You can't be my mum (a Lucy Bronze fanfic) - Book 1

Chapter 9 - you don't have to apologise

Rosie's POV:

The winter sun shone luminously through the hotel room windows. It took me a moment or two to realise where I was. I just smiled silently to myself as I remembered what Lucy had told me yesterday. I still had millions of questions to ask her but I decided it could wait. Lucy had evidently got up earlier than me and headed down to breakfast so I decided I would get ready myself. I tried to have a relaxing shower but it was quite hard. The shower was one of those ones that have loads of different buttons and settings. It was either boiling hot or freezing cold. At home, I just had a simple shower which you turned the handle and it came on, automatically at the perfect temperature. I figured this was the sort of life I had to get used to. Fancy showers and king sized beds to myself.

After my shower, I found a pile of clothes and a pair of shoes left at the foot of my bed with a note on top: if you wake up before i'm back from breakfast, you can wear these until we get you measured for your own :) Lucy x. The first thing I noticed was how neat her handwriting was. A few years ago, Amelia had told me that you can tell a lot about a person based on their handwriting and I had belived it since then. The clothes that Lucy had left for me were hers. There was a training top, a t-shirt and a pair of joggers. They all had the number 2 engraved in white writing. I pulled the clothes on. They were a little big as she was 5"6 with prominent muscles and I was only 5"4 with no fat, let alone muscles. I applied some numbing cream to my ribs as they were still aching off yesterday and I put my brown, straight hair up into a neat ponytail. After meeting with the captain, Steph, and the head coach, Serena, I felt more at ease about meeting the rest of the team. I already knew a few players from them coming to my school such as Lauren, Steph, Ellen, Keira and obviously Lucy. 

I made my way out of the hotel room after folding my towel and making the bed. I stepped into the lift and I saw that Beth Mead was standing there, clearly very late for breakfast. She smiled at me and frowned at the clothes I was wearing. Probably wondering why I had Lucy's training kit on. She continued to stare at me, making me feel very uncomfortable, before suddenly exclaiming, "aha, you're Lucy's daughter aren't you?" I just laughed lightly and nodded. I replied, "that obvious?" as I gestured to the clothes. She nodded and held out her hand as she introduced herself, "nice to meet you, i'm Beth. Rosie isn't it?". I replied, "yes, nice to meet you too" as I shook her hand. I was relieved that I wouldn't have to walk in the dining hall alone. I could already imagine all the turned heads and staring eyes. 

Me and Beth made light conversation as the lift made it's way down to the ground floor and it dinged to signal we were at our destination. This was it. We walked towards the double doors and Beth gave the security guard our names, "Beth Mead and Rosie....Bronze?" she turned towards me and I just smiled. The doors were opened for us and I saw around 30 people sat at a around 6 white, round tables. As I had guessed, everyone turned to see who was arriving but they all took a second look when they saw me. Lucy immediately stood up and made her way towards me smiling, "i'm glad you came down" she said as she put a protective arm around my shoulders and pulled me into a hug. I sensed that everyone was still staring, so I pulled away. Lucy looked confused for a moment before she understood that she hadn't actually introduced me, "Can I please have your attention for two seconds everyone". Everyone focused on her immediately. It shocked me how much they respected her. "Okay, so this is my daughter Rosie. She's 15 and will be joining us for the rest of camp." People were already starting to shout out questions such as "do you play football too?""who's your favourite player?". Lucy added to her little speech, "and please guys, don't bombard her with questions". After she had finished speaking, I answered a few questions. Everyone was so welcoming and seemed to enjoy having a new face joining them for a bit. I decided that I could definitely get used to this.

I followed Lucy over to the table where her, Keira, Rachel, Millie and Mary were sitting. They all immediately introduced themselves and Rachel immediately asked, "now that they're all gone, who's your favourite player". I pretended to think long and hard about it before pointing towards Lucy. All the other 4 girls rolled their eyes as Lucy said "obviously" as she placed an arm around my shoulders, smiling. Both Millie and Rachel started taking pictures of us while saying, "awww. Cute moment". Almost immediately, Lucy took her arm away and returned to her enormous breakfast of porridge, crossiants, fruit and a protein shake. Ellen came up to the table with a huge plate of food, handed it to me and said "Eat. All of it". I loved food, I had just never had enough of it. I began eating eagerly, as I couldn't remember the last time I had eaten a proper, sufficient size meal. General conversation flowed between me and the other girls as we all continued eating our breakfast. Soon, I had returned back to my confident, happy self, making jokes everywhere. I had made Rachel, Keira and Millie go into stitches of laughter and Millie struggled out, "she's funny Luce, definitely your daughter". This made me, and evidently Lucy, happy that I fitted in so well. Despite all the terrible things going on in my life, laughter and making other people laugh had always been so important to me. Seeing someone laugh with me until they could barely breathe was what had kept me together.