What are we?
Christen is moving on. She started to believe she has moved on. The last few days since the start of the camp, she was able to distance herself away from Tobin and the midfielder doesn’t seem to notice it. She was busy regaling the stories of her weekend gate away with her girlfriend to Kelley and Ashlyn.
But then when she heard Tobin’s happy voice, she felt her heart broke into tiny little pieces. Maybe she haven’t move on. Distance should help. So she just kept to herself for the remaining days in the camp and Tobin never searched for her.
“They broke up.” Ash said.
“Tobin found her with another girl on their bed.” Alex explained.
“She’s devastated.” Kelley lamented.
“Tobin missed you.” Allie pleaded when Christen didn’t pick up any of Tobin’s call or reply any of her messages.
“She’s just using you.” Julie reminded her.
Christen just nodded her head and doesn’t say anything when her teammate said anything about Tobin.
Since the midfielder had issues with her back, she was being ruled out from the camp and Christen felt that she can relaxed for the first time. She doesn’t have to pretend to be happy for Tobin anymore.
They don’t have any National games scheduled for the next 6 months so Christen packed up her stuff in LA and move to Sweden. She convinced herself that it was just so she can learn new experience in a foreign country and environment and not to distance herself away from Tobin. No. Not everything is about Tobin.
There was no further communication between them. It was broken the day Tobin has a girlfriend and neglect to inform her about it. It became unrepairable when she didn’t even acknowledge the distance Christen felt between them and tried to amend it.
“She joined PSG.” Ali said as soon as Christen picked her up from the Sweden’s national airport.
“Good for her then.” Christen replied back solemnly.
Paris. Now it added few more thousands miles between them. Christen released a sigh of relief.
Her heart start to mend itself slowly for every goal she scored. The euphoria feeling or winning give her the joy and contentment feeling like she never felt before and she didn’t want to lose it. She kept scoring one after another.
Until her eyes met Tobin’s again on the final match in Women Champions League. When her team won, she doesn’t feel any joy at all. Tobin devastated face doesn’t allowed it. Then she realised she’s not over the brown hair midfielder. Oh.
She remained stoic when they met again in camp.
“Hey…” Tobin greeted sheepishly.
Christen looked up from the magazine she was reading to address Tobin. She was currently waiting for Julie in the hotel lobby.
“Hey…” Christen greeted back.
“Erm…do you mind if I sit here?”
Christen looked at the empty chair in front of her and shook her head. “No. Go ahead.”
She continue reading the magazines. She need to start over the paragraph again. Her brain goes blank when her eyes met Tobin. From the corner of her eyes, she watched Tobin pulled out her phone and played with it. They remained quiet and she was able to ignore the presence in front of her until Julie called her name.
“Bye.” Tobin said.
Christen didn’t say anything in reply.
It seems that every corner she turned, Tobin was there.
She was having breakfast with Ali when suddenly Alex and Tobin walked into the café. They decided to join them. Christen cut their breakfast short leaving the three behind after citing the need to see Jill about something. Which basically not a lie. She did see Jill but it was just a short ten minutes brief.
When Dawn asked her to pick up an ice box from the locker, she doesn’t hesitated to do so. But she stop at the door when she saw Tobin and Kelley still in the locker.
“Ice box.” Christen said in explanation.
She reached the back of the room and grab the ice box holder to pull it when she felt another hand grabbing the box from the other side.
“It’s empty.” Christen started.
“I still want to help.” Tobin insisted.
“Fine.” Christen let go and walked out of the room.
When it became the 7th time it happened (massage room, recovery session, team meeting, dinner and breakfast sitting), Christen new this was not a coincidence anymore.