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m1edemafc · 4 months ago

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have i stopped everything in the middle of my work day to read this? yes. am i absolutely floored? yes.

Reminds Me That There's A Room To Grow Part 2

A love unraveled and yet incomparable. Where are two people to go from here?

(a/n: Here is part 2! I am so glad everyone is enjoying this so far, I've had a lot of fun writing it and getting to be creative! I’ll see everyone next Monday for installment 3 - can’t wait to hear everyone’s thoughts!)

Alexia wasn’t sure exactly what she had expected when she barged into her Mami's house the morning after seeing you at the event, dragging Alba behind her.

But it definitely wasn’t this.

She had explained everything to the two of them, with a carefully constructed amount of excitement. The footballer didn’t want to seem overeager, but she also found elation building within herself the more she thought about what had occurred.

She had never expected to see you again, but there you were. Not only that, you weren’t with anyone. You still had the capacity to love her. There was a chance that Alexia hadn’t lost you, and she held onto that hope like a fire lit deep within her chest. She was almost delirious with relief at the realization that maybe the last nine years hadn’t been a total waste, that maybe she had just been waiting for you to return. It threatened to consume her, and she felt as though nothing could break the jouissance that filled her.

At least, that was what she thought, until Eli and Alba brought her back to reality with their contradicting opinions.

“She’s here you guys, she’s here in Barcelona. After all these years, Flori is still here and she wants to see me,” Alexia told her family, a brightness in her eyes that hadn’t been present in years. Despite this, Eli and Alba both had a frown on their face as they glanced at each other with skepticism. There was an awkward pause before Alba finally turned toward her sister with a charged look.

“Ale,” Alba started lightly, trying not to sound too negative. “It has been nine years. Is it possible that Flori has moved on? She was the one who stayed behind, after all.”

Her younger sister's words were pointed if not entirely incorrect.

“Do you even know what happened? You never got an answer from her, and now she has shown up at this event with absolutely no warning,” Eli continued, a point that Alba quickly found herself agreeing with.

When they had all left Madrid, Eli and Alba never expected to lose you so suddenly.

Where Alexia was upset, they were angry. Angry that you had hurt Alexia for no logical reason, angry that you had done it when Alexia was at her most vulnerable, angry that you were no longer there. They had trusted you with Alexia’s heart, and you had betrayed them. Forgiveness was not possible in their eyes, not after what had occurred.

Eli missed your mother, who had grown to become a dear friend. Alba had lost your younger brothers, Adan and Leo, who she had been close with. The breakup had been a clean break in the literal sense, but emotionally it had been so much more complex than that. There was nothing but frustrating feelings and a wretched sense of loss for all of them. Where Alexia had softened over time, becoming more sympathetic, the rest of her family had hardened in their negative feelings toward you.

It was valiant if not feeble that the footballer tried to argue on your behalf.

“She is here now, and time has passed. Why would I not at least give her the chance to atone or explain herself?” Alexia argued as she furrowed her brows. She looked between her sister and Mami, feeling disheartened by their reaction.

“She gave up that right years ago Ale, when she let you leave in the midst of Papi dying and you moving to go to your dream club. She let you go, she never reached out, she never explained herself. Does that not bother you?” Alba pressed, unyielding in her temperament.

“It has been a decade practically, and she never tried. She let you go, ripped up your heart into pieces, and walked out of that door with no remorse. We were all hurt by it, but you should be the most betrayed! She was supposed to love you, and she left you instead. Don’t tell me that hasn’t been the thing that stuck out to you the most in the past nine years?” Alba continued as her words lashed out like a whip, threatening to send Alexia’s sense of stability and hope crashing to the ground.

“I have a chance to be happy, and you want me to give it away! Does that not bother you?” Alexia spat back as her defensiveness mounted. She stared her sister down with an intensity that usually was only found when she was playing football, not speaking to a member of her family.

“No, what you have is a chance to be hurt again, and based on past events, that is exactly what is going to happen Alexia. Don’t be stupid,” Alba shot back, and Eli quickly placed a hand on her younger daughter's arm to stop her.

The room came to a hard stop, but the brunette’s heart beat too fast in her chest to notice.

Had she made a mistake in trying to be forgiving toward you?

What if her family had a point?

“Alba is critical but what she says is in your best interest Alexia. Regardless of how you felt about your relationship, Flori hurt you irreparably. Are you sure you want to let her in again? Is that a risk you want to take?” Eli inquired gently, her voice much softer than the loud argument of her daughters. Alexia took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm outwardly even if she felt anything but on the inside.

You had hurt her a lot. And they said it was irreparable, but the brunette was beginning to wonder if only you could be the one to soothe the ache. It had been nine years, and she had never once come close to feeling the same way about anyone else as you.

But you had hurt her.

Her mother and sister were not wrong in their basis of judgment. Alexia was beginning to wonder if she had been too naive, too focused on not looking a gift horse in the mouth to see the points her family had laid out.

The Catalan wondered if you would explain yourself fully to her if asked. She hoped dearly that the answer would be yes, but maybe she didn’t know you as well as she thought she did.

Maybe it was stupid to trust you after all these years. As much as Alexia had wanted to be mad about everything, she could never bring herself to fault you for what happened when you were both eighteen years old. She had always just assumed that the reason had to be big for you to make the choice you had.

But maybe it wasn’t like that at all. Maybe she had just been too trusting, too loving.

“I…I’ve spent the last nine years thinking about her, loving her, whether I wanted to or not. I know you aren’t as trusting as I am, and maybe I shouldn’t be so hopeful. But I at least want to know what happened to us that led to her making the decision she did. I need that, at the very least,” Alexia decided as her mother and sister nodded wearily.

Alexia had always taken the blame for what had happened, even if it had been a subconscious realization. She had simply assumed that whatever it was had been her fault. The brunette must have done something for you to make such a drastic choice not to be with her after so long together.

Eli and Alba’s arguments rang in her head, creating a commotion in her mind of conflicting information. Perhaps it wasn’t her fault, but rather something on your end.

She wasn’t sure now.

All that the footballer knew was that by the time she left her Mami’s house, she felt a lot more lost than she had last night. Lost, confused, and drained of any excitement that had been present just an hour previously.

—

You had woken up the morning after the event in a trance, unable to place your own feelings.

Had last night really happened?

Your dress was still on the hanger, just as you had placed it last night. The ghosting of mascara under your eyes left proof of your makeup, proof of the tears you had shed on the walk home.

All of these years later, and there she was. Somehow just as perfect and illustrious as you had remembered her to be. Nine years on and she remained unchanged, unyielding despite her newfound fame.

You had changed a lot in those nine years. And truth be told, you thought often of the footballer, though you tried impossibly hard not to. After all, it had been you who had left. It had been your own choice to sever everything the two of you had.

You had your reasons, sure, but it had still been you. The choice for you to make decisions in your relationship with Alexia had been revoked in that instance, and you forced yourself to try and forget all that you had lost.

To try and forget the feeling of being held in her arms. To forget the way she curled around you as you slept, or crawled into your lap to take a nap after a long day of training. To forget how much you two laughed together, how exceedingly happy she had made you.

You had lost all of that, and there was nothing that changed that fact.

It was ostensibly clear why you had moved to Barcelona five years ago, even if you vehemently denied that the move was because of the Catalan you once called home. But her dream had been yours as well, and even if you were later, you still had to come.

You found yourself in the stands of her games often, tucked in the back with a hat pulled over your head, avoiding her gaze and that of her family as well. You probably shouldn’t have been there, but you had turned into quite the masochist in the wake of losing her.

She looked free on the field, exactly as you remembered her. Focused, ardent, driven, mirthful, intelligent, protective.

