Chapter 1
Hope POV:
I’m sitting at dinner. My teammates surround me, but none of them pay me any attention. I’m sitting at a table by myself, scrolling through my phone, waiting for it to be time for me to go back to my room where I can be alone. Where I don’t have to deal with their looks, their whispers, their open alienation. For now, though, I glance up at them. Carli is sitting with a few of the girls, laughing at something they said. She glances at me, I give her a small smile, but she shakes her head at me with a glare, before turning away again.
I look at Kelley, the woman who caused all of this. She’s surrounded by her friends, my teammates. They sit around her, like a wall, protecting her from me. I shake my head and look back to my phone. I quickly finish eating my food and walk out, ignoring the looks I get as I walk by.
I lay down in my bed, sighing to myself. I used to have friends on this team. I used to have Carli. I used to have Christie. I used to have Becky. Now they all think I’m a monster. They think I, the big bad Hope Solo, hurt the team’s most innocent. I let them think what they want. No one has asked me what really happened, no one cares how I feel. They have her back and they made that clear from the second she and I got together.
I feel tears well up in my eyes. I shake myself out of it before I allow myself to feel the pain I’ve kept inside for 6 months now. I hear Ali come into the room so I grab my book and pretend to read it. Ash is with her. I glance up, but only receive a heavy glare from my fellow keeper. I look away, not allowing her to see the hurt that undoubtedly flashed through my eyes.
Training the next morning is terrible, for me, just like it has been every day since the breakup. The girls don’t hesitate to get physical with me, nail a shot right at me, or make snide comments at me in passing. I see a cross come in and I go out to cut it off when I feel cleats hit my thigh. I hit the ground, in pain, and look up to see Alex looking down at me.
“What the fuck, Morgan?” I say through the pain. She doesn’t respond to me. She just walks away. I look at my thigh to see blood. “Great.” I say to myself, forcing myself to get up, with no help from my teammates. I go to the medical staff to have them bandage me up. While they’re working on me, I scan the field, looking for her. We make eye contact and she looks at me guiltily. I roll my eyes at her and shake my head. She’s allowing this to happen. She’s playing the victim.
"Hope, be my girlfriend.” I hear her say. We were in our hotel room, naked, recovering from what we had just done, when I hear it. We were in London, at the Olympics. I snap my head towards her, in shock. “What?” I ask. Did I hear her right? “Be my girlfriend.” She says again, looking at me with her hazel eyes, the city lights bouncing off of them through the window. I hesitate. Can I really be official with a woman? Yes, I have feelings for her. Yes, I’m falling for her. No, I don’t care about what people think. “Okay.” I whisper back.
She smiles and leans in to kiss me again. I feel her hand run smoothly down my body and I moan when it reaches its destination.
I tell Carli the next day. I expect her to be happy for me. I expect her to make a sarcastic remark, but no. “Hope, you’re going to fuck this up. You’re gonna hurt her. She can’t take being hurt by you. This isn’t one of your experiments, this impacts the whole team and when you fuck it up, they are gonna be on her side, not yours.” She said to me.
I furrow my eye brows. “I’m not gonna fuck it up, Car. I’m falling in love with her. I’ve never felt like this before.” I tell her, looking in her eyes so she knows I’m telling the truth. She shakes her head slowly. “Okay, Solo. Just don’t do anything stupid. I’m proud of you.” She says, leaning in to give me a hug.
I go straight back to my room after training, like I always do. I don’t want to see anyone. I don’t want to deal with them. They’re doing some sort of team-bonding exercise today. I don’t want any part of it. They don’t treat me like I’m part of the team. Hell, if they didn’t need me to help them win, I’d be back in Seattle by now. But I’m not. I’m here, in California, training for the 2015 World Cup.
I shake my head. I’m the team punching bag for the second time in my career, but this time? This time it is not from my own doing. It’s hers. She lets them treat me this way. She lets them think she’s the victim. I do too. They wouldn’t believe me if I told them the truth anyway. I sit in my room, flipping through the channels when Ali comes in from training, by herself this time. She looks at me.
