to hold your heart

To hold your heart, to hold your hand

Would be to me the greatest thing

To hold your heart, to hold your hand

Would be to me the bravest thing

‘Are you awake?’

‘No.’

‘Tobs.’

‘I’m sleeping.  Leave me alone.’

‘Tobin.’

‘Urgh.’   Tobin rolls over onto her back and kicks at the comforter like a child.  ‘Have you tried -’

‘If you say counting sheep I will eject you from this bed.’

‘I was going to say counting your blessings.  Starting with how awesome I am.’

Christen shuffles closer, reaching out, and smiles when Tobin shifts onto her side and settles in against her.  Grouchy, sleep-deprived Tobin is the archetypal little spoon.  ‘Mmm.  My best girl.’

‘And how lucky you are that I also can’t sleep when you need entertaining in the middle of the night.’

‘You know it.’

Strange beds and new places usually make Christen anxious.  There’s an evolutionary angle to it, apparently: unfamiliarity means potential danger, so the brain stays at least partially alert until it’s satisfied it’s safe to sleep deeply.  It’s not an ideal trait for someone who travels so much.  Usually Christen would lie awake, then notice that she wasn’t sleeping, then proceed to worry about the fact that she wasn’t sleeping until her alarm rang and she’d successfully un-slept her way through the whole night.

Now, though, she finds herself strangely contented.  The new apartment is very clean and white and spotless, even after two weeks of Tobin ‘settling in’ by gradually discarding socks and sweatshirts on every available surface, but it’s peaceful and the bed is huge and comfortable.  The sun has been shining, although they’ve been warned that Manchester gets 150 days of rain per year - almost exactly as many as Portland - and it’s not going to last.  Most of all, it’s been surprisingly nice not to have to worry about training immediately, and to have a grace period where they can just sit and be; not in the scary aimless way of early lockdown, where all their certainty had been stripped from them at once, but in a way that feels productive.  Preparing.

Tobin hums and turns her head, nosing at Christen’s cheek.  ‘What are you thinking about?’

‘How it usually takes me way less time to get over jetlag.’

‘This isn’t jetlag.’

‘What else would you call a disturbed sleep pattern after moving eight timezones across the world?’

‘Excitement,’ says Tobin simply.  ‘This is how it feels to look forward to something.’

She’s right, of course.  It sparks a little thrill of anticipation in Christen, like it’s Christmas Eve or the night before a final, and she instinctively hugs Tobin tighter even as she keeps her tone deadpan.  ‘Building that Lego stadium was enough excitement for me.’

‘You enjoyed it really.’

‘I just think it would have come out better if you’d let me use the instruction booklet.’

‘So maybe it doesn’t look exactly like the real thing, but we had fun, didn’t we?’

‘Yeah,’ murmurs Christen into the crook of Tobin’s neck, ‘we did.’

The exception to the strange-new-bed rule is that she always sleeps okay if Tobin is there.  Some nights will inevitably be better than others, but it’s easier to get out of her own head when she can feel Tobin beside her, reassuringly warm and solid and present.  It’s a reminder that the little things don’t matter as much as it seems when she’s sifting through every point on her to-do list, everything said and unsaid, every increasingly-unlikely eventuality.  The important thing is that she’s safe and supported.  Loved and in love. 

She’s almost, almost asleep when she feels Tobin shift in her arms.  ‘Chris.’

‘Mmf.’

‘Christen, look.’

‘What?’

‘It’s after midnight.’

‘So?’

‘So, the fourteen days are up.  This is day fifteen.’

‘It’s night.  It’s very much night fifteen.’

‘Chriiiis.’  Tobin props herself up on one elbow.  Her smile is bright enough that Christen can feel it in the dark.  ‘We’re out of quarantine.  We can leave the apartment.’

‘And where exactly would we -’  Christen knows the answer almost before she opens her mouth, because Tobin is suddenly wide awake and her whole body is practically buzzing with happiness.  ‘Tobin, no.’

‘Tobin yes.’

‘It’s late.’

‘It’s perfect.’

‘Seriously, Tobs.  It’s so late.  We’ll never get into the right sleep schedule if we just get up and go sightseeing in the middle of the night.’

‘Please?’

So, because it’s clinically impossible to resist Tobin when she smiles like that, off they go.