Everything you had loved and lost.

It’s not that there hadn’t been opportunities to see her again, especially when you had first moved and you both were young. But you never took them, knowing that it wasn’t your right. Alexia was happy, and you would never interrupt her peace for your own yearning.

After last night though…you weren’t sure if the word you would describe her as was peaceful. It was possible you were reading too much into things, but there was an air of longing present in the brunette that confused you more than you expected.

You wondered if she would call you, but you had no way of knowing.

It needed to be that way. This needed to be her choice, her decision. You had been the one to take it away, and you gave it back to her almost a decade later.

There was hope in your body, a nascent festering that took root no matter how hard you attempted to stop it in its tracks. But at the end of the day, you would gladly give back to her the right to choose in favor of everything you dreamed and desired.

You would make peace with whatever decision that was, no matter the cost to your own happiness.

—

“You–I’m sorry, you what?” Jenni blurted out as she glimpsed over at Mariona, who found herself just as confused and taken aback by what the brunette had just described.

Alexia leaned back in her chair as she let out a forced breath. Her participation in this lunch was more compulsory than anything else after an entire practice of her “acting weird,” according to the striker.

Mariona had been dragged along for a second opinion, though the midfielder had found herself growing more and more curious as Jenni’s pestering turned into real answers from the brunette. The raven-haired woman, while annoying at times, had been friends with Alexia for long enough to know when she needed a bit of a push to talk.

For Alexia to admit that the reason she was bothered was because she had a long lost childhood lover was not exactly what Jenni was expecting. But the striker was nothing if not able to work with what she was given.

“Let me get this straight,” the older woman began as she leaned forward against the table. “You met when you guys were like five, grew up together, started dating when you were teenagers, then were supposed to move here together, but she broke things off suddenly right before you left and you haven’t seen her since?”

“That is correct,” Alexia conceded warily, well aware of how slightly ridiculous it seemed as a story.

“And all of these years, you haven’t stopped thinking about her? A decade later and you’re still hung up on her?” Jenni asked incredulously, her voice nearly an octave higher than it usually was. She seemed to be out of her mind at the thought, and the brunette slunk down further into her chair, feeling overly barren.

“You hook up with women like there is a prize for who gets the highest body count,” Alexia shot back, trying to come off as more annoyed than exposed.

Mariona looked miffed at the vulgarity of the statement while Jenni shrugged, acquiescence in her expression.

“Low blow Alexia,” the midfielder noted briefly, but the striker waved her off easily.

“The woman isn’t entirely wrong, but more importantly she’s deflecting. Okay, so you’re still in love with the woman. And it just so happens that she’s randomly at the Spotify event they sent you to, and she’s still in love with you as well?”

“Well not quite but…” Alexia started to disagree before she trailed off, her friends eyeing her with unconvinced expressions.

“Yes, fine, sure,” she amended crossly.

“She just happened to be at the same event? What does she do for work?” Mariona raised her eyebrow, suspicious of a coincidence that large. Alexia paused for a moment as she struggled to think of an answer. All she was drawing was a big blank, and the realization that maybe she should have been more suspicious about this whole thing.

“I…I have no idea. I didn’t ask! She was just right in front of me, and I panicked, I didn’t know what to do!” Alexia said restlessly, the amount of fidgeting in her seat a clear indication of her nervousness.

“Wow…she made the great Alexia Putellas panic? I’ve seen you send away more girls than a persnickety Playboy photographer.”

“Jennifer!”

“Sorry, sorry! Anywho, you panicked, and then what happened?” Jenni amended, a saccharine smile plastered on her face. The raven-haired woman was absolutely devouring this, fighting valiantly not to smile like the cheshire cat.

“And then we went on a walk and talked for a few minutes, she gave me her number and told me to call her, and she left,” Alexia finished lamely, sinking back into her seat. She surveyed her two friends, who only looked at her with interested expressions.

“Okay…and what are you going to do?” Mariona inquired once she realized that Alexia wasn’t going to say anything more.

“I don’t know what to do! My family thinks that I shouldn’t call her, that she has hurt me too much. That maybe she doesn’t deserve to be in my life anymore. What do you guys think I should do?” Alexia.

“Listen, it seems to be a weird coincidence to me personally. All of the sudden you start to get famous and she just happens to pop up? That is a little weird to me. It sounds like this person hurt you deeply Ale, and it has stuck with you. Are you sure you want to rehash everything?” Mariona pressed, her words strict and condemning.

“I’m not sure if I do. I’ve spent the last decade thinking of her, and then suddenly she was there and I just…I didn’t know what to do with myself. I never imagined her being in my life again, and there she was! I spent my whole childhood loving her. I never saw myself with anyone else,” Alexia admitted quietly as she wrung her hands together for a moment before setting them down in her lap, unable to make her own mind up.

The vast majority of Alexia’s teammates had never heard of you at all. Jenni was a little too old, Mariona a little too young. Those who had known of you had forgotten, easily deterred by Alexia telling them you had broken up, unrealizing of how much it meant for the midfielder to lose you.

Mariona had begun to speak again, but the striker had tuned the two of them out, thinking quietly to herself for once.

As much as she teased, Jenni watched her friend with a keen, knowing eye. There had to be a damn good reason for Alexia to turn away all of those girls. It wasn’t just their looks, some of them were lovely and intelligent and hilarious, and still the star midfielder had absolutely no interest in them whatsoever.

Almost as if she was waiting for something else.

Someone else.

All these years there had been something missing in her, as though she looked for someone who never came through the door. Jenni had never known what was wrong enough to ask, but now she was beginning to piece together the importance of you to Alexia. Where everyone else saw reasons to criticize and judge, the striker was stuck on Alexia’s words.

How the desire and longing seemed unable to be contained and reasoned with, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

“What do you want?” Jenni cut both of them off suddenly, eliciting a frustrated noise from Mariona and a surprised look from the brunette.

“I don’t know what I want!” Alexia huffed out with frustration, but the raven-haired didn’t accept that quite so easily. There were too many hands in the pot here. Alexia had always known what she wanted to do, she was simply being deterred.

“No, you do. You’re convoluted with everyone else’s opinions, but I think you know exactly what you want. What is it that you want Alexia?” Jenni’s eyes never wavered from Alexias, as if daring her to look away.

She knew that the Catalan wouldn’t, and she was right.

Alexia stared right at her friend, knowing exactly what choice she needed to make for herself. Not for anyone else, but for herself.

At the very least, she needed to know what had happened to lose you the first time.

—

Alexia told herself she would call you in a few days, giving herself some time to cool off and think things through.

She couldn’t even make it through a few hours before she was digging up the card you had given her and typing the number into her phone. The phone rang once, twice, three times before you picked up, and despite herself the Catalan let out a sigh of relief that you had picked up at all.

“Hello?” You said dutifully as you held your ear to the phone, unaware of who was on the end of the line. There was silence for a long moment, long enough that you questioned if anyone was even there, before sound finally came through.

“Hi,” Alexia choked out, failing to keep her voice as calm and unbothered as she had told herself she would be.

“Hi Alexia,” you replied, fighting to seem as unphased as possible. You were shocked she had called you, and your heart beat so rapidly in your chest it felt as though it was fluttering.

“I know it’s sudden…but can you talk tonight?” The footballer blurted out after a few seconds. Your heart constricted with panic, but you swallowed it down and forced yourself to remain agreeable and steady.

“Absolutely. What time and where should I meet you?” You questioned as you took a deep, bracing breath. You listened as Alexia rattled off an address and the two of you agreed to meet in an hour before she hung up.

