imbalance | trent alexander-arnold¹

twenty-two.

catch-22 situations

When Wynter finally arrived at Clairefontaine, she initially planned to just greet everyone before heading up to her room to get some sleep but when she found out a certain someone was already there, she shifted her plans for the day. So once she got to her room and got herself comfortably situated, she walked towards this person's room in search of them.

Upon reaching the room, she raised her shaky hand up before she knocked on the door, maintaining a slow pace with her breaths as she waited for the door to be answered. Soon enough, the door opened and revealed Kylian, who smiled at the sight of Wynter. "Hey, Winnie. What's—" He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence as he took notice of the broken and dispirited facial expression on her face, her lips quivering for unknown reasons according to him. He frowned. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Kylian received nothing but sudden tears from Wynter as she fell into his arms, letting out silent whimpers and sobs. The player broke at the frail sight of Wynter seeing she usually wasn't in such a terrible state unless she had a real reason to be in one. He instantly wrapped his arms around her in a comforting manner. "Hey, hey, hey. It's alright," he pulled away a bit so he could look at her swollen face. "Let's go inside then we can talk."

Wynter nodded through her tears, wiping them every now and then as he closed the door behind him. Kylian guided her towards his bed and laid her down slowly before he laid down beside her. While she let her emotions run wild, Kylian remained quiet and stroked her hair, knowing it was an easy way to calm the girl down if she were ever in a distressed state.

Once he felt as though Wynter had finally pacified, he spoke up. "What's going on?"

"Things are just really shit back at Liverpool," she sighed into his chest. "And I don't know what to do."

"Tell me about it," Kylian said, moving her hair to her back.

"Trent and I aren't on the best terms right now because he thinks we don't hangout as much as we used to do, which is true. Ever since my mom brought the case into the picture along with extra therapy sessions and keeping up with football, there was no time for us to hang out outside of football training since my schedule is pretty much packed and will be like that for the next few weeks.

"Obviously, he doesn't know about. . . what happened yet so he thinks the rumours are true and believes I could be cheating on him, which I'm not. During the last training sessions we had, he called me a cheat in front of all of my teammates and coaches because he just found out about the tattoo we got after the World Cup. Then after that, he basically told me that if I didn't tell him what was going on outside of training we would take a break. So, I refused to tell him and now, I guess we're taking a break."

"Shit, Winnie. I'm so sorry that happened," Kylian said, a look of sympathy on his face. "Are you sure you are really on a break? Maybe it's just a little argument that you're going through together."

Wynter wiped away a tear that escaped her eye. She shook her head. "Nope, we're definitely not. We barely even argue and when we do, we apologise to each other within the time span of twenty-four hours, but it didn't happen this time. We haven't talked to each other since the last Liverpool match which was five days ago. He hasn't texted me, called me, nothing. He wants nothing to do with me and I see why he doesn't want to anyway."

Kylian sat up as he glanced at his friend with pity in his eyes. "Winnie, don't blame yourself for the fallout. Yes, maybe you both hurt each other's feelings in the process but don't just say you're the only one who's in the wrong. The two of you are in the wrong but from different perspectives."

"Yeah, I guess, but everything he said is true. I'm not an honest person, I'm constantly lying to him and I hate that he's right because he deserves better than that."