***

It’s a park, not a pitch, and it’s lit by streetlights not floodlights, and the grass is brown and scratchy from the unexpected good weather, but it might as well be Old Trafford itself.  The air smells of woodsmoke even deep in the city.  Manchester is so different from LA or Portland or even Stockholm, and they’re both eager to love it: hungry for new experiences, more open than ever before to learning and growing.  

‘Don’t you just feel lighter?’ says Tobin randomly as they set up. 

It’s not the word Christen would have picked.  She feels the opposite of light, really - grounded, in a really good way - but that’s what’s so special about Tobin: even when they feel differently, they mean the same.  Ultimately, they both feel free. 

‘Yeah,’ she says softly.  ‘It feels like a fresh start.’

They’d been so lucky in Portland with their access to a field, but it did mean that they’d lost the tolerance for inactivity they’d managed to build up over the early weeks of lockdown.  The first month had been tough.  The initial shock of losing their routine had been tempered by the prospect of spending so much time together, alone and uninterrupted.  They (Christen) had cooked a lot of new recipes and they (Tobin) had taken up a lot of new hobbies and they had had a lot (a lot) of sex.  Then the novelty had worn off and the worry had set in.  It took a while to get their equilibrium back, only for the regulations to ease and the pitches to reopen, and it was almost more frustrating to return to the restrictions after the taste of comparative freedom.  Two weeks cooped up in a foreign country had brought them back to tipping point.  

They do a couple of sprints to shake off the cobwebs, not officially racing but both starved of competition too long not to.  Christen wins and it makes her cocky.  There’s no one she enjoys showing off for more than Tobin, but even if she was alone she’s just so happy to be moving again: she’s not trying to be fancy but there’s a little extra flourish on each kick, a little more ambition to each movement.  They set up a simple, familiar drill, sending the ball back and forth with one and two touches alternately, switching up the tempo to try and catch each other out. 

‘Wanna make this interesting?’ 

‘I’m listening.’ 

‘First to -’  Christen breaks off as Tobin slips the ball through her legs under cover of said listening, managing to maintain an intensely attentive expression until she can’t help herself and breaks into a grin.  Christen tries very hard to glare.  ‘You are such a brat.’

‘Sorry.’  Tobin’s face is notably un-sorry. 

‘It’s 1am.  It’s borderline exploitative of my diminished alertness.’

‘Sorry, your honor?’

‘Ugh, whatever.’  Christen taps the ball back to her and nods towards the goalposts at the further end of the park.  ‘I bet you I’ll be the first to five hitting the crossbar.’

‘Hmm.  And who’s the smart money on, out of the world’s best centre-forward and a blind midfielder?’ 

‘It was going to be first to five nutmegs but you clearly can’t behave, so yes, I get to pick.  And if I win, you have to wear one of those giant hoop earrings on the press call.  Like, the huge ones.  I’m thinking Julia Stiles in Save The Last Dance.’

Tobin groans.  ‘Can we not just stake orgasms like a normal couple?’

Christen flicks the ball up under her arm and holds up a finger.  ‘One, who have you been talking to?  Two, it’s the natural progression for your increasingly flamboyant lockdown earring game.  Three, it would show off your cute little ears.’

‘I have normal sized ears,’ Tobin huffs.  ‘Fine.  If I win, you have to wear my other earring for the call.  My other small earring.’

‘Tobs, that’s codependent even for us.’

‘Equal pay, equal earrings, babe.’

Christen should win, but she’s going for what would be number five when Tobin leans ostentatiously against the side post with a smirk that distracts Christen even in the half-light.  It’s a dirty move which Christen would have zero time for in any other circumstances, but she’s grinning despite herself.  It just feels so normal.  

Tobin makes her fifth shot with a smug smile that Christen wants to kiss off her face, then flings herself down on the ground, limbs stretched like she’s making a snow angel.  ‘You were right, that was an awesome idea.’

‘Happy?’

‘Super.’

‘Tired?’

‘Nearly.  Can we just stay here for a bit?’  Tobin looks up at her, eyes big behind her glasses, and reaches for Christen as she lies down beside her on the grass.  ‘Sometimes I can’t believe how lucky I am, you know?  I’m here, I’m going to get to play again, and I’m with you.’

Christen squeezes her hand.  They’re a touchy-feely couple at the best of times - they’ve had cries of get a room following them around for so long that they barely notice it any more - but she sometimes thinks she likes this best of all: the simple, trusting intimacy of holding Tobin’s hand.  ‘In no particular order, I hope.’