This might be your last chance to tell her the truth. Would it be worth it though? Was the possibility of creating an ache in her chest worth revealing what had really occurred?

You knew her, and you knew that her guilt would be immense even if the situation was completely out of her control. You made the choice for her, knowing that it was the right one. But you were unsure if she would see it that way. Perhaps she would only see the hurt you had caused her unnecessarily, and that would be the end of it. Maybe that should just be the end of it, allowing her some answers while allowing her to move forward with her life.

It had been nearly a decade. You had been without her nearly as long as you had been with her, and a piece of you knew that the ache would never disappear. You would always yearn for her, even if she decided to move on.

But that was a right she had earned, and you had lost.

It had been your own fault after all, that turned you two into this unsure, bumbling mess of emotions and challenges and strife. You would have done anything to change that if you could have.

It was your fault but not your doing, at the end of the day.

You arrived at the beach where Alexia told you to meet her a little early, which allowed you to sit down at a bench and look out at the ocean waves that poured in and out. You granted yourself that small moment of grace on the nearly empty beach as you slipped your sandals off and felt the lingering warmth of the sand under your feet as the sun slid behind the ocean.

You didn’t notice Alexia’s approach until she was in front of you, and though you offered her the seat next to you silently, she didn’t take it.

It should have been this that informed you that it would go downhill from there, but you clung to the hope that maybe this would be a productive conversation. You still didn’t know what to say exactly, but you knew you were not going to be dishonest.

Alexia’s eyes examined you critically, as if she didn’t believe that it was really you.

“How did you end up at the event the other day in the first place?” She inquired after a moment, and you can’t help but furrow your brows in confusion, lost as to why this was the first question she asked. Lost as to where all of this hostility came from, when you had yet to say a single thing.

You had expected her to become angered as the conversation went on, but she already seemed cross and you had yet to say a word.

“I work for Morgan Stanley doing investment consulting and management specifically with Spotify. I’ve become close with the people at the company as I work with them most days, and they invited me to the event. There were investors and important stakeholders that I was able to meet in person. I’ve come to the same event every year for the last three years,” you disclosed to the brunette, but the skepticism and hostility in her eyes never wavered despite your clarity.

“Did you see me before we ran into each other?” She interrogated, and you settled into your seat uneasily. This felt less like a conversation and more like she was drilling you, waiting for you to slip up and say the wrong thing.

“At the event, or in general?” You replied, wanting nothing but honesty in your responses. You could give her that, even if the air between you two was charged with more tension than you expected.

“Both.” Alexia crossed her arms, everything in her posture defensive and frustrated.

“At the event, no. I didn’t know until I was standing right in front of you,” you clarified, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear to avoid fidgeting nervously. “In general, yes I had seen you. Only from afar though, at your games over the years. I never would have approached you.”

I never would have approached you.

Alexia felt every defense in her mind light up at that statement. When had you decided you were so utterly done with having her in your life? All the Catalan could think of was her mother and sister warning her that this was going to be a mistake. All she could think of was Mariona who talked about how strange the coincidence was that the two of you had run into her, as though it was so suspicious.

You had left and hurt her.

It had been your fault, that is what all the evidence seemed to tell her.

Something pulled at the brunette’s mind though, something that begged her not to be so bellicose. Something that screamed at her that there was more to the story, and that handling everything this way was a horrible idea.

Fear seemed to rule her though, rearing an ugly head that the midfielder was not proud of.

“How many years,” she beseeched, fighting the wave of tears she could feel stinging at the back of her eyes. Her voice was low, wavering in a way that betrayed her emotions more than she cared to admit. You had let out a low sigh as you hung your head.

“Five years. I’ve been in Barcelona for five years, and I’ve been coming to your games on and off for five years” you finally confessed as you shook your head. You looked up at the Catalan, who seemed caught between devastation and outrage.

“You moved here five years ago and didn’t even think to come and talk to me? You never thought to check on me, to try and reach out?” Alexia seethed, burying her hurt behind a mask of fury. More than anything, the footballer felt like her whole chest had caved in.

“No I didn’t. I had broken up with you Alexia, that was the choice I made. I wasn’t going to come barging back in four years later and demand that you take me back,” You tried gallantly to remain calm, even in the face of Alexia’s vexation. The brunette hated your answer, throwing her hands up in acute frustration.

“You never even bothered to ask! You might have taken away my choice once, but you’ve spent five more years taking that choice away. You are a coward,” Alexia accused, pointing a finger at you even as everything in her screamed not to. She would regret what she said in the light of day, but all she felt right now was wounded. There was an intense urge to protect what little pride still remained inside her, and apparently in order to accomplish that she needed to lash out.

You met her toe for toe though, not giving her the anger she wanted exactly but rather a sense of indignation.

“I am a coward Alexia, you’re right. I wanted you to live your life, to move on, and I made the choice I thought was best for everyone at the time, including you. Don’t stand here and act like I made the choice without consideration for your feelings, because I have,” you fought, because even if you were at fault, you had tried so hard not to be selfish. If the Catalan got a single thing out of this conversation, you wanted it to be that.

“No you haven’t, you’ve been selfish for the last decade! I lost my father, my community, and then you all in the span of one month. You disappeared, just like that. You were like a ghost, and I was on my own, and right when I needed you, you weren’t there!” She practically yelled, and it looked almost like her entire body vibrated with resentment.

The footballer took a deep breath as she both tried and failed to remain calm. But every time she had more than a second to think, anger and vitriol seemed to flow out of her.

“I hate myself for how much I needed you all these years, how much I longed for you. I can’t believe I didn’t see what was going on right in front of me. And now you’re back here…for what? A celebrity status? To be a WAG? I don’t have time for that, and I don’t want you anymore if you see me as such a transactional person. I don’t even recognize you anymore,” Alexia explained with an air of indignance.

Though you had tried to remain calm, something finally snapped inside of you at that. You simply couldn’t allow for the brunette to say such things about you, and finally you allowed yourself the candor you’d held in all these years.

“Oh for God's sake Alexia, really? I haven’t come here to be your WAG, or for your fucking money! I’m in investment banking for Christ's sake, I am fine financially! I don’t like football, but I spent my childhood going to games because you loved it and I loved you! You think it didn’t kill me to let you leave like that?”

“You were my forever. We were young but you were the love of my life, and even now I can’t find myself ever connecting with anyone the way I did with you. I know I am older now, but I still have the same heart as I did when I was eighteen. You loved that person, and I’m not saying you need to love me anymore, but do not stand here and act like I have changed into someone unrecognizable when I have not!” You articulated, unwilling to allow yourself to be trodden over with disrespect.

You were not the same person as you were at eighteen, but you were also not the person Alexia had made you out to be.

The fight seemed to drain out of your body in an instance. Any hope that had been clung to was lost entirely as you decided just to be honest. You knew the brunette didn’t want anything to do with you, and in that moment you made peace with that.

You would give her the truth, and nothing else but the truth. When you looked up at the Catalan, there were tears shining in your eyes.

“I was sick, Alexia. I found out two days before I broke up with you that I had breast cancer, and I needed to stay in Madrid for treatment. You had just lost your father, you were moving to a whole new area of the country. You didn’t need to be worried about your sick girlfriend, trying to travel back and forth to Madrid, to have even more on your plate,” you revealed slowly as you aggressively wiped away the tears that flowed down your cheeks.

Oh.

“So yes, I made a decision for you. In all honesty, it was a decision I would happily make again and again if it came down to it. I wanted to preserve what little peace and happiness you had left before the move. I ached for you afterward, but I knew that this was the right choice. I wanted you to live your dreams, with or without me. And by the time I finished treatment and came to Barcelona, I felt that it was too late. I had broken us, it was my fault entirely that we had broken up, and I didn’t feel like I had the right to come to you and explain.”

