Looks can be deceiving (Mapi León x OC)

Chapter 2 - evening at home

Authors note: this is quite a short chapter, but it's important for the rest of the story!

Is there anyone you'd like Emilia to become friends with?

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Three hours later, I fell onto my bed, totally exhausted. Fortunately, the rest of the training had been comparatively quiet, with Mapi mostly staying away from me. My left hand was slightly scraped from the fall, but nothing else had happened.

Still, I felt miserable after my first day and I didn't know who to talk to about it. Both my parents and my best friend, Klara Bühl, were hundreds of miles away and all three of them hadn't quite forgiven me for leaving, even though I had assured them at least a million times that we could talk on the phone every day. But now I had been here for over a week and, apart from a text after my arrival, I had not yet contacted them. Nothing had come from their side either though.

I thought back to practice. Surely, I would be able to hang out with Laura soon. But today she had disappeared right away, and Lucy had left with a gingered haired girl and Mapi, so I hadn't dared talk to her again. Mapi scared me, because if she was already pulling things like that on my first day, I didn't even want to imagine what she'd go on to do to me. "Looks really are deceiving." I thought to myself because never in a million years I'd imagined her to be like this.

In my old club, Sydney Lohmann had played the role of Mapi. Together with Klara, we had been an inseparable trio, but as time went on, the competition between Sydney and me grew stronger. When our old captain, Lina Magull, joined another club and our coach appointed me, it became unbearable. Teasing turned into insults, she fouled me during games and at some point, Klara was the only one who still stood by me. Around the time I was appointed captain, international clubs began to take an active interest in me. At first, I completely ignored them, because I didn't want to leave my home by any means and hadn't yet given up hope that everything would go back to the way it used to be. But things took a turn for the worse and just a few weeks ago it became totally unbearable, so I upped and left without really telling anyone apart from my parents and Klara. To be fair, I had only given them a three days notice, so I wasn't really surprised that they weren't dying to speak to me.

I unlocked my phone and scrolled through the countless pictures on Instagram but looking at pictures from home triggered homesickness in me, so that wasn't an option.Ever since Barca announced my transfer on their Instagram profile, I have gotten hundreds of new followers every day, but I wasn't one to post much on Instagram, so clearly I wouldn't be doing that right now.

Not knowing what else to do, I opened my message requests, even though I normally ignored them.

One of them caught my eye; an account called antonia.vargas.24. The profile picture showed a gorgeous woman with long blonde hair.

[03/08/2024 22:46:23] antonia.vargas.24: "Can't wait to see you play at Barca! You're gonna do great things for us – and look great when doing so;)"

I looked at the message in confusion. Was this an attempt at flirting? Or a fake account? I quickly checked the account. Luckily for me, it was public. From her bio, I could tell she was 24 years old and from Barcelona. She didn't have many pictures, some with friends and some alone, but she looked very attractive and absolutely like my type in each of them. I thought back and forth about whether to reply to her. It wasn't the first message like that I had received in the last few days, but all the others were from men who could just as easily have been my father in age.

I didn't know if I should reply, in fear of having misread her intentions. While I was an out and proud lesbian with my friends, I wanted to keep that part out of the public as I felt a great fear of people focusing on just that. It was not only the public that I wanted to hide that fact from but also my new club, because of what happened at my last one. Sydney had been constantly spreading a rumor that I had a crush on one of the other players, which made most of them feel really unconformable to the point where they didn't even want to change in the same room as me. Even the mere thought of it made me sick.

But a quick reply certainly wouldn't hurt. After a quick thought, I typed a single word into the chat.

[03/08/2024 23:01:54] emiliacortes20: Thanks:))

After that I got up and went into the bathroom of my little studio to get ready for the night. I should go to bed early, because practice started at 8:30 tomorrow, which meant I had to leave the house at quarter past seven at the latest. Unfortunately, I had not yet managed to find an affordable central apartment. My parents had supported me financially in the past, but since they didn't like the fact that I was living here now (and frankly just learned about my transfer), I couldn't count on their help and, thanks to the unequal pay between women and men, I wasn't getting rich on the salary of a professional football club either.

I was just about to go to sleep when a message arrived on my phone with a quiet ping.

[03/08/2024 23:13:09] antonia.vargas.24: I'd love to show you the city ;)

Before I could answer, my eyes fell shut.