beautiful mistake - joe burrow

102

Elle was quite impressed when she walked onto the field at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday. The anticipation and excitement about the game later was clearly in the air, even as an uneasy feeling spread through Elle.

The Bengals fans would be significantly outnumbered, and although the players had practiced this week with loud crowd roars over the stadium's loudspeakers, there was naturally the possibility that one or two players might become nervous and unfocused with the pressure of the game and the volume of the fans.

She scanned the field and, as expected, spotted the marked-off area where she recognized Jackson and Brittany from a distance, on the sidelines on the Chiefs' half.

Before they'd traveled here yesterday, she'd talked with Leila several times, and the two had come to the conclusion that Joe' s idea of just going there and getting it out of the way was worth a chance.

Elle had also cleared it with Paul and Nick that she would miss a few minutes during the warm-up. They didn't object, so this time Elle could walk up to Jackson and Brittany feeling good about herself.

She felt safe, confident, yet at the same time had the feeling that the whole stadium was holding its breath in anticipation and that all eyes were on her as she came closer and closer to the segregated area.

Jackson spotted her first and immediately nudged Brittany to bring her attention to Elle. Brittany raised her head and Elle didn't know how to interpret the look on her face. Was it shock, anger, relief or nervousness? A little bit of everything, perhaps?

Elle pushed the interpretation aside and quickened her pace. "Hey, you two" She greeted them when she arrived at them, and smiled politely. "what do you want? Don't you have work to do?" Jackson eyed her critically and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Jackson, stop it" Brittany gave him a warning look, while Elle, who for a small moment had regretted her decision to come over, was quite surprised by her reaction.

Brittany turned to Elle. "Hey Elle. Strong of you to come over. I think we should talk about what happened, right?" she gave her a smile.

Elle nodded. "Yeah, that's the reason I came. Listen, I'm really sorry about how everything escalated. It wasn't okay of me to expose you on the internet like that"

"Oh no, it was totally okay. I'm the one who needs to apologize. I should have never posted that message where you asked if we could work it out offline. And then also censoring it in a way that made you look like the stupid one. I'm really sorry about that" the words just bubbled out of Brittany.

"I know that sounds like a cheap excuse, but we...we weren't actually mad at you. Yeah, maybe I was a little pissed that you stood us up on the sidelines like that and I wasn't exactly nice to you, but you had good reasons and you were really sympathetic" she sighed.

"You know, it's just that in that video that came out first, it looked like you were being mean and yet all the people were on your side. That can really drive you crazy. Sure, I know Jackson and I aren't on our best behavior sometimes, but we're authentic, we are who we are, even if people don't seem to like it."

Elle just nodded in agreement while Brittany just kept chatting.

"Anyway, I was just really annoyed by this whole thing and well, when your message came and despite the possibility of you turning on us and maybe rightfully so, you were so nice and just didn't want to make a big deal out of it, that was just too much."

At last she stopped and took a deep breath. "What I really wanted to say, Elle, is I'm sorry. I shouldn't have acted the way I did, both towards you in person and online. I assure you, I have absolutely nothing against you, as I said last time, I'm a big fan of what you do. In the end I was kind of jealous because people like you so much, which in itself just makes everything easier" she finished her speech.

"Can I say something now?" Elle smiled at her. Brittany laughed. "Sorry, I like to talk a lot. Sure, say what you have to say"

"Ok, fine. So of course I understand that all these tweets and stuff can drive you pretty crazy, they weren't against me, but it still kind of messed me up. For me this whole trending on Twitter and oh, a video with me was posted is still pretty new and uncomfortable, so I wanted to get it out of the way as soon as possible" Elle started to explain her view.

"That's why you messaged me?" Brittany asked. Elle nodded. "I thought if we could work it out privately and without thousands of people sharing their opinions about it, that would be better for both of us, well and then you tried to expose me and that's when I lost it and in quite a rage I made those posts. I'm really sorry for what I said about you there."

Brittany waved it off. "It's not by far the worst thing anyone had said about me and well, you kind of had a right to" she shrugged with a smile.

"But to be honest, Brittany, that you just stood up and said, hey, I know I did this and this wrong, I'm sorry, that really means a lot to me" Elle admitted.

"It really means a lot to me that you came to us, Elle. Not everyone would have shown the strength and sought out the conversation with us, right Jackson?" Brittany looked at the young man next to her, who shrugged impassively. "I guess."

"Does that mean everything is good towards us again? No bad blood for the internet to make headlines with?" Elle asked with a grin. "ugh, I'm sure they'll find something to shoot their mouths off about, but we're not going to give them anything. Peace?" she spread her arms open.

"Peace" Elle confirmed and enclosed Brittany in a brief hug. "Whew, you don't know how relieved I am that we got that out of the way. You know, we're both women in sports, which most people don't like anyway. Seeing us get along and united drives them nuts" Brittany grinned.

"You got that right. There's one more question that comes up in the process. The future is female, can I count on you?" Elle wiggled her eyebrows. Brittany scoffed. "Of course. Get in touch if you need help" she smiled.

"well then, I have to get back to work. I think it's great that we were able to work it out. I wish you both an exciting and good game. May the better one win" Elle smiled at them both.

"Same to you and few injured! We'll keep in touch, ok?" Brittany replied. Elle nodded. "I would love to"

Ravens, browns and Steelers all losing yesterday, making everyone in the AFC North 2-2 except the Steelers? Are there any news that are better than this? And they said our season is over after being 0-2 lol

And its ravens week, wuhuuuu, so excited for the game on Sunday (well for me it's Monday morning, 2am, but who cares?)

Shout out to my two lovely Joe-Simps who supplied me with gifs of him to motivate me to write this chapter ❤️

WHO-DEY 🧡