“So no, I haven't approached you for the last five years. I come to your games and I see you play with joy and happiness, and I see you with your family, and I want to leave you with that. So don’t look at me and call me a coward or a gold digger or whatever the hell you think I am, because at the end of the day I tried to make the best choices for you and me, and I can’t take them back anymore,” you released, and suddenly you felt much older than your twenty-seven years. You head hung, and you shrugged before you spoke again, your tone bitter and defeated.

“If you’re so intent to see all of the reasons I fucked up, fine. If you need to tell yourself that I am a selfish whore to sleep at night, fine. But I sincerely hope that when you go to sleep at night you at least remember for a second that the decisions I made were for you, not because of you. Maybe it was the wrong choice to control that for you, but I can’t go back and change it now. So please, just leave me alone if this is all you want from me. I don’t have anything more to give you, not anymore,” You stated with exhaustion, spinning around to walk away. You disappeared into the night before the brunette even had a chance to say anything, left far too shell shocked to even begin to process your words.

You were gone without a glance backward, and Alexia sunk down onto the bench you had once occupied as remorse purged every other feeling in her body.

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m1edemafc · 4 months ago

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coming back from my accidental hiatus to a new fic is such a treat and i am so excited for the rest of this fic x

Reminds Me That There's A Room To Grow

Alexia had lost her childhood love at the last moment. Or did she?

{a/n: Hello everyone! Fair warning: I make a lot of changes about the “world” in the fics I write. Alexia grew up in Madrid in this and started out at Atlético Madrid (don’t worry she’s still the world’s biggest culer, trust), and the timing, clubs, etc are often somewhat fudged because I am lazy. If you come on here and start correcting me I’m just going to block you because this is a STORY, it’s not supposed to be accurate to real life because it isn’t real life. This starts in March of 2021, but there are a series of flashbacks. Reader is a few months younger than Alexia in this.

This story can either be: just the 1 part with an ambiguous ending if everyone is satisfied with that, 3 parts with a more solid ending, or 10 parts with a longer story structure (and I like the ending better personally but to each their own). Curious as to everyone’s thoughts are, and it’ll probably dictate how much I end up writing! I hope y’all enjoy the read! Title is from Drops of Jupiter and Spotify link can be found here!}

Dahlias.

Resilient.

Warm-hearted.

Protective.

Optimistic.

Mysterious.

Grounded.

Alexia thought of the intricate flowers often. She even went so far as to plant some in a garden box on the balcony of her apartment, just so that in the warmer months she could go out and trace the petals gently under her fingertips. A reminder of everything wonderful she had been fortunate enough to have in her life, held in her grasp for just a little bit longer out in the warm air.

She admitted it was a long time ago, but even if she tried to move on she simply couldn’t.

—

Alexia is grateful she opted to wear pants for the event, if for no other reason than the fact that she has somewhere to put her hands. The event was on the smaller side, not quite intimate but still not overwhelming either. It’s March now in Barcelona, with warmer weather and sunshine, even if the event for this evening is held indoors.

It was for Spotify, bringing together ambassadors of the brand from around Spain to interact and connect with the team. Naturally, Barcelona has sent Alexia and Robert along with a few of the staff members to represent Barcelona. The midfielder has spent the better part of the event making small talk, trying to be polite and sociable. These events are inherently exhausting for her, but she still understands the importance of them, even if there isn’t quite enough football talk for her liking.

As grateful as the blonde is for the visibility of the team and women’s football, there are still moments when she has to force herself to remain appreciative. She sometimes misses the days of kicking the football around in the dirt, where the heaviness of expectations never plagued her. She misses cozy nights on the couch laughing until her stomach hurts or having someone pull her from her work, insisting that she take a break.

The footballer struggles to remember the last time she took a break. Her life is full steam ahead, all of the time. It was rewarding and exhausting all at the same time. Even when she has a day off or a moment of peace, it never quite felt like hers.

Everyone expects something of her.

Everyone wants a part of her.

But nobody wants her in her entirety. Nobody has in a long time.

When the midfielder finally breaks away from the delegate of Barcelona members under the guise of going to the bathroom, she takes the time to just explore. The event space is lovely and spacious, with high ceilings and a gorgeous conference room

She is aiming to head toward the restroom, but she wanders aimlessly. The brunette ends up in a hallway with a gorgeous light fixture, and she finds herself looking up at it in vague awe. She catches movement in her peripheral vision, and when she glances down, her breath catches in her throat.

It can’t be?

Could it be?

After all of this time?

Your head is turned up toward the light fixture as well, your face partially obscured by the angle of your neck tilting upward to admire the beauty of it. The dress you’re wearing is a deep emerald green, a crushed velvet material with a high cut neckline. There are draped sleeves that barely hit your mid bicep, and the cut of the gown is long enough that it hides that you’re wearing loafers over more socially appropriate heels.

You’ve always claimed that a woman who spent her life stuffing her feet into uncomfortable shoes simply wasn’t doing life right.

The ceilings are tall, and the hallway is nearly empty, but Alexia is pretty sure that there is a lack of oxygen in the air.

And then you turn your head down from the lights above you, making direct eye contact with you.

Her heart stops for just a moment, unable to comprehend the reality of the moment.

But the footballer realizes at that exact moment that it’s really you.

—

When Alexia is six, her immediate family moves from the Mollet del Valles to Salamanca for her father’s job. Besides her Mami, Papi, and Alba, the rest of her family stays behind in Barcelona, a fact that Alexia both hates and struggles to understand.

Concepts of a job and moving are a little far out of her realm, but she tries her best to calm Alba when she cries quietly out of homesickness. Alexia is strong and refuses to cause trouble, so she takes the move with a silent despair as she is abruptly pulled from everything she has grown to know and placed in a new environment.

Her Mami explains to the two girls that they will return to Barcelona in the summer for a few weeks to visit family, and that they can still go to Barcelona games here in Madrid. The little brunette girl struggles to contain the disgust her face twitches with at the thought of Real Madrid, and Eli forces herself to hold in a gentle laugh.

In Alexia’s second week of living in Madrid, she meets you.

Your family lives in an apartment down the street, with your Mama and Papi alongside your two younger brothers. There’s an area between your house and Alexia’s for children which could technically be classified as a park because of the pathetic patch of grass inside a ring of concrete. It doesn’t matter for Alexia, who brings a basketball outside to play in the space after growing bored one afternoon.

You were already out there, sitting in the small grass patch and playing with the flowers, gentle in the way only a young child could be. That precarious edge where you could crush the petals at any moment, but for whatever reason don’t.

The brunette perks up, her steps quickening at the sight of you. She has yet to make a single friend here considering that school has not yet started, and now would be the perfect time.

“Hola,” she introduces herself apprehensively, soft spoken but not exactly shy. You look up at her, surprise melting into a small smile that seems to spread through the rest of your body.

“Hola,” you repeat, and Alexia sets the basketball down before sitting beside you.

“I’m Alexia, I live over there. I just moved here,” she explains as she points toward her own apartment complex. You nod in recognition, turning to the opposite side of the street to point out your own home.

“Nice to meet you Alexia,” you state resolutely, but your focus is still on the flowers underneath your hands, the caléndulas.

“Are you a big fan of la flores?” She questions, and you nod, tucking some hair behind one ear as you look over at Alexia.

“Flori loves la flores,” the brunette declares, giving you a nickname that will stay with you as she pulls you up to go play basketball with her.

—

When Alexia is seven she joins the Atlético Madrid academy, playing alongside boys her age. She also learns that you hate football with a burning passion.

