of us.

"We should end things now," I replied, giving her the smallest of smiles. "While we don't yet hate each other."

And that was it. We hugged each other, though it felt more friendly than loving.

I hadn't expected her to die on the same fucking day.

"Excuse me, Ma'am," says the lady in charge of managing the queues. I'm pulled out of my thoughts as I blink at her, confused. "Lane five, please." Her hand directs me to the correct place, and before I know it, I'm through security. I make my way to the Lufthansa lounge with the intention to sit amongst the businessmen in silence, wallowing in a little bit of self-pity.

Moving clubs is usually exciting; new place, new team, lots of press. My agent has asked Barcelona to be quiet about this transfer though, saying they should publicise it enough while remaining respectful of my 'grieving period'. He hired a PR person for a few months to deal with everything after her death, but I have chosen to go completely silent on everything so I don't have to talk about it. I can't really tell the whole world that we were broken up right now.

The fans are worried for me. I watch their TikTok edits, and read their posts and comments. Tomorrow, when Barcelona will officially announce signing me, I can only imagine what people might think. I suppose they'll assume I needed to get out of there, get out of the league where everyone knows her. As a couple, we had lots of friends. Lots of people will miss her. Lots of people will wonder why her girlfriend won't be showing up to her funeral.

I run a hand through my dirty blonde hair. Fuck, this is such a mess.

Her mum asked me to speak at the service. I need to call them and explain. That's another thing to do once I get to Barcelona.

But, I actually need to get there first.

My plane lands at 9 o'clock in the evening, local time.

Getting through the airport is a breeze, but I know the rest of the city won't be. I learnt most of my French during my time at Lyon simply by picking it up, so I'm hoping the same goes for Spanish. I'm sure a few of them speak English on the team, and maybe Lieke taught them some Dutch when she played there.

A woman holds a sign with 'Fleur de Voss' in bright blue letters. She approaches me before I can go up to her, holding out her hand for me to shake. I take it as she introduces herself. "Welcome to Barcelona, Fleur. I'm María, the player liaison officer you were assigned. My job is to make sure you are comfortable and have everything you need, so we can make this transition as smooth as possible. I believe we may have spoken on the phone?"

I remember briefly talking about my preferences for flats. Two bedrooms and a bathroom. "Yes, we did." She smiles brightly, and I notice her earrings are miniature Barcelona crests. "You helped Keira when she came?"

"I'm the club's English-speaking PLO," she explains with a chuckle. "Though, don't worry, a lot of the staff speak proficient English, and we have translators available during training. You will, however, be required to attend a few basic Spanish lessons for a couple of weeks, but I am sure you knew that." I did. Same happened at Lyon. "Also, I am sorry to say that I do not speak Dutch."

"Don't worry," I hastily say. "My mum is–"

"Australian, yes. And, of course, 90% of people in the Netherlands are fluent in English." I grew up partly in Melbourne. My English sounds interesting, that's for sure. "Shall we go to the car? We have arranged a hotel room for you to stay in for the first few days. It isn't far from the airport. Let me take your bags."

With that, we walk out into the cool air of the night. A step into a new chapter.