‘You know me.  Saved the best til last.’  Tobin rolls over onto her stomach and swaps out her right hand for her left, lacing their fingers together between them.  ‘I think every day how lucky I am to have you, particularly these last months.  And I don’t know if I’ve said it yet, properly, but I am sorry.  About how I’ve been.’

‘How you’ve been? ’  Christen is usually good at reading between the lines of Tobin’s uniquely agile thought process, but this time she’s baffled.  ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Just… I know I haven’t always succeeded in keeping, like, zen.  And I know the effort is as important as the result and, I mean, I have made the effort, but you’re the one who has to live with the result, so.  Thank you.’

‘Did I make you feel like you weren’t… like the result was bad?’

Tobin raises her eyebrows.  ‘When I knocked that glass off the table the other day I literally thought you were going to zap me with your eyes.’

‘Tobs, no one likes loud crashy noises. I wasn’t mad at you.  My brain just thought I was about to get murdered.’

They’d both had bad days over the last months; who hadn’t?  There were the times - plural - when Christen had looked down at her planner, full of tasks and responsibilities but none of them imposing any kind of structure, and been so overwhelmed she had no idea when to start; when Tobin had sat her down and gone through each item on the list, calm and optimistic, until it all seemed a little more doable.  There was the week when Tobin got quieter and quieter, growing steadily more and more frustrated but unable to explain why, and the day when Christen had come out of her videoconference to see her hunched in the corner of the couch with tears streaming down her face.  

‘No one was prepared for this,’ she adds when Tobin doesn’t reply, choosing her words carefully.  ‘It’s okay not to be okay.  And if it wasn’t clear enough by the fact that I just moved country with you,  there is no one I’d rather spend six months in isolation with.’

‘I know you always saw yourself back here.’

‘Here, Europe?’

‘Yeah.’

It’s not the response Christen expected.  ‘Maybe.  I mean, I loved Sweden, and I don’t have what you have with the Thorns at home, but… I don’t know.  It’s like I’d just gotten to the point where everything felt settled with my career.  So much for that.’  She knows there’ll always be an element of what if, no matter what happens next.  Christen may be her own harshest critic, but she’s not blind, and she’d honestly been playing so well.  ‘I actually thought you’d be the one to go back.’

Tobin shrugs, picking at the grass.  ‘I don’t know.  If you’d wanted to.’

‘Tobin soccer-junkie, never-ending-ascension Heath?  Turning down the next big adventure?’

‘We have to call it football now,’ points out Tobin.  ‘I’m not saying I’d never have wanted to go.  I just mean, I think I’d really struggle at this point to be somewhere you weren’t.  Like, long-term.  And I don’t think that’s codependent, or not in a bad way.  It’s just a case of what you prioritize.’

Christen feels a rush of tenderness and reaches across to run a hand over the back of Tobin’s head, tugging affectionately at her ponytail.  ‘You know we’re always together, right, even when we’re not?  I hold you in me all the time.  That wouldn’t go away, even if we had to be apart for a while.’

‘I know.  But it would still suck.’

That’s certainly true, so Christen just squeezes her hand again.  It feels very still.  The moon is out and there aren’t a ton of stars visible, but when she was researching the area she found that there’s a National Park nearby with an official Dark Sky Discovery Site, which could be fun once they (realistically, mainly Tobin) have worked out how to drive on the left.  It’s still kind of new, this habit of planning activities.  When they were going back and forth between Portland and SLC there’d always been a temptation to nest rather than explore, recovering from the travel and relishing being in apartments which most of the time felt lonely.  Now they live together properly, all the time, they can do a two hour round trip to look at some stars and still know that the next day is theirs too, and the next, and the next, to fill however they like.  They’re not snatching time any more.  They’re not living in the space between national team camps.  They’re living the way Christen suspects they were always meant to. 

‘I’m at peace with this, I think,’ says Tobin suddenly.  ‘However it goes now.’

Christen gets to her feet and reaches for Tobin’s hands to haul her up, pleasantly fatigued in a way she knows will mean she gets some real sleep once she gets back into bed.  She loops her arms easily around Tobin’s neck and kisses her gently, their foreheads meeting, sinking into each other.  An exhale, after the breath they’ve been holding for months.

‘My most important job,’ she says, as they start the walk home, to their home, ‘is being yours.’

I wear another thought of you

There's so much home I give to you

Hide you somewhere they don't know

Deep in my call you know you have a throne

               - 'Truth is a Beautiful Thing', London Grammar