My alarm rang much too soon the next morning. I knew we still had to eat and get on a plane back to England, but the early start seemed unnecessary. Judging by the complaints heard at breakfast and on the bus ride to the airport, it was clear that the team shared my sentiments, too.
The return to English soil was a sweet relief, and the arrival back at St George's even more so. Thankfully, we were only training later that afternoon, so there was time to relax a bit before we launched into prepping for our next game. I spent the time in the common room with three of the other girls playing some cards.
Trudging back onto the pitch was harder than I thought it was going to be. My ego was still bruised from my performance the other day, and as a result my touches lacked confidence, my passing was under par and my morale was nowhere near where it should have been. I had wanted so badly to put the game behind me and move on, but it was proving to be tougher than I expected. Mason had tried several times to boost me up in the training, but even his good mood hadn't managed to lift my foul one.
I tactically avoided the chatty teammates once we were finished and instead kept my head down on the way to the pool. When I felt a hand coming down on my shoulder, I expected it to be Mason or Kyle or someone else checking up on me. The last person I anticipated meeting the eyes of when I looked up was Gareth.
"Hello, Rebecca," he greeted me, shooting me a comforting smile. I wanted to return it, but my stomach had instantly knotted, worried about why the coach would be confronting me. "Can we have a word?"
Tears prickled the back on my throat, but I forced myself to nod. I cursed myself for being one of the first to leave the pitch, because now my teammates were all walking past me, eyeing Gareth and I out unashamedly. I swallowed back my pride and faced my coach, though, trying to ignore the prying eyes and ears.
I had always respected Gareth as a coach. He was quieter than a lot of other coaches I'd had in the past, so I knew that whenever he did have something to say, it would be worth listening to – like right now.
"I just wanted to check up on you, Beck," he started, his voice lowered. "You haven't been yourself today."
I swallowed again, trying to arrange my thoughts. There were so many things that I could have said to him and could have asked him, yet I was at a loss for words. I opened my mouth, but closed it when nothing came out. A moment passed. I cleared my throat, opened my mouth again, but was interrupted before I could say anything.
"I know it wasn't your best game yesterday, and that's okay." I met Gareth's sympathetic eyes, waiting for him to carry on speaking with my heart in my mouth. "I think we both know that yesterday wasn't a reflection of how you play." He paused for a moment. "Look, why don't you cool down and come find me in an hour or so and we can chat properly then."
I nodded eagerly. "I'd like that, please."
Gareth smiled, rested a comforting hand on my shoulder and then returned to the other coaches that were standing in the middle of the pitch.
Some of the stragglers were on their way inside still, so I walked slowly behind them. Butterflies fluttered in my gut at the thought of talking to Gareth later, but I knew that offloading some of my woes to him would be worthwhile at the end of the day. I just needed to get the confidence to actually say what I wanted to.
***
I felt miles better the next morning than I had the previous day. The thought of training no longer intimidated me, but rather excited me. Gareth had inspired a newfound confidence in me that was familiar from the World Cup, and feeling it again was better than I could have appreciated.
The day began with a video session after breakfast. After that, we headed to the gym for what we were warned was going to be a rough session. I got changed and walked in with Abby, meeting Walt, Kyle and Hannah next to the gathering crowd. I met the eyes of Mason from where he stood with Simon, and he shot me a smile. One of the conditioning staff, Paula, gave us a brief breakdown of what we would be doing and then split us into smaller groups.
My group thankfully started at the core station. I paired off with Mason and, as instructed, we fetched a medicine ball. Mason agreed to start with the hard part, so while he took a seat on the floor I re-tied my hair. Paula's whistle went and we started the drill.
"So, you seem in a better mood."
Mason and I hadn't had a proper chance to chat since my conversation with Gareth the previous evening. In our downtime he had been playing pool and this morning I arrived late to breakfast, meaning I sat across the cafeteria from him.
"Much," I agreed, smiling down at him. "I had a really good chat with Gareth."
"Yeah? That's great!" Mason, clearly distracted, almost dropped the medicine ball. A disapproving sound came from one of the assistant coaches walking by, causing Mason and I to break into giggles. "Tell me about it. What did he say?"
"A lot," I admitted, catching the ball again. "But basically he assured me that bad games aren't the end of the world, and that he still has faith in me."
"So everything I said to you the other night?" Mason's grin was cheeky, but I still put a bit more pace on the next ball I threw to him. He laughed as he caught it, catching himself just before the ground. "Come on, tell me the details. I've never had a private chat with Gareth before."
I rolled my eyes. "We spoke for like, forty minutes. I don't know what details to tell you."
"The interesting ones."
Paula's whistle went, instructing us to change positions. Mason stood, nudging my shoulder as he did. I nudged him back, letting out a giggle as he pretended to throw the medicine ball at me.