After that day in the street, the two of you have become fast friends. One could not be found without the other, wandering around the streets playing imaginary games or dancing together. You could even be coaxed into a game of basketball or handball sometimes if you were in a good mood, but never football.

It’s strange to Alexia, because football comes so naturally to her. It is a part of her family, but it is not a part of your family. While you are light on your feet, graceful in dancing, other sports are not your cup of tea.

You’re smaller than Alexia is, smaller than the average girl your age, and it shows when you’re trying to play games with everyone. You never complain about it, weathering the storm of fouls and near fatal injuries from competitors twice your size without so much as a spot of negativity.

But Alexia knows that it is not your favorite, and she only asks you to play sometime.

“Come on Flori, please? I need to practice before tomorrow?” Alexia begs, and though you threw her some sass, you quickly agreed when you saw the look in her eye.

The desperate look on her face was enough to convince you that she really did need help.

While you weren’t terribly skilled at football, you weren’t horrible at it either. You agreed to help Alexia because she is your absolute best friend in the whole entire world, and when she looks at you with that face, you know she really means it.

It is all worth it when she comes home the next day, dropping her bag at home and sprinting over to your apartment. She barges past your Mama at the door to run to your room, jumping on your bed and telling you every detail of the day with excruciating detail.

You want to listen to every single minute, filled with warmth from the clear excitement on her face. You’re happy that she is happy, and you know that football brings her peace in the same way dancing does for you.

Which is why when Eli asks Alexia to stop playing football at school as a result of her joining a team outside of school, you are the one who covers for her. You easily vouch that she was pushed on the playground rather than scraping her knees playing football.

The look her Mami gives you lets you know she doesn’t believe you, but she lets it slide regardless, much to your relief.

—

When Alexia is eight, she learns of how fiercely protective you are.

It had only been a small thing, a disagreement on the football pitch behind the school you all attended. She was playing with some of the other girls, the few ones her age who still wanted to play football. The ones who didn’t mind getting their knees muddied and running until their lungs gave out.

Not that it mattered how much they tried, because Alexia always beat them anyways.

You had chosen not to participate, electing to teach Alba how to weave daisy chains and making sure that your little brothers weren’t getting into trouble while they played together. You had just moved Alba’s hand gently to show her how to twist the stem of the plant correctly when you heard the ruckus.

You lift your head, taking in the scene in front of you with a renewed urgency when you notice that Alexia was on the ground. One of the other girls is practically standing on top of her, she was so close to the brunette. The girl, Isabella, is practically pink in the face with her anger, yelling about some foul or dirty move on Alexia’s part.

You didn’t care though, standing up in a flash and stomping your way across the football pitch to the two girls.

Alexia is by no means a shy person, but she usually leaned toward being more reserved. She has a deep sense of justice though, and has always pressed for everything to be fair, even when it was not to her advantage.

When she played games with Alba, the brunette would hold her dominant hand behind her back or close her eyes to even the playing field. And while she never let Alba win without reason, she was never overly cruel in her celebrations either. Especially not as one would expect a bigger sister to be.

She did not have a chance to get a word in edgewise today, not when you stuff your body between the two girls and press your finger into Isabella’s chest, all but shoving her back.

You tilted your head up in defiance, a positively ferocious look on your face.

“Hey! There is no need to yell,” you argue ardently, your face twisted in complete and utter vexation at Isabella’s tone toward your best friend.

Isabella just stares down at you for a moment, probably more shocked to see you there than bothered by the words you just said to her. You were smaller than her and Alexia, and it is rare to see you get angry or irate like this.

“Right…sorry Alexia,” Isabella says after a moment, offering a sheepish smile before she turns away, walking off of the field over to a few of her other friends.

You let out a small sigh as your body language settles into something more relaxed and calm. When you look back at Alexia behind you, you find her looking up at you with a tilted head and a look of confusion on her face.

“What?” You question carefully, back to the serene best friend that the Catalan had come to know over the last two years. There is concern pooling in your eyes as she stood, brushing the dirt off her knees.

“Nothing I…” she pauses for a moment before she shakes her head, a tiny smile gracing her lips as she lets out a chuckle. “Thank you Flori.”

You smile up at her broadly before you turn and make your way back to your younger siblings, sitting down and going right back to teaching Alba how to make a daisy chain as though nothing ever happened.

—

When Alexia is nine, the two of you dance together.

You are both signed up for folk dance classes by your respective mothers, who have become powerless in trying to keep the two of you apart. The pair of you might as well be attached to one another, as if you need the other in your orbit to continue on with life.

It’s not that you both don’t have other friends, because you do. But the connection between the two of you is strong, not understood by anyone else.

Dancing with Alexia is different. She makes you laugh in ways you cannot quite understand, and despite being only nine years old, there is a gracefulness to her movements that the other girls do not possess. There’s an ease to your steps when you are partnered with her, almost as though you two can anticipate the movements of the other without speaking about it.

Perhaps football has helped her dance abilities, you wonder silently, but even that might be a stretch.

You aren’t sure it matters though, not when she looks at you with that wide smile that she only ever seems to give you.

—

When Alexia is ten, she finds you on her walk home from football practice. Her Mami had just started letting her walk home alone, alongside another boy from her team who lived in the area. It wasn’t a far walk by any means, but it gave the brunette a feeling of huge independence that only a ten year old could possess.

She has just turned the corner to head down her street when she hears loud, loathsome voices.

“Flori, really? That’s a stupid nickname, just like you are a stupid friend. She only hangs out with you because it is an easy option, not because she likes you.”

Alexia doesn’t even have time to consciously think before she sees red and surges forward, finding you cowering just slightly under the intense gaze of two older boys. They are in the year above you and Alexia in school, but they always hated the brunette because she was better at football than they were.

It seemed that their response to this embarrassment was to take out their anger on you.

Alexia could tell you were trying to show minimal fear, but you were a good head smaller than the boys who towered over you. Luckily for you Alexia wasn’t about to let them get away with it, and she came around the corner yelling in anger.

The boys weren’t expecting her, and they certainly weren’t expecting the vehemently angry words that flew out of her mouth.

You watched the exchange with a strange sense of detachment.

Were you a stupid friend for Alexia? She was getting better at football now, getting noticed by people and places much bigger than the little neighborhood you guys lived in. She could be popular, have any friend she wanted. No longer was she beholden to you in any way.

When Alexia grabs your arm gently, you look up to find that the boys are nowhere to be found anymore. It is just your best friend with you, her eyes scanning over every feature on your face with a furrowed brow.

You let out a tight breath as you realize that you two were alone, sinking down to sit on the curb. Alexia joins you, taking your hand and holding it tightly in her own.

“Are you alright?” She asks softly, and you don’t answer her for a long moment.

“Do you think that I am a stupid friend? Do you wish you had more popular friends?” You counter, not really answering her question. You don’t want to burden your friend with your own emotions, sticking to the facts of the case rather than the maelstrom of unease swirling in your stomach. The brunette all but flinches at the question, shaking her head fiercely. You turned to inspect her face gently, to see that there were no signs of lying in the set of her jaw or the twitch of her eyebrow.

“Why would you think that?” She prods softly, her voice only loud enough for you to just hear it. Alexia can tell that this is about more than just what the boys said. The crinkle in your brow gave away the depth of your worries, especially to the footballer.

“I am not like you Alexia. I don’t like sports, or getting dirty, or playing with the boys. I am not talented like you, I will never be the star people think you will be. I hear them whispering about you, certain that you will be great,” you insist, reticent to a fate that you have seemingly already aligned for yourself.

But then Alexia moves, crouching down in front of you instead of remaining beside you.

