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.
After breakfast, we went to all sit in the lobby for 30 minutes until the coach arrived to take us to the football pitch. The conversation had reverted back to football and they began asking questions, "are you good at football then Rosie?". I wasn't sure how to reply without sounding too big-headed and over confident so I just replied, "I'm alright yeah". Lucy's voice arose from the background, "come on, you have to tell the truth". I looked at her to see her with a big smile on her face. I then turned to the other girls and said, "I'm-...err..I'm actually captain of the U16's at my school and the record goal scorer of the season". I received a lot of shocked faces and 'woah's . Ellen White announced with a light laugh, "looks like I've got competition. Mini Bronze might take my spot". Mini Bronze. It was a nice nickname. I liked being a Rosie Bronze a lot more than I liked being a Rosie Cliff. It just flowed better. It also made me smile every time I heard it.
On the bus, I sat next to Lucy. I leaned against her, my head on her chest as we passed light conversation between us. She was telling me about Manchester, my soon to be permanent home, and I sat up straight. She frowned at me and asked, "you okay?". I replied, "I haven't had a chance to thank you for saving me. I know that your probably very confused about the whole situation and what happened last night and I promise you, I will tell you. It might just take a bit of time, I'm sorry". I could tell she understood as she motioned for me to lie back on her and she whispered, "you don't have to thank me or apologise, I understand baby girl". For the rest of the journey we just stayed like that until we heard the sound of a camera. I groaned towards Lucy, "Millie and rach". She just laughed and said, "just think of all the photos we'll be able to look back on thanks to them". I gave a light laugh, knowing that it was true. I wanted as many photos of us together as possible.
Lucy Bronze's POV:
Rosie joined in with training, Leah had a spare pair of boots in a size 5 that Rosie borrowed for the time being until she got her own. She was actually much better than anyone expected. Her confident aura off the pitch reflected her play on the pitch as well. Just like me, she could run for miles. She was also very versatile, she was a natural forward but defensively, she was incredible. The only think stopping her from being the best, was herself. You could see that every now and then she would back off the ball, almost as if she wasn't trusting herself to play well.
During the break, she looked in pain. She was clutching her rib and her eyes had newly formed tears in them. After she had fallen down in practice yesterday, I had pieced it all together that she had injured her rib. I didn't understand why she didn't tell the nurse, but I wasn't going to tell the nurse myself, that was up to her. Caught up in my thoughts about Rosie's rib injury, I hadn't realised she had gone to the toilets/changing room. I followed after her, hoping to help her with whatever was going on. As I entered, I shouted, "Rosie?! Are you okay?". I heard a weak, "yes, I'm fine", but I didn't believe her. I walked up to the toilet cubicle that she was in and knocked on the door, "do you want to let me in?" I didn't receive a response so I asked again, but firmer. She murmured, "two seconds". I heard the toilet flush, even though I knew she wasn't going to the toilet. She opened the door and walked towards the sink to wash her hands. I followed her and decided to approach the situation calmly. Maybe then she would be more likely to tell me something, "are you okay?". She replied clearly frustrated, "I said I was fine". She began to walk out the door and I grabbed onto her arm to stop her. She just froze. Her face turned to stone. Only her eyes had movement. You could see a battle of pain and fear happening beneath them. I quickly realised that I shouldn't have done that and whispered out, "I'm sorry". This snapped her back into reality and she walked out the door without saying anything.
For the next half of training, Rosie didn't join in. She said she was tired, but I couldn't help think it was something to do with what happened in the changing room. I could see that a flood of bad memories had been let loose in her brain and I felt guilty that I was responsible for that. On the bus, she sat next to Jill and I sat next to Keira. She could tell that something was bothering me, "are you okay? You've been quiet this whole time. That's not like you" I desperately wanted to tell her the situation and see if maybe she could help but I decided to respect Rosie's privacy,so I just told Keira that it was something to do with Rosie. She seemed to understand and left it alone for the rest of the journey. Even though she didn't know what was happening, she was still there for me. Her hand was on top of mine and her thumb was caressing the surface.
After we arrived back at the hotel, we had lunch together as a team. Rosie was still ignoring me, however, I could see it was becoming difficult for her. More than once, I had observed her walk in my direction, remember what had happened, and slowly change direction. It was hard for me too. I wanted nothing more to spend all day with my daughter. Rosie sat with Leah, Jordan and Beth for lunch, she seemed to be having a good time with them, but I wished it was with me. We had a few hours of free-time after lunch, before dinner at 6.30 and then bed at 9.30. Some of the girls chose to go for a swim, have a nap or go into town for their free-time. I decided to go to the room and maybe watch the man city documentary.
Rosie's POV:
After lunch, I went up to the room. I was hoping that Lucy would be there so that we could talk, but when I opened the door, all I received was a loud silence. I was disappointed, but a tiny bit relieved because it meant I wouldn't have to tell Lucy everything...yet.
I started to scroll through Instagram. I texted Amelia: hey, I'm fine. A lot has happened but I'm safe, and I'm with Lucy Bronze 😮. I'll call u later X. Just as I pressed send, Lucy strolled into the room. When she saw me lying on my bed, she immediately smiled and walked over towards me. I moved to the bottom of my bed and gestured that it was okay for her to sit next to me. We both started to speak at the same time. I laughed lightly and said, "you go". She immediately started to apologise,"I'm really sorry for what happened before, I didn't mean for it to happen, I just-...I just don't know a whole lot about parenting, I mean this is as new to me as it is to you and I didn't want to do anything to upset you, especially not on our first day together" she finished, looking relieved, but also a bit sad. I reassured her that it wasn't her fault and she brought me into a hug. A type of hug that made me feel safe and comfortable.
We cuddled up together on my bed, and put on the Manchester City documentary that Lucy wanted to watch. As we were about 35 minutes in, she paused it. I could tell that she wanted to tell me something by the amount of times she began speaking but the words never actually left her mouth. She eventually sat up, faced me and finally let out, "I know about your rib injury". At first, I was shocked at how she knew. I tried to ask her, but now it was my time to be speechless. I eventually managed the words out, not much above a whisper, "how do you know?". To which she replied, "I saw you clutching your rib multiple times today and pieced it together with what happened yesterday at school. It wasn't hard to see to be honest." I decided that if I kept trying to bury the truth, everything would only get worse. I trusted Lucy, after all she is my mum. My brain ached from all the pain and suffering I had endured in silence. Now, someone who truly cared about me wanted to be let into my life, and I wasn't about to stop it from happening.
After I had made my decision, I stood up and paced up and down the room for a bit. Lucy just stared at me, sensing I was about to tell her something serious.
And I was.