"At least tell me if he told you any interesting gossip," he teased, grinning down at me this time. I rolled my eyes.
"We weren't there to gossip, Mason. We were there to discuss my bright future in the football world."
I grinned as Mason's eyes lit up. "He said that to you?"
I did a twist and threw the ball back to Mason. "He might have."
"Why do all gaffers like you so much?" he groaned. "It's one thing dealing with you and Frank. I thought I'd come here and get a bit of a break from this favouritism."
"Please, everyone knows you're Frank's golden boy."
"Well, he still loves you." Cheeks red, Mason looked away.
"I can't help that, can I?"
We continued bantering and chatting throughout the next three core exercises before we took a quick water break. We were doing legs next, which was always Mason's worst type of work out. It wasn't as if his legs were particularly small, especially not in comparison to the rest of his body. He was still as strong as anyone on the team, too, so I never understood why he hated it so much. I asked him again before we started.
"I just hate having people stare at my legs." I looked down at them, receiving a light punch in the bicep for the action. "Hart, what did I just say?"
"Sorry," I giggled. "To be honest, they're not even that small. And they're defined as fuck."
"They're still small." Meeting his eyes, the set of his shoulders gave away that he wasn't going to hear my side of this argument.
"I think it's better having definition than size, but what do I know, right?" Mason sighed as I shrugged over dramatically.
"Oh, my God, do you two ever shut up?"
My stomach dropped at the voice, which was filled with condescension. It could only have come from one person, and sure enough I looked over my shoulder to see Lance watching us with scorn.
"Who gives a shit about what their legs look like?"
"Clearly not you," Mason was quick to fire back. I had to hold back a smile as Lance rolled his eyes.
"Just keep it down, oaky? Not everyone needs to hear about how you're Gareth's favourite."
The way Lance said it made me blush with shame at my comments earlier. I looked away, the smile fading from my face as I crossed my arms over my chest, wishing Lance had been placed in any other group.
"Mind your own business, Randall," Mason scoffed. "Trust me, no one needs to hear you complaining, either."
At that moment, Paula's whistle went again, drawing our attention back to the middle of the gym. She instructed the coaches at each station to begin their drills, and soon Lance's comments were at the back of my mind.
As much as I argued with Mason, I also hated doing legs. Recently, I had been extra hesitant of hurting my knee again, and doing jump squats with weights on my shoulders didn't give me the most amount of confidence. But I did as I was told, paying extra attention to the position of my hips and knees relative to my feet.
The first exercise I completed was hard, but doable. My knee felt stiff, but thankfully nothing more than that. Mason was a while away at a balancing mat, and he gave me a questioning glance. I held my thumb up in assurance before leaning down to re-tie my loose shoelace. Chatter started up behind me, but I didn't think much of it.
Finished with my laces, I stood up, about to make my way to the next station. Something blurred in the corner of my eye. Before I could react, an intense pain erupted through my head, originating from my left eyebrow.
I yelled out, my hands flying to the source of the stinging. Curse words flooded from my mouth when I realised what had happened.
"Oh, fuck," I heard someone mumble.
Noise broke out after that; people came to check up on me, people called out questions from far away, and people threw accusations around.
"Beck, are you okay?"
"What happened? Is that Beck?"
"Maybe you should sit down."
"Who did it?"
"Someone should get tissues for the bleeding." I was bleeding?
Meanwhile, I shut my eyes as the throbbing intensified. I felt a hand on my shoulder, heard Paula asking if I was okay. Then the distinctive, loud voice of Mason brought me back to my senses.
"What the fuck Lance, you just smashed Beck in the face!"
"Beck, you need to look at me."
I opened my eyes and immediately wanted to shut them again. Paula was in front of me, turning away as she reached for the ice pack and wad of tissues someone was handing her. But my attentiveness was focused behind her.
Zach was holding Mason back, his hand raised and pointer finger aimed at Lance. Lance stood a few steps away from Mason, looking at me in confusion. Kyle was dragging Lance away, and he wasn't objecting.
I was jolted back to attention by Paula taking hold of my hand. "Rebecca, honey, you need to move your hand, okay?"
I pried my fingers from my eyebrow, wincing. My whole head was aching now, my brain sending waves of discomfort down to the base of my neck. My vision in my left eye blurred and I remembered the comment about the blood. I recoiled as Paula pressed the tissues onto my skin, surprised at the sting.
"Brian, take her to the medic, please?" Paula instructed.
The next thing I knew I was being lead away by one of the assistant coaches. My hand pressed the tissues onto my wound as Brian kept a steadying arm around my shoulders. I felt light headed and wobbly. And sore.
And overall pretty confused.