“How’s your leg?” She asks, quietly. I look at her, surprised. “Fine.” I say, shortly. I see her nod out of the corner of my eye. I don’t feel badly for being cold with her. She’s no better than the others. She may not go out of her way to make my life miserable, but she watches it happen and does nothing to help me. “Are you coming to the hunt?” She asks. I look at her. “Why would I?” She looks at me and shrugs. “You’re part of the team.” I roll my eyes. “You know as well as I do that no one wants me there. I’ll just ruin the mood.” She doesn’t respond.
“I want you there.” She says, quietly. “No you don’t. No one does. Kelley will be there and if I go, you know what will happen. I’m fine just staying here, where I’m not gonna get an ‘accidental’ elbow to the eye.” I respond. I hear her sigh quietly then hear a knock at the door. She answers it and Ashlyn and Kelley walk in.
Kelley looks at me sadly while Ashlyn refuses to give me the time of day. “You ready, Al?” Ashlyn asks. Ali nods and walks out behind her, glancing over at me on her way past. Kelley lingers for a minute. “I’ll catch up with you guys.” She says to them. Ashlyn stops. “No, Kell. Don’t let her do this to you again. She’s only gonna hurt you.” I roll my eyes.
“What, Solo? You have something to say?” She asks, approaching me aggressively. I look up at her and raise my eye brows, but I don’t move to stand. “What are you gonna do, Ash? Hit me?” I ask her, challengingly. Kelley moves to stand between us. “Just give me a minute, Ash. Please.” Kelley says. Ali comes back in to grab Ashlyn’s hand, dragging her out behind her. Ashlyn leaves, but not before shooting me one last glare.
I immediately move back in my bed to lean against the headboard. “What do you want?” I ask her, coldly. This is the first time since she hurt me that we’ve been in a room alone together. She looks down. I roll my eyes. “Kell, if you came here to make me feel badly then just leave. We both know you aren’t the victim here.” I say. I’m so sick of her playing the ‘innocent little southern girl’ card.
“Hope, I’m so, so sorry.” She said, softly. I shake my head. “That means nothing to me.” I respond. She nods. “I know.” She says. “Why are you here then?” I ask. I need to know what her angle is here. She looks up at me. “Come to the scavenger hunt.” She says. I scoff at her. “For what? So the team can isolate me some more? So you can allow them to? So you can play the victim? No. I’m not coming and the fact that you had the nerve to come here and ask me to, after everything you’ve done, blows my mind.” I say, angrily.
She sighs. “Okay.” She whispers. “Are you really gonna continue to let them think I’m this monster? Are you gonna let them continue to do this” I motion to my leg “to me?” She looks down. “I didn’t tell them that you hurt me, they just assumed. And I didn’t correct them.” She pauses. “I should have. Corrected them, I mean. You don’t deserve this.” I roll my eyes at her. “Oh, I don’t deserve to get my heart broken into a million fucking pieces and then get blamed for it?” I glare at her. She looks away. “I’ll tell them. If you want me to, I’ll tell them what happened.” I shake my head. “Don’t bother.”
“Well I better get down to the lobby. They’re probably waiting for me.” I nod my head at her. “Hope?” She says. I look at her expectantly. “I never stopped loving you. I made a mistake. But I never stopped loving you.” She said. I feel anger begin to well in my chest. I clench my jaw as she walks away. I don’t respond. I’m afraid of what will come out of my mouth if I do.
I stand up and start pacing, having nothing else to do to try and work off my anger. She fucking breaks my heart. She breaks my heart into a million fucking pieces then she thinks she has the right to come in here and tell me she loves me? I feel the wounds that had just started to heal rip open again. Tears well in my eyes and I let them fall. I sit on the ground and bring my knees to my chest, curling my shoulders in and before I know it, I’m sobbing, by myself.
I hear the door open. I jump to my feet and turn my back to the door, wiping at my face frantically. “Sorry, I forgot my phone. Are you okay?” Ali asks. I stay with my back turned. “I’m fine.” I say. She must have believed me, or she just doesn’t care, because the next thing I know, I hear the door close and I’m alone, once again.