“I’m sorry,” you said as your parents dragged you off into the parking lot. Your father shoved you against the car and your mother held him back long enough to check for other people.
“There are no excuses for that bullshit I saw out there! I didn’t pay for you to come all this way to make such a rookie mistake! I thought you were better than that, obviously you’re nothing more than a disappointment.” Your father’s words were harsh, but his hand was harsher. He slapped you across the face and immediately your hand went to cradle where he had hit you. He hit you again, this time slapping your hand as well.
“I really thought you would do better,” your mother said to you as your father continued to hit you. You weren’t sure how long it would go on, but eventually you were on your hands and knees in pain. Your father got into the car and so did your mother. You were about to get into the car whenever Kelley stepped in front of you.
“Come on,” Kelley said and Alex appeared out of nowhere. You could barely hear her screaming at your parents as Kelley took care of you. Alex came back after she was done arguing with your parents and she was holding your suitcase.
“We’d like it if you stayed with us,” Alex said and you nodded.
“If you’re sure I won’t be a bother.”
“Trust us, you could never be a bother,” Kelley assured you.
“But I played like a bother today. I’ve had training, there are no excuses for my booking,” you repeated your father’s words. They were ingrained in you and you hated that more than anything else.
“The only thing that there’s no excuses for is how they treated you. That’s not okay and it’ll never be, but nobody will treat you like that so long as we can help it,” Alex promised. Kelley pulled you into a hug and Alex wrapped her arms around both you and Kelley. You felt safe for the first time forever and a part of you knew that Alex would keep her promise.
You didn’t want anything to ruin your first camp experience. So, it had seemed completely logical to not tell anybody that you had very had anxiety. You took your medicine in private and there weren’t really any triggering experiences for you, so you assumed that it was fine. However, that quickly became a different story when Vlatko announced that you’d be a part of the media day. Talking to a few people was fine, but you’d be talking to everyone and a large part of that would be on your own. Once he had given you the news, you went straight to your room to try and calm yourself down in private.
It didn’t work and every single day leading up to that Friday was absolute hell. You were jumpy, not sleeping well, and had lost a bit of your appetite. Your team moms, Kelley and Alex, had definitely noticed and kept an even more watchful eye on you. You knew that you could go to them, they had told you hundreds of times, but at the same time, you didn’t want to be a burden to them. On the morning of the media day, it seemed that hiding your anxiety was no longer a choice for you.
“Y/n, where are you going?” Alex asked, walking briskly to keep up with you. You had pancakes, which were your favorite, untouched on your plate when you just stormed off. Kelley noticed Alex chasing after you and decided to join in, wanting to make sure that everything was okay with you. “Hey, Y/n, stop.”
“I can’t go, tell him I can’t go,” you said, on the brink of tears. Your heart was racing and you couldn’t breathe. If you didn’t know better, you’d think that your life was at its end. “I can’t, it’s too much, way too much. Please don’t make me go today.”
“What’s wrong?” Kelley asked, putting her arms around your shoulders. “Is it media day?”
“Y-yeah,” you stuttered out through your tears. Alex rubbed circles on your back as Kelley just held you. If you had wanted space, they would have given you that as well, but they both knew exactly how to soothe you. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“Hey, it’s fine. We’ll stay here until you calm down a little, get you something to eat, and make sure that you stay relaxed all day,” Alex promised. Once you stopped crying, they took you back to breakfast and you finished eating. Neither Alex nor Kelley left your side the entire day, and not a single person seemed to care about that. You were lucky to have two people who cared about you so much in your life to look out for you and you knew it. After the media day, they took you out to dinner and then rented a movie for the three of you to watch.
I was going to post a lot this week, but then it turned out to practically be midterm week at school. I was surprised by the number of tests I had to take, so I ended up getting no writing done. I woke up today and was in a mood to write something, so here is more of future Kellex and their adopted daughter.
prompt: A squeal to New Home.
warnings: Swearing.
words: 2333
(Y/N) POV
I couldn't help but look at the messages online as Skye kept her phone in my face to show me all the messages that I had gotten for good luck. I wasn’t entirely surprised about the messages. I had been meeting a lot of former pro soccer players and current pro soccer players. With Kelley and Alex being my moms now, I had met a lot of people that I looked up to.
Kelley and Alex had warned me that they would probably tweet to me today since they couldn’t be here. We had been spending a lot of time around their former teammates and I had become friends with some of them. My favorite to hang out with was Sonnett, so her tweet of good luck definitely didn’t surprise me.
“Dude, you have legends tweeting to you,” Skye said. I knew that she still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that Kelley and Alex had adopted me.
“Skye, I’m just trying to get ready for this game. I need to focus,” I said. Skye shook her head and pulled the phone back to herself. I loved my best friend but we both had very different ways of preparing for our game.