“I don’t care about any of that if you aren’t my best friend,” she confesses with a sharp intonation, and she means every word of it wholeheartedly.

She never thinks of herself as doing anything with football, because there is no path for a woman like her to play professionally like the men do. Even if there was, she has no clue if it is something she would want for her future.

She loves football dearly.

But she also loves you, and she tells you as much.

“I will always need you in my life, no matter what. Now that you are here, you are stuck with me and I refuse to give that up. You are my best friend, and I don’t care what I do in life or who I become, you will always be my best friend Flori.”

And despite everything that told you that you probably shouldn’t, you believe her with everything in you.

—

When Alexia is eleven, she moves in with her aunt and uncle in Barcelona for the year to train at La Masia.

You miss her terribly, even though life moves on. Your schedule every week is filled with friends and dance and time spent outside, but it’s never quite the same with Alexia. When you receive a little flip phone, your heart leaps at the thought of being able to talk to her even when she is far away.

The two of you call every day, and patiently you listen to her describe every bit of frustration and excitement about football. It’s a huge opportunity to play in La Masia but there remain huge obstacles, and the program for the girls is unorganized and frustrating at best.

You listen patiently, and Alexia is reminded all over again of how her life wouldn’t be the same without you.

Gratitude and a strange swirling feeling twist in her belly, but it fills her with a warmth all over regardless.

—

When Alexia is twelve, she returns to Madrid. The La Masia program for the girls has fallen apart, and she comes back to Atlético Madrid.

She comes back home to you.

You are unsure of when her smile started to make your stomach flutter, or when the brush of her hand against yours made your heart jump. And honestly, you don’t care. It is the most natural thing in the world to you.

When she holds your hand for the first time and glances over at you shyly, you simply knew that your heart belonged to her, and somehow hers belonged to you too.

—

When Alexia is thirteen, you ask her to be your girlfriend.

Perhaps it's silly and juvenile and you two are the only ones who believe in the seriousness of it.

She is caught by surprise at you asking, and suddenly the footballer finds herself throwing out her elaborate plan she had come up with to ask you in the following weeks.

Alexia says yes to you, unequivocally and with a soundness she has never felt before.

The first brush of your lips against hers lasts for a few seconds, but it’s exhilarating in an entirely new way.

It’s perfect, as is the way her arms wrap securely around you.

—

When Alexia is fourteen, the two of you begin to experiment a little more for the first time.

It’s awkward and bumbling sometimes, but there's a layer of comfort and ease above it all. Her lips on yours and the feel of her body next to you keeping you grounded and comfortable, ready to stop at any moment.

When she pulls away, you find yourself giggling at the tickling sensation of her eyelashes against your skin. You bury your head into her chest, holding tightly to her as you feel a laugh rumble in her chest. .

Even as she gets better at football and you grow into your own intelligence, it’s still the two of you together, taking life at your own pace.

—

When Alexia is fifteen, she begins to struggle in school.

You are the first person she talks to because she knows that you will meet her without judgement. You have always been a good student, and don’t mind spending the time patiently tutoring her. Topics that she should probably understand but do not are broken down into easily digestible ways, and for the first time in weeks her arithmetic work begins to make sense.

She is able to continue playing without any problems, and her marks improve rapidly with her focus and your dedication.

“Thank you Flori,” she sings as she walks out of the first session, and you can’t help but laugh at the tone of her voice.

The footballer beams at you when you declare that your payment is a kiss for every correct answer.

She pays her pension and then some without an ounce of complaint.

—

When Alexia is sixteen, she makes her first team debut for Atlético Madrid. It’s a proud day for the whole family, and you sit squished between her father and Alba as you watch her race onto the pitch.

There’s a sharp determination on her face, and though she only plays ten minutes you can tell she is going to be good. You can’t say you’re surprised, and when she turns toward her family and you and beams as the game ends, you know that you wouldn’t be anywhere else other than here.

—

When Alexia is seventeen, she reminds you of what you mean to her.

Atlético games are never terribly well attended with how little importance is placed on women’s football. But there is still a steady crowd, and it is beginning to grow more and more.

Alongside that growth come some…interesting characters.

You’re a regular in the stands, alternating between reading your book, watching the game, and doing homework. It’s rare for you to miss a match, though you have missed a goal or two when your nose is shoved in a book. Luckily, Eli, Jaume, or Alba will nudge you if Alexia is doing something important. If they aren’t there, then one of the other players' family members will, a fact that you’re extremely grateful for.

Your commitment is unwavering, but your interest in any sort of PDA or anything is limited. Alexia is much the same, a characteristic you’ve always been grateful for.

But then a group of girls from your school start to show up at games. There’s four of them, always sitting in the front row of the stands, no matter what. They cheer Alexia on as though she is their best friend, despite the fact that she told you herself she doesn’t really know them. When the footballer comes toward the stands after games, they rush to greet her. They fawn over her easily, throwing their arms around her for hugs and pressing chaste kisses to her cheek.

You always find yourself standing awkwardly in the background, wishing to talk to your girlfriend but unable to stop staring at the scene in front of you.

At first, it’s more funny than anything. You and Alexia’s family joke about her fan club and delight in the way her cheeks turn pink with embarrassment.

But they never stopped coming to games. And by the time you figure out that they aren’t going to stop, you realize that perhaps you need to take a step back. Those girls are popular, sweet, they love football and seem to understand everything. You are intelligent and well liked, but nowhere near as popular or well versed in the game Alexia lives and breathes by. Trying to follow along to each whistle or hand signal is impossible for you, and your interest in learning comes and goes like an ocean tide.

“I don’t think I can come on Saturday, I have a calculus project I need to work on,” is what you tell Alexia one weekend. But the brunette didn’t buy it for a single second, raising her eyebrows suspiciously.

“You always just do it at the games – I’ve seen you in the stands with a glue stick before you were so determined to be there,” she points out, calling your bluff easily.

“Well…this is important Ale. It’s our final year of school, I need the marks to get into university,” you defend weakly, but it’s a lost cause. Your grades are extremely good, and you’ll have your pick of schools. One calculus project will not make or break that opportunity by a long shot.

“Is this about those girls from school?” Alexia questions softly, her voice careful. You glance over at her and sigh after a moment, knowing that there's really no use in lying. The brunette could read you like the back of her hand.

You don’t even need to voice your concern for Alexia to know exactly what you’re thinking, and she moves to sit down next to you on the edge of her bed.

“I promise you with everything in me that I do not care about those girls. I don’t care if you are certain that they are nicer or popular or more pretty than you are. You are perfect to me, and I don’t care about them at all. I only care about you, and I only want you. You are my peace and my life, not them,” the footballer insists, and you look over at her with a quiet resignation.

“Even if they understand football better than me?” You ask, your voice impossibly small. Alexia smiles sadly, reaching out to gently cradle your face in her hands.

“When I look at the stands, it’s you I search for. It’s you who makes my heart skip a beat when I realize that you’re there. It’s you who fills my stomach with butterflies and sets the wind into my sail. How could I even notice them when I have you, Flori?”

At the next game, Alexia politely smiles at the girls but moves straight past them to charge up the stands, still in her kit and boots. She gently lifts your calculus project off your lap so that she can press a resounding kiss to your lips, smiling into it when you gasp into her mouth with surprise.

—

When Alexia is eighteen, two things happen.

Everything somehow falls together, and falls apart all at the same time.

The first is that her father dies.

It's not unexpected, though the reality is still jarring. It feels like she is free falling, unable to find a moment of stability or rest.

She finds herself in her old bedroom in her Uncle’s house in Barcelona, avoiding the mass of people downstairs paying their respects. While the sympathy of others is heartfelt and sincere, it’s heavy.

