Chapter 16
Hope wakes up to the smell of coffee. It’s not a natural smell to wake up to in a hotel room, but when she opens her eyes to see a Starbucks cup sitting on her bedside table, she only feels relief. She fell asleep only a few hours ago and her body is making her pay for the lack of rest with a massive headache.
She looks over her shoulder to see Lily and Kelley sitting on the other bed. Kelley has a coffee cupped in her hands, while Lily is eating some fruit out of a plastic cup. That’s when the memories of last night come flooding back into her mind.
The coffee no longer smells appetizing and the thought of spending the day with Kelley after what said makes her want to crawl back under the covers and disappear. Instead, she silently sits up at the edge of the bed, facing away from Kelley.
She can feel Kelley staring at her, as she wipes the sleep from her eyes and makes her way to the bathroom, without sending so much as a glance her way. She turns on the shower, knowing full-well that she just showered before bed last night.
She needs time to think. Think about how she’s gonna handle this. How she’s gonna talk to Kelley with doubts lingering in the back of her mind. How she’s gonna put on an act in front of Lily so the child doesn’t think anything’s seriously wrong.
As she steps out of the shower, she faintly hears the sound of the door to the room open and close and a man’s voice sound. Just as she pulls her shirt over her head, she hears Kelley saying ‘thank you’ and the door opens and closes, once again.
“Jerry took her for the day.” Kelley mentions, softly, as Hope walks back into the room. Hope doesn’t respond, just looks into the mirror and rubs her hair with her towel. “I told her I would take her swimming.” Hope finally responds, after a few seconds of the TV acting as background noise to their uncomfortable silence.
Kelley lets out an airy chuckle. ‘Of course, that’s what she’s concerned about.’ She thinks. “I’m sure she’ll be fine if you put it off until tonight.” Hope shrugs and makes her way back over to Lily’s bed, where she plops herself down and takes her phone off the charger.
Kelley watches, as Hope scrolls through whatever app she’s chosen. “Are you just gonna ignore me?” Kelley asks, bluntly. Hope gives her a glance. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to talk or not.” She fires back. “Seems like you just want me to shut up and nod my head.” She mumbles, just loudly enough for Kelley to hear her.
The bartender sighs, audibly. She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t know what to say to Hope to make this better. She could say that she ‘didn’t mean it’ or ‘it came out wrong’, but Hope wouldn’t believe her. The goalkeeper would only shrug it off and crawl further into her own head.
Hope continues scrolling, mindlessly, through Facebook. Kelley sits on her bed and keeps her eyes focused on the television, while she tries to come up with a way to fix this.
The sound of a vibration cracks the silence. Kelley looks at her lit up screen on the bedside table. Kyle’s face looks back at her and she contemplates ignoring the call, before giving in.
“Hello?” She answers. She ignores Hope, who rolls her eyes. Hope watches, as Kelley stands and grabs the room key off of the bureau and makes her way out of the room.
Hope checks her email to distract herself from the fact that Kelley clearly didn’t want her listening in on the conversation she’s currently having with her ex-boyfriend. ‘URGENT’ Hope reads the subject line of the email and notices it’s from Jill.
A friendly was scheduled, ladies. We’re hosting Columbia in Seattle on February 18th. It’ll be a great warm-up for the Algarve. This also means camp is starting a little bit earlier than we anticipated. Location, date, and times of all events are written below. We expect everyone to be at the top of their fitness level. All 25 of you will be expected to attend camp and be ready to go.
Camp:
Location: Seattle, WA
Start date: January 17th
End date: February 20th
Algarve:
Travel day: February 22nd
Camp: February 24th – March 5th
Game 1: March 6th
Hope, Pinoe, Carli: We will be expecting at least one team-bonding party, of some sort, for one of you to host. Seattle is your home, after-all.
Be ready to play.
- Jill
Hope sighs, as she reads through the list of players that were included in the group-email. Ashlyn Harris. Ali Krieger. She really shouldn’t be so caught off guard. Ash has been invited to every camp for the past couple of years and any coach would be an idiot to leave Ali off the list, but the goalkeeper had hoped that she wouldn’t have to deal with them until the tournament starts.
Her train of thought is broken by the sound of the key card sliding into the door, followed by Kelley walking back inside. Hope looks up at her, but Kelley is looking down at her phone, clearly distracted. Neither of them say anything.
Kelley sits on the bed with her phone in her hand, while Hope sends a text to Carli about the newly-scheduled friendly. “I’m bringing her to meet him tomorrow.” Kelley blurts out. Hope’s eyes snap up to meet Kelley’s.
The goalkeeper wants to argue, but she doesn’t bother. Her opinion isn’t valued and it will only cause more awkward-tension to fill the room. So, she nods her head, distractedly, before shifting her focus back to the electronic device in her hand.
