imbalance | trent alexander-arnold¹

twenty-eight.

she puts the win in wynter

Even before the french girl could've comprehended anything, the second leg against Barcelona approached, much to her dismay. After the Kop presented the player with quite negative hollers in Camp Nou, she was left with a lack of confidence within her playing as well as herself as a person. It tore Wynter to the core knowing that her club's own fans held rage towards her simply because she failed to achieve a conclusive win for the team.

Wynter understood that the fans' views changed from their previous match, however within the match against Barcelona, she wanted to discover whether their views about her were well-enforced or just a facade.

On top of that, the french girl held in a significant amount of curiosity in her interior as to how the game would possibly map out. Even when she isolated herself from her teammates to train independently, Wynter always made sure she pushed herself over her predicted physical limits—running extra laps, constantly practising skills that she deemed difficult or physically challenging and rewatching the first leg to discover where she went wrong. And as much as Wynter benefited from it, the moment she returned back to training with the lads, her productivity reached its peak.

And so even though several nerves raked her figure, she could happily admit that she was physically prepared for the match that laid ahead of Liverpool at Anfield.

When they found a secluded area for themselves to hang around in the meanwhile, Trent stood behind Wynter, their tight physiques close in proximity. His arms draped around her shoulders while her hands found their way towards the scouse's arms, her hands slowly running up and down his arms while she leaned her head back against his chest.

"I don't want to talk to the press. I know there's going to be that one person who will ask me a stupid question," she said, letting a small huff fly free.

"I know you dislike talking to the press, but you have to talk to them because they want to hear from you the most," Trent tried to reason with the player, unclasping his arms around her shoulders and rotated her body around, hands moving to her waist. "For the past two weeks or so, they've heard from everyone on the team except you, so of course they want to talk to you."

"Gee, I wonder why," Wynter rolled her eyes, causing Trent to chuckle at her behaviour.

Trent gave her hips a light squeeze. "You'll have Virgil by your side and the lads and I will be watching from the room so you'll have all the support in the world," he said before he pressed his lips against her own.

"I know, I will," she smiled once she pulled away from his soft touch.

"Little one!" Wynter turned around and caught sight of Virgil approaching the two. "C'mon, it's time to get going."

She groaned in annoyance, tilting her head up with eyes closed. "Oh God, wish me luck."

When she pulled away from his grasps, the scouse took ahold of one of her hands, squeezing it briefly in a reassuring manner. "Believe me, you don't need it," Trent kissed her forehead fondly before he finally let the player off. He offered her a kind smile. "I'll see you in a bit, yeah?"

With a wide grin on her face, she nodded before she followed in pursuit with Virgil. As the two teammates walked alongside each other, the defender started up a conversation, a cheeky smile on his face. "So, I see you and Trent are hitting it off well again."

She nodded, her hands trailing towards her tracksuit pocket. "Thankfully, yes we are and I'm happy because, well, breaking up in the first place wasn't necessarily my decision. So yeah, I'm happy," Wynter told Virgil.

"That's good to hear. You deserve it considering everything that has happened in the past two weeks."

"Yeah, I guess I do," Wynter nodded in agreement, shoving her hands in her pockets. "I don't know why, but other than the court case, it feels so weird that everything's over. For the past few months or so I have had a bunch of weight on my shoulders to tell everyone, especially Trent. Though now, all of that weight is gone and in one way or another, I can finally be at ease because it's not a secret to the public anymore."