She already feels heavy. Any more of it and she might break into a million pieces, that she is sure of. So she escapes up stairs for a moment, leaving Alba with a cousin and her Mami with an old friend.

A knock at the door pulls her from her thoughts, and she looks over to see that you have poked your head into the room.

“Ale?” You inquire gently, the question unspoken between the two of you. Four years of dating and endless years of friendship have left you with an innate ability to know when the brunette needs space, and that doesn’t feel like where she is right now.

You’re nothing if not respectful though, aware that as much as you sympathize, you really might not have the answer here. Nothing this big had ever happened in your relationship before, or in either of your lives before. There was no book or manual to prepare on how to deal with a grief so complete and overwhelming as this.

Alexia loved her father deeply, and no amount of time to anticipate or process her thoughts of his illness actually prepared her from the shock of him being gone.

You had loved Jaume too, how he passed out love like it was free to give, how he laughed without inhibition, how he welcomed you into the Putellas family with ease. But it wasn’t the same, and you were aware. You knew that you felt only a slice of what your girlfriend did, and even just this amount of grief was unbearable.

You didn’t know how the footballer was even standing.

Alexia’s eye’s silently pleaded with you to come in, so you did. You moved across the room before laying down on the bed next to her until the two of you were laying parallel, staring up at the ceiling together. You’re exhausted as well with all the stress and worry, but your first thought is always her.

It always has been.

No words are exchanged between the two of you for a long stretch of time.

What is there to say?

Your heart aches for her, and for her loss, for her family. Alexia screws her eyes shut, trying to regulate her own breathing. Everything about her feels erratic and out of control.

The footballer turns to her side, tucking herself into your body. She clutches to your arm tightly, forcing herself to copy your steady, dependable breathing.

As much as she needs her Mami and Alba in this time, she has to work to be strong for them. She was the person they looked to, the decision maker, the leader. They need her, and she would kill herself before she neglected that need.

But you are her strength, you always have been. You are the one who protects her, whose only thought is her. You have always been constant and steadfast for her through anything, a pillar of strength. She relies on you, and it scares the hell out of her.

And yet you’re right there, and you seem to take it with a practiced ease that makes Alexia want to sob with gratitude.

Loss engulfs her and brings her back, your steady hand in hers the entire time. There is rarely a moment when she needs you and you are not there for her, always attuned to her moods and thoughts.

But then a huge curveball is thrown in Alexia’s way.

Two weeks after her father passes away, Barcelona calls her. They are creating a women’s team, and though it is not professionalized, it is a team.

Alexia accepts the request on the spot, not even stopping to consider the consequences.

It doesn’t matter, the answer would still be yes. Her Mami and Alba are thrilled, quickly deciding that they all should move back to Barcelona together. It was time, and as much as they had built a community here in Madrid, Barcelona would always be home for them.

Alexia goes to you that night and asks you to move with her. She explains her plan vividly, how you can go to school, she will play football, and you both can get part time jobs. You’ll get a little apartment together, actually start the beginning of your lives together.

There was never a world in which you were not together, not with how happy you both were together. It was a no-brainer, an easy solution to a problem that had never existed. Life for her didn’t exist without you in it.

Alexia would move first, and you would follow her in two months once you had received your university acceptance letter. It was a fool proof plan in the Catalans mind.

At least, it had been a fool proof plan.

The night before Alexia was scheduled to leave, you arrived at her door. The surprise and excitement on her face quickly gave way to intense concern when she saw the trepidation on your face.

“Can I come in?” You asked gingerly, stepping inside as the Catalan made way for you to come into her house.

“Yes, of course you can,” she replied, following you into her kitchen and taking a seat across from you at the table. For several moments there is silence as you seem to work up the courage to finally choke out the words you need to say.

“I…I can’t come to Barcelona with you Alexia,” you finally stated, your hands folded neatly in your lap

“What?” Alexia isn’t sure she heard you correctly, because certainly you couldn’t be saying what she thought you had said.

“I have to stay here with my Mama, to help her with the boys and the house and everything. I’ll get a job for a year before going to school, I think,” you explained slowly.

“I…okay. Are you sure Flori?” You nodded with clear reservation, but the brunette continued forward regardless.

“Well then…we can call. And take the train to one another when possible, and then maybe when the boys are older you can come to – what is it?” Alexia’s voice grinded to a halt when she finally seemed to notice your despondent expression

“I cannot come Alexia, and I don’t know when I will be able to. I will be very busy, and I am sure you will be as well, so perhaps it’s for the best if–” You were cut off, unsurprisingly.

“If what?” Alexia challenged, her anger flaring. It’s not really anger, it’s fear, and you see right through her. But still you do not yield, your expression entirely unreadable to the midfielder.

It only makes her more and more mad that she cannot tell what is going on.

“Are you just going to give all of this up? I don’t even know what life is like without you, and what – now it gets a little hard and you call it quits? Did you ever even care about me? Did you ever even love me, or has this whole time just been a huge li–” Alexia yelled from across the table, her hands slamming down to splay on the wood in front of her.

“Enough!” You yelled, standing suddenly. Alexia seemed surprised at your outburst, but there was nothing other than a quiet resignation across your expression. There was no anger or outrage or fury on your face, but rather a strange form of acceptance mixed with defeat.

When you spoke again, it was with softness and finality as the footballer looked up at you.

“I love you Alexia. And I am very excited about this new journey you are going on, even if it is not with me.”

You walked over to her side of the table before bending down to press a kiss to her temple. You slipped out the door in a flash. Alexia was so completely thrown off that she didn’t have an answer or a response, she didn’t even have time to stop you.

She had never sobbed so hard in her entire life than she did at the dining room table that night. Grief had become her shadow, but this was an entirely new kind of grief. It poured over her, consuming her, and she for once found herself completely lost in it.

When she arrives in Barcelona, it is with red rimmed eyes and a renewed resolve to make something of herself.

If it meant losing you, it had to be important.

—

Alexia left Madrid when she was eighteen.

Barcelona Femeni wasn’t even a professional team, and she was a nobody who had come into the system with promise and drive but nothing to her name.

Throughout the past nine years, so much had happened to her both personally and professionally. Barcelona was not the same team at all, having been professionalized a few years after she arrived. They were taken somewhat seriously now, with titles and dominance in the domestic league. Though the Champions League eluded them, Alexia knew it was coming.

She was in the prime of her career, playing better football than she had ever expected herself. The brunette was achieving everything that she had wanted, and she remained hungry and focused toward the future. It was never enough for her, and she always thought she could be doing better.

There were times though…when she stopped and wondered.

Was it worth it?

She wanted so badly to say yes instantly. Football was her passion, her purpose, it had always been her goal to be the best she could be. It had driven every decision she had made in her entire life, and she wanted so desperately to believe in it wholeheartedly.

But there had always been a flicker of doubt. She held it closely to her heart, never sharing it with anyone, not even Alba or Eli. She did not want to seem weak or doubtful of her decision.

Her apartment was empty, devoid of practically any women, and that had been her choice. Even after all of these years, she couldn’t bring herself to commit to anyone long term.

The brunette wanted to be angry at you for staying behind, but she couldn’t bring herself to really mean it. She loved you far too much, and the ache of missing you only seemed to strengthen as the years bled on. She had other women, she really tried, but never did she feel the same connection that she had with you.

Alexia had admittedly tried to look for you, when her initial hurt had bled away in an embarrassingly short amount of time. But you were a ghost.