She’s not really looking at her phone, but it saves her from having to look Kelley in the eye. The last thing she wants to do right now is get into another argument with her girlfriend.
She faintly hears Kelley stand up from her bed, but before she knows what’s happening, her phone is being taken out of her hands and thrown, aimlessly, to the foot of the bed. “What the fuck?” She says, surprised. Kelley just plops down next to her.
Hope shifts her body, so she’s leaned up against the headboard, sitting up, with her legs sprawled in front of her. Kelley faces her, and allows her legs to dangle off the edge of the bed.
“I’m sorry.” She says, trying and failing to get Hope to look at her. “I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t mean what I said.” She continues. She brings her right hand to rest on Hope’s knee, willing the goalkeeper to believe her.
“Your opinion matters more than anyone else’s does, Hope. You’ve spent more time with Lil than anyone other than me. And Donna.” She adds in the babysitter, knowing Donna’s done more for them than she can every repay her for.
Hope shrugs, indifferently. “It’s fine.” She states, halfheartedly. Kelley deflates. This is what she didn’t want to happen. She wants Hope to believe her, not give her some half-assed response to deflect any real conversation.
“Hope.” Kelley whispers. The tone catches the goalkeeper’s attention and Hope finally looks up to make eye contact. “If this is gonna be a problem between us, I need to know that. I care about you, but I’m not gonna change my mind just because you don’t agree with me.”
Hope shakes her head, defensively. If Kelley was trying to de-escalate things, she sure did a shitty job of it. “Fuck you, Kelley. Don’t turn this around on me. I’m allowed to have opinions, I’m not some piece of ass that’s gonna follow your every fucking direction. I don’t agree because it’s gonna bite you in the ass when he leaves again. But she’s not my kid so my opinion doesn’t mean anything.” She states, pointedly.
Kelley visibly deflates at the words. She takes a few seconds to gather her thoughts. “I know.” She nods, slowly. “I know you have opinions, Hope. We aren’t always gonna agree. And your right, she’s not your kid.” Hope scoffs and looks away.
“Stop.” Kelley pleads, reaching out to rest her hand on Hope’s forearm. “Let me finish.” Hope hesitates, before agreeing to hear her out. “I have to do what I think is best for her. I’m sorry that you don’t agree with me, but I’m not gonna change my mind. That doesn’t mean I don’t value your opinion, because I do. This is just something I have to do for Lily. I have to give her the chance to have a relationship with Kyle.” She stops to gauge Hope’s reaction.
“I need you to support me on this, Hope. I need you to trust me. I need you to be here for us if things don’t go the way I want them to. She’s not yours, biologically, she’s his. But, realistically, she’s more yours than she ever was his.” Hope keeps her eyes on her lap, while she listens to what Kelley has to say.
“I was stressed. I was stressed and angry. That’s no excuse for what I said or how I said it. I shouldn’t have yelled. I shouldn’t have gotten in your face like I did and I shouldn’t have said what I did.” Kelley states. Hope clenches her jaw, but doesn’t respond. Kelley gets onto the bed with Hope and moves so she’s straddling her legs, sitting on her thighs.
“I didn’t mean it. I was an idiot. I’m so sorry I hurt you.” Kelley says, before reaching out to move a stray piece of hair behind Hope’s ear. The goalkeeper nods and glances up to meet Kelley’s eyes. “I know.” She whispers. Kelley bites her lips, but nods in understanding. She isn’t forgiven, yet.
“You can’t yell at me like that, Kelley. I don’t care how pissed off you are at me; you can’t get in my face like that. You fucking scared me.” The goalkeeper says, seriously. Kelley’s chest aches at her words, but she knows she was way out of line last night. Hope has every right to be upset.
“I know. I’m not gonna make excuses. I was wrong, I get that. It won’t happen again.” Hope accepts that, for now. If it does happen again, she’s not sure how she’ll handle it. This isn’t the first time Kelley’s flown off the handle, a little bit.
Kelley reaches out and places her hands on the back of Hope’s neck. “Lily loves you. You know that, right?” She asks, seriously. Hope has to know how much that kid loves her. The goalkeeper nods. “I love her too.” She responds, simply.
Kelley looks at her, seriously. Hope tilts her head, trying to gauge where Kelley’s going with this. Kelley sighs and looks down at the white bedsheets. “I don’t want you to think I’m saying this to get myself off the hook, but I need you to know how I feel. I need you to know that your opinion matters, to me.” She looks up to lock eyes with the thoroughly confused goalkeeper.
“I just…I love you.” She lays it all out there. Hope furrows her eyebrows and shakes her head, a little bit, at the revelation. She looks at Kelley, who’s looking right back at her. “You don’t have to say it back. I just need you to know.” She repeats the last part. Hope doesn’t respond for a few seconds, before changing the subject completely.
