The Broken Footballer | Alerrie

Chapter 12 - Same Pain, Different Party

Kara's pov

July 9th, 2016

If you'd ask the young woman how she'd ended up day drinking with her coach and moaning about girls, the 18 year old wouldn't be able to tell you.

All she knew was one moment she was tortured by the woman she loved, by her crush, and then next her coach had asked her to join him for a drink.

"You know, now that I know, I notice a lot more stuff." he tilted his head at her.

"Like?" she could guess where he was going with it, but she'd rather hear it from him.

"Well, first of all," he sat straighter making her pay even more attention to him, she really admired him for this quality of his, he could gain anyone's attention and demand respect just by the way he was moving, "now you're holding back around her when you know I'm around you."

"Now that's a complicated sentence." or it might be the booze that she'd already swallowed that made her mind fuzzy.

"When I can see you two," he pointed two fingers at his eyes "And you know that I see you you're holding back, you're not being yourself with her. I can tell."

The blue-eyed girl thought, at every single one of their training sessions after Alex learnt she was hyper aware of where he was and where Lexie was at all times.

"You're not wrong." She threw her hand in the air lazily and let it drop to the bar. "What else did you notice?" she sipped her drink, waiting for his answer.

"That she's more handsy with you than she is with the other girls." Alex moved his drink inside the glass

"So I'm not imagining things?" Kara sat up and stared at her coach.

"Nope." He kept looking at his glass.

"Anything else?" Kara knew he was holding back. Alex was very open from the start that he was seeing them as their guide, coach and now somewhat protector. And he had made it even clearer that he saw them as little kids. And the problems Kara was facing weren't something a little kid would face. So him even telling her all that was enough for her, it was him making an extra effort and looking after her.

"Yes, one last final thing." He now met her eyes. "You're torturing yourself."

She snorted "No shit, Sherlock."

She knew that he'd say more for this matter but she still would try to get away from that. Because truth was she did know it, and she had tried more than once in the past to stop torturing herself, she tried to forget about Lexie, and for quite some time she thought she had succeeded, until it hit her again, a new wave of admiration, desire and even possessiveness over the tiny blonde that was driving her mad.

"I know, I just can't do anything else." She doubted Alex would understand, but even saying it out loud felt better than just burying her feelings, like she had for most of the year.

"Why can't you do anything else? You can speak to her." She snorted again.

"She's straight, Alex." She had told herself that so many times that it fell so effortlessly out of her mouth.

"She's your friend Kara," he fired back, her name in his mouth sounded extremely more British than the other times he had said it, and it pissed her off.

"Okay, and what does that mean?"

"It means if you talk to her she'll at least stop torturing you, she's your friend."

Kara sipped her drink.

"What if I don't want her to stop torturing me" she murmured, not knowing if she wanted Alex to hear her or not. Because truth was if Lexie knew that she was teasing Kara, that she was feeding her with all these hopes and dreams about them and that every little touch or smile she gave her meant something completely different to Kara, and that every time she made it obvious she wasn't interested it was like Kara was freefalling without a parachute, Lexie would stop. And then Kara would have nothing.