The footballer wasn’t surprised, considering that you had never been a big social media person. She found some of your relatives online but their accounts were mostly private and rarely were you photographed. When she returned to Madrid for games, your family was gone from the home you had been raised in, and she wasn’t shameless enough to start banging on neighbors doors to find out more.

Your phone number had seemingly changed by the time she worked up the nerve to call you, and eventually it just seemed wrong. You never reached out to her, at least not that Alexia was aware of.

She had simply been forced to accept the fact that she had lost you, for reasons she still did not comprehend or understand. All it took was one singular month to lose both her father and her…to lose you, and that thought gnawed away at a piece of her soul relentlessly.

But suddenly here you were.

Nine years later, and here you stood right in front of her.

“Hello Alexia,” you stated, your face a veil of carefully constructed neutrality, even if your heart beat was erratic beneath your dress. The sound of your voice seemed to bring Alexia back from wherever in her mind she had been.

“Hi…hi there,” the brunette stuttered, resisting the urge to reach out and touch you. She couldn’t quite get herself to believe that you were standing in front of her. .

“I know it’s been awhile but it’s…it's good to see you. Congratulations on your team's success these last few years,” you commented gently, a true smile on your lips.

“Oh, yes, thank you very much. You…you follow the team?” Alexia inquired, her eyebrow furrowing in confusion. You had always been so apathetic to football, she never could have imagined you sitting in front of the television watching games.

“Ever since you moved to Barcelona,” you confirmed with a nod of the head. Alexia felt her perplexity only ballon in size.

If you still cared, why did you let her leave in the first place? Why did you give up so easily?

A silence lapped over the two of you, but it was filled with so many unsaid words, so much tension that had never existed before.

Alexia and you both looked the same, and yet somehow completely different. You could tell how much the footballer had grown into herself given the ease at which she stood, her hands tucked in her pants pockets loosely. There was an air of elegance and power to her, hazel eyes piercing into you with purpose.

She looked at you as though she never wanted to look away again, and selfishly, you felt hope in your heart that perhaps…

“Are you with anyone?” You asked suddenly, surprising yourself with the forwardness. It could be interpreted as for the event specifically, but the potential broader implication suffocated you despite the fact that you were the one to ask the question.

“No, I am not with anyone Flor–” Alexia cut herself off, seemingly realizing her mistake.

It didn’t feel like much of a mistake to you, and you longed to hear the word come out of her mouth, just once more. If this was the end for the two of you, you would have sold anything you owned to hear her say it just once more.

You nodded slowly, before replying that you were here alone as well.

“Perhaps…perhaps we could go on a walk?” Alexia suggested, and you allowed her to set the pace of whatever you guys did together. After all, it had been you that had left in the first place, a fact that you would never forget.

You nodded in affirmation, explaining that you needed to grab your clutch before you could meet her at the door.

It was divine timing as well, considering that your boss had just let you off for the evening and you were planning to go home soon anyways. This was a more welcome surprise than whatever you had been planning in your mind.

—

There was a wave of relief that rushed through Alexia when you appeared in the door frame a few minutes later, almost as though she was positive you were not going to arrive. But there you were, a light jacket thrown over your dress and a small purse in your hand.

You both walked out of the event space together, silence lapping between the two of you as you continued forward. Alexia was struggling to organize her thoughts in any sort of productive way. She was so caught off guard by everything.

She thought she would never see you again.

“How long are you in Barcelona? Just for the weekend?” She questioned, her voice soft. You shook your head, your posture straight and somewhat tense.

“No actually, I live here now. I moved a few years back,” you replied, voice unwavering.

Alexia couldn’t help the stab of hurt that ran through her heart at that piece of information. She had always wondered deep down what she had done to cause all of this, why you had let her go. At first the distance was the only thing in Alexia’s mind to explain the break up, but now she knew you had been here for years. She didn’t understand it, even after nine years. Every piece of logical information told her that you had loved her, and yet here you were.

Was any of this even salvageable?

Did she want it to be?

“Oh…I see,” her voice was flat, but in a way that oozed grief rather than true apathy.

“I come to your games sometimes, once I moved out here,” you admitted, thinking of all the times you had sat up in the stands watching her play. The brunette glanced at you in clear shock, and you shrugged, unable to conjure an appropriate answer to explain yourself further.

Things were…things had been so complicated. By the time all of it had cleared and the world made sense to you again, she was gone. You knew you had lost your opportunity to be with her, to be a part of her life.

As much as it haunted you, it was the reality of your life. You never could have changed what happened, but that didn’t mean it cut you just as deep as it did Alexia.

But perhaps there was hope for the two of you, here and now. Maybe it would be messy and complicated and painful, but it would be real. There was so much left unsaid between the two of you, and whether the two of you could face it headfirst or not would make or break the whole situation.

“Where did we go wrong? How did all of this fall apart?”

The question was sudden, a shock but not a surprise.

You took a deep breath, stopping and looking back at Alexia. The Catalan had stopped walking when she had spoken, as though she was unable to move forward even an inch. Her hands were balled into fists, and everything about her body language communicated her discomfort.

“Did I do something to make you stop loving me? Where did I mess up?” She questioned, nearly begged.

Was her career worth losing this, losing you?

Had she lost you?

“Alexia, you did nothing wrong. You were perfect, you are perfect,” you promised, summoning every last bit of strength to imbue into your words. You walked back to her, reaching out carefully to place the backs of your fingers to her cheek, just barely touching the warm skin there. She closed her eyes at the feeling as tears burned in your eyes.

“I lost you,” she whispered, both startled and settled that you still smelled the same, your perfume unchanged after all these years.

“I know, I know. But I’m right here now, I’m right here,” you vowed, still unsure and desperate of what to say.

“I know that this is fucked up, and complicated, and it’s been years. I might as well be a stranger to you, but I need you to trust me when I say that nothing that happened was your fault. I made the decisions I did because it was what I had to do, but don’t for a minute think it didn’t kill me inside. Don’t you dare think I didn’t spend the last decade of my life missing you,” implored, almost as if trying to force her to understand the depth of your love, even after all this time. You turned your hand to cradle her cheek gently, your thumb stroking across the skin there as you spoke again. Your voice was barely audible, crackling with emotion.

“Maybe this is crazy for me to say, but I don’t think I ever stopped loving you. And if I never see you after this, I want you to know how much I loved you. How much I still love you. ”

She reached her hand up to grasp at your wrist, holding your hand in place against her cheek.

“Please don’t leave,” she murmured, and you nodded insistently.

“I’m right here. I’m right here Ale.”

The look of relief on her face at hearing you call her that was palpable.

You weren’t sure how long the two of you stood there, lost in one another. It could have been a minute or a year, and you didn’t care. You would have stood there forever, content to ignore the rest of the world if Alexia remained this close to you.

But eventually the telltale signs of rain began to stir, drops of water falling onto your jacket and in your hair. You pulled back, taking Alexia’s hand and squeezing it before you reached for your clutch. Opening the bag, you pulled out a business card and a pen, writing your personal number on the back of the card.

“The number on this is my office, but the back is my cell. If you still want to…if you decide you want to talk more, call me,” you insisted lightly, placing the card in her hand.

“I promise I’ll pick up,” you soothed after a moment, your words gentle.

Alexia stared down at the card, at your loopy handwriting, for far too long. It reminded her of being fifteen, watching you write equations on the wall for tutoring. It was jarring, and it stirred up emotions she didn’t realize she had buried.

When she looked up again you were gone, and yet not a single ounce of her felt alone as she stood on the sidewalk.

She had a new possibility. The chance to return to who she was in her youth and understand the past. Or the option to continue forward in her career, focusing solely on football and her dedication to the sport while leaving the past behind.

She had no idea what she would do, but at least for once she had the choice to decide.

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