“Where are you bringing Lil to meet him?” Hope asks, choosing to ignore Kelley’s statement. Kelley falters, slightly surprised that she didn’t get a direct response to something, she considers to be, important. “Uh-I’m…We’re going to a park downtown.” She stutters out. Hope nods, in response.
“I was thinking, since Jerry has Lil until 9 tonight…maybe we could do something? Like a date?” Kelley asks. She’s surprisingly nervous about Hope’s response. After everything that happened last night, along with Hope’s indifference, she’s not sure if the goalkeeper would want to go out with her on these terms.
Hope nods, though. “Sure.” She answers, simply. Kelley gives her a small smile. She pats Hope on the thigh, before standing up. “I’m gonna go shower. We can leave in like an hour.”
They don’t end up leaving the hotel until 5. Kelley seems to have a good idea of where she wants to go. So they get an Uber to drive them. Hope notes the address on the driver’s GPS, but has absolutely no idea where they’re going.
When they pull up to a large house that sits in a rather secluded area, Hope feels uncharacteristically nervous. She doesn’t ask questions, though. She simply follows Kelley’s lead and gets out of the car. They walk down the long driveway. “This is where I grew up.” Kelley says, softly.
Hope sees a familiar car in the driveway, the same car she had seen at the wedding rehearsal. “Do they know we’re here?” She asks, already nervous about having to face Kelley’s parents. “They know we’re coming. I think my dad is starting to feel guilty about everything and talked my mom into ‘allowing’ us to come over. He said they’d be civil.” She rolls her eyes, a bit, at their ignorance.
Kelley doesn’t knock on the front door; she just walks inside. They’re met with a barking dog, who Kelley calls ‘Rudy’. He’s a chocolate lab who looks to be rather young. Kelley’s mom walks out of the kitchen to see what the fuss is about.
“Oh, hi.” She says, clearly not happy about their presence. “Hi” “Hi, Mrs. O’Hara.” Kelley and Hope blurt out at the same time. “I just want to show Hope around, then we’ll be out of your hair.” Kelley says, simply.
“Where’s Lily?” Karen asks, looking around to see if they brought the girl with them. “Jerry has her for the day.” Karen nods and gives them a tight-lipped smile. “I’ll come say ‘bye’ when we’re done.” Kelley states, before grabbing Hope’s hand and leading her upstairs.
They walk down a short hallway. “This was my room.” Kelley mentions, as she opens the door. Kelley hesitates in the doorway, before walking inside. “They didn’t change anything.” She states. She looks around at the bureau, the posters on the wall, the pictures that sit on the shelves, the comforter that still sits on the queen-sized bed.
Hope goes straight to the photos. “How old were you?” Hope asks with a smile. She holds up the picture frame to Kelley. “I don’t know, like 4?” Kelley answers, questioningly. She has no idea when that photo was taken, but she takes an educated guess.
“When was that?” Hope asks, pointing to a picture of Kelley and Kyle. Kelley’s in a dark blue dress that flows down to her ankles. Her hair is in an up-do, while Kyle is in a tuxedo. “Senior prom.”
Kelley steps in front of Hope, facing her, and wraps her arms around her waist. She tucks her head under the goalkeeper’s chin. Hope sighs into the embrace, her eyes still scanning the photos in front of her. A young Kelley playing soccer. Kelley with her friends. Kelley with her first pet dog. It’s like a photo timeline of Kelley’s entire life.
Hope places a kiss to the top of Kelley’s head. “I love you too.” She mutters into Kelley’s hair. The shorter woman steps out of the embrace to look Hope in the eye. She cracks a smile, before leaning up to kiss her.
It’s Hope, who deepens the kiss. It’s Kelley, who closes the bedroom door and leads Hope to her bed. It’s Hope, who takes off Kelley’s shirt, but it’s Kelley, who flips Hope onto her back and places herself between the goalkeeper’s legs. Hope mutters an ‘I love you’ right before she falls over the edge.
“Kelley, how much longer do you think you’ll b-“ Karen walks into the room to her topless daughter in between a woman’s legs, her mouth on her inner thighs, her fingers still inside of her. Kelley’s eyes almost pop out of her head, as she removes herself from Hope and takes about 10 steps away from her, leaving Hope exposed.
Hope instantly tries to cover herself up, her skin turning red from embarrassment. “I-uh…we’re not gonna be much longer.” Kelley blurts out, her cheeks bright red, as she throws her shirt back over her head. Karen remains frozen in the doorway; her angry eyes burn through her daughter’s skull.
Hope found a small blanket at the bottom of the bed to cover herself with. She keeps her eyes planted to the bedding, unwilling to look up at an angry Karen, who has yet to say anything. “Get out of my house, Kelley. Bring your filth with you.” She growls out, motioning towards Hope. She storms out of the room, slamming the bedroom door behind her.