“Who all is supposed to be here?” Skye asked again. This was about the tenth time the midfielder had asked me today who would be coming to watch me. I had gotten tired of repeating myself after the second time. I just wanted to listen to my music and go over the game plan in my head.
“My moms, obviously. They both said that their families were going to try to be here since they’re my grandparents, aunts, and uncles now,” I started. Skye rolled her eyes and I knew that she wanted to know who was supposed to be here that had played soccer. “Christen and Tobin are supposed to be here since they both live in LA. Ali and Ash said that they were going to try to come.”
“I cannot believe that you’ve met Christen Press and Tobin Heath,” Skye said. I chuckled at my friend because I had told her that she could come with me when I met them since Kelley had taken me to work with her one day. Skye had skipped to do something with some of our other friends.
“You do know that they’ve came out and practiced with me, right?”
“You’ve practice with them?” Skye asked. I pulled my headphones over my ears as I turned my music up. I tune Skye out and I knew that she would continue to talk.
It wasn’t much longer before we were supposed to go out on the field. All I wanted to do was play for the State Championship. I was about to get the chance to do exactly that. Kelley had told me that there would be scouts in the crowd, not just for college but for the national team and clubs. I knew that Kelley was pushing me to ignore the scouts that had came out from clubs and wanted me to go to college instead.
I couldn’t think about any of that the second I stepped onto the field. I took a deep breath before I walked out onto the field. I took my spot to play centre-back before the game got started. My only focus was winning a State Championship.
Things kept pretty much in line with how I figured they would go. I had predicated that we wouldn’t allow a goal before half-time. It wasn’t too surprising to me considering we had the best defense in our division. I was a little surprise that we hadn’t scored, however.
Katie was our centre-forward and she was amazing. She was going to go play at UNC once she graduated. Although Katie never said it, we all knew that she was going to be disappointed if we didn’t win the State Championship this year because she hadn’t been able to win it yet and this would be her last year to win. While Katie was the leading scorer of our division, our other two forwards, Olivia and Lauren, helped to allow our team to lead the scoring in the division. They all tended to start the game with an early goal. So, it was surprising that we hadn’t gotten a goal yet.
The most surprising moment was when Katie tumbled to the ground after one of the other defenders made a late tackle. The whistle was immediately blown, but Katie wasn’t getting up. I wasn’t surprised when our coach came onto the field along with one of the trainers. It was a little surprising when Katie was helped off of the field, but Coach didn’t replace her immediately.
“How bad do you think Katie is?” Skye asked me as we headed for the locker room at half-time.
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. It must not have been bad if Coach didn’t replace Katie. There was probably a chance she could continue. “We’ll just have to wait to find out.”
We mostly sat around the locker room as we waited to hear something about Katie. It was a little surprising when Katie came back into the locker room on crutches. Coach was following behind her. We all looked at them for the answers to our questions.
“My ankle is sprained,” Katie said drawing our attention to her. “I’m out for the rest of the game.”
Groans filled the locker room. Katie was our best player. Although, Olivia and Lauren were still playing as our forwards, we knew that our game just got 10 times harder.
“Hey, I know that losing a teammate is hard, but that doesn’t change anything,” Coach said. We looked at him. “We still have a game to win. Erin, you’re going to go in.”
I was a little confused by that because that meant that we would have 5 players playing defense. I knew that this was State, but I didn’t think that we needed 5 players in the back. Not with how good our defense was.
“(Y/N), you’re going to move to centre-forward,” Coach said and I froze. I hadn't played as a forward outside of practice. Although Coach had told me that he wanted to try playing me as a forward, I didn’t think he meant in the State Championship game. I couldn’t focus much on what Coach was saying as I tried to prepare myself to play as a forward rather than a defender. When we were heading out to the field Katie asked me to walk out with her.
“Nervous to play as a forward?” Katie asked.
“That obvious?”
“Kind of,” Katie shrugged. I couldn’t help but be nervous because it had been a while since I had played as a forward. “Just relax and don’t overthink things. You’ll do fine.”
“Thanks, Katie,” I smiled at the older girl.
“Just kick their asses for me?” Katie asked me. I nodded because that definitely was the plan. “Get out there, (Y/N).”
I ran out to the field and joined Olivia and Lauren at the front. The two stopped to talk to me to give me some pointers. I glanced over to the bench to see Skye giving me a thumbs up. I wasn’t too surprised by the shocked looks of my moms. I had told them that Coach was wanting to play me as a forward, but none of us had thought he would this season.
I sighed as I turned my attention to the ball. For the next 45 minutes, my objective was to get the ball to each the back of the net. Things didn’t exactly go my way for about the first 30 minutes. Many of my passes had been intercepted and I couldn’t seem to win any challenges. There was an injury at the 75th minute and I saw Katie waving me over.
