Our Kiddo

Happy birthday!

They were warming up for the match against Leicester. It felt good to be back in kit.

Evie was loving life as she took shots at Manu. They all flew past her.

"She's back then," Kim laughed.

The game kicked off and Evie sat on the bench. Not even two minutes in and Beth scored an absolute beauty. A brilliant cross from Caitlin had taken out the whole defence and Beth volleyed it first time into the back of the net.

Lotte got a yellow card and then two minutes later Katie followed suite. It wouldn't be a proper game if she didn't get a yellow.

Arsenal were having a good attacks but they weren't finishing much to their annoyance.

Half time came and went and in the 65th minute a beautiful ball from Leah reached Viv's feet. She controlled it and sent it to Beth. Her shot was saved but it flew back to Viv and she tapped it home.

"Evie! Go warm up!" Jonas called as they ran to reset. She took her coat off and ran down to start stretching. This was it. Time for the comeback.

She swapped on for Caitlin, everyone cheering loudly as she did.

"Come on kiddo! You've got this," Caitlin said as they high fived.

She took her place on the field and straight away hassled for the ball. It was easy to win and she sprinted off quickly, managing to skill up two players as she did.

"Cheeky!" Jonas shouted from the side line, glad to have her back. A quick one two with Kim and she was now on the edge of the box. Instead of shooting like everyone thought she would, she chopped it back to Beth who kicked it just over the cross bar.

"Ah," Beth groaned, annoyed that she'd missed the chance.

Evie was on fire. She was creating chances and winning back every ball.

"Nice to have you back," Leah said as they set up to defend a Leicester throw in.

In the 75th minute, Nikita sent a through ball that Evie ran onto. She pretended to go one way before cutting back and sending a beautifully weighted pass to Viv. She tapped it home and that was that. Evie Warner was back.

Not even five minutes later, Leah sent a great pass to Laura who tapped it to Evie. Using the outside of her foot, she hit it first time to Nikita who crossed it into the box. Evie had ran into the space and hit it first time into the goal.

"Fuck yes!" she screamed as her teammates mobbed her.

"Kiddo!" Katie shouted as she leapt into them all.

Tobin managed to get them their last goal and then it was five.

"Brilliant team performance guys. I'm very impressed with you all," Jonas said in the team huddle.

The bus journey back was pretty quiet. They'd had a long few days and they all just sat doing their own thing. Evie was next to Jen and she could feel her eyes going heavy. She hadn't been as busy as the rest of them but her body was still recovering from the collapse and this made her very tired, very quickly.

It was peaceful and eventually she lulled off. She was curled up on her seat, her head resting on Jen's chest.

***

"Happy birthday!" Leah shouted as she threw open her bedroom door. Evie was forced to open her eyes. God it was early.

Leah leapt onto the bed, practically bouncing Evie out of it.

"I'm so tired," she yawned.

"Well now that you're knocking on, I'm not surprised."

"I'm 17."