“What are you doing?” Katie asked me as soon as I reached her.
“I’m trying to play as a forward,” I said.
“No, you’re trying to play like me,” Katie corrected me. I knew that I had been trying to play like she would. Katie’s style of play worked with our team’s style of play. “(Y/N), you aren’t me. You aren’t Alex Morgan.”
“Thanks for reminding me.”
“You don’t try to play like Kelley O’Hara when you play defense,” Katie pointed out.
“That’s because I’m a good defender. I don’t have to try to play like Kelley did,” I defended.
“You don’t have to try to play like Alex Morgan used to and you definitely don’t have to play like I do, (Y/N),” Katie started as I ducked my head down. “You aren’t me or Alex Morgan, so don’t try to be us. You could be one of the best forwards in the world one day if you would relax and stop trying to play like other people. You aren’t them. You’re (Y/N) Morgan-O’Hara. Own it. Own it as a player. Own it as a person. Once you play like (Y/N) Morgan-O’Hara would, no one is going to be able to stop you.”
“How do you know that?”
“Cause I know (Y/N) Morgan-O’Hara the person, and if she doesn’t let anything off the field stop her, she sure as hell isn’t going to allow anything on the field stop her,” Katie said. She pushed me toward the field as I noticed that we were getting ready to continue playing. “Seriously, go kick some ass.”
I rolled my shoulders back as I sighed but headed out to the field. I rubbed my face before we started playing again. This time I didn’t try to play like anyone else. I just let myself play how I wanted to play.
Even though we kept the ball away from our goal and mostly near the other team’s goal, we weren't able to score. We had gotten some good looks, but we weren’t able to turn them into goals. It wasn’t until the 90+3′ minute that I had gotten the ball and started to head for the goal. The goalie came off of her line, and I nutmegged the defender in front of me before sending the ball soaring to the back of the net. I held my breath when the goalie’s finger tips brushed against the ball, but it hadn’t been enough to keep the ball out.
A lot of bodies collided into mine as my teammates gave me hugs. I knew that we could celebrate, but my focus was on holding off the other team for another minute or two until the final whistle blew. Once the final whistle did blow, my teammates were once again hugging me. Skye and I did our handshake before I made my way over to Katie.
“I told you, (Y/N). You just gotta play your own style,” Katie said.
“How does it feel to finally have a State Championship?” I asked Katie as I pretended to have a mic.
“Oh, it feels amazing. I’ve been trying to do this for the past four years, but this year was special so I’m happy that this was the year that we won. If you think I’m good, keep your eye on my girl (Y/N) Morgan-O’Hara cause she is gonna kill it and no one is gonna be able to stop her,” Katie said. We both started to laugh before we were able to control our laughter. We headed to the field to take a picture with the team and the trophy. “Seriously, (Y/N), you can be one of the best if you just play like yourself.”
“Thanks.”
“Now you just need to join me at UNC in a couple of years,” Katie said.
“I’m pretty sure my moms would die if I did that. One wants me to go to Stanford and the other wants me to go UC Berkeley,” I said. Katie laughed at me but I was just lucky that I didn’t have to decide for a couple more years.
We took pictures before I went to talk to my moms. I was wrapped into a hug by Tobin first. When she pulled back, Christen gave me a smile. I didn’t blame Christen for not wanting to hug me. I was sweaty.
“That was a great nutmeg,” Tobin grinned and I chuckled. “I could see you as taking up my title.”
“No one could ever do that,” I shook my head.
“It was a good goal,” Christen said.
“Thanks.”
I smiled and they let me go past them. Ali and Ash wrapped me into a hug before I could take a step past Tobin and Christen. I let out a small groan, but it only cause Ash to laugh.
“I would have stopped your goal,” Ash said.
“Sure, you would have.”
“You know you wouldn’t have been able to, Ash,” Ali added with a laugh. I let the two of them argue about it and I was a little surprise when Tobin and Christen joined in. I grinned when my parents hugged me.
“You did amazing out there tonight, (Y/N),” Alex started. “I don’t care what anyone else says, you were good.”
“Don’t listen to her, (Y/N). She’s lying,” Kelley denied. Alex slapped Kelley’s shoulder. Normally I would have been disappointed that Kelley had told me that I hadn’t done good, but I did just win a State Championship. “I don’t know what you're friend told you, but it worked. You have the potential to be a great forward if you work hard.”
“Thanks.”
“And, hey, you got a pretty good goal tonight too,” Kelley added. “Besides, you won so you know what that means. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.”
I laughed at that as they hugged me again. I may not have entirely wanted this at first, but now I wouldn’t change this for anything. Alex and Kelley were my parents and I knew that they would have my back through everything.
