Never Really Over

Chapter 54

The cool air blasting from the vents in the car leaves goosebumps on Beth's bare arms reminiscent of the ones that formed under John's touch as he stroked her wrist when he was holding her as they went back to sleep in the very early hours. That was mere hours ago, but it feels like it was a different life. In her own hotel room, she'd changed out of yesterday's England tracksuit and back into her own clothes for the first time in weeks. She knew she should feel like herself again, she'd always hated any kind of uniform, she liked to be able to express herself in her outfits. Nothing was ever thrown together, always carefully planned, right down to the accessories. But the khaki button front dress she was wearing with the drawstring waist didn't make her feel like herself, instead she felt like she was playing a character. Colin's wife to be more specific when she wanted to be England Beth back in her bubble with John dressed from head to toe in Nike.

From London, she had travelled back to SGP to collect her car. The hotel was open to the public once again and seemed a completely different place from the one she had been locked down in, almost as though it hadn't happened at all. But it had, the pink love bite on her shoulder she had had to dab concealer on this morning attested to that. She'd known the mark was no accident, not born from the throes of passion where John didn't know what he was doing. Everything he did had been so focused, and when he had moved his lips away from her skin, he'd looked down at the mark he had left and run a finger over it appraisingly. Beth knew that John didn't care if Colin saw it, he wanted him too. He wanted him to know she was his.

As she pulled into, what she still thought of as Colin's driveway, and not her own, she realised something... She didn't have butterflies.

She had experienced butterflies before she saw John for as long as she could remember but today, despite not having seen Colin for weeks, she felt nothing, and that made her stomach turn in a different, less pleasant way, she felt sick.

September 2014

"You're not ready!?" John throws his arms in the air in frustration, like Beth had just missed an absolute sitter on the pitch. "Again!?" He grumbles discontentedly as he all but barges past her into her flat. They've been for their run this morning and gone back home for showers, now it's time to leave for work.

Every day, without fail, he'd arrive upstairs to pick her up so they could drive to the training ground together, and every day, without fail, she would not be ready. Some days, she wouldn't even have dried her hair and it would still be tussled up in a towel on her head like a turban, he always joked she looked like the Sultan from Aladdin. Thankfully, today is not one of those days, her hair is done, a braid at the front and the rest left loose. He thinks it looks pretty, but he doesn't tell her because her ego is big enough as it is, and he hates that self-satisfied smile she gives him whenever he pays her a compliment.

"I'm never ready," she shrugs nonchalantly. "You should know that by now stupid. Don't know what you come so early for." They have the same argument every day.

"I'm not early!" He fizzes as he settles himself in his usual waiting spot on her kitchen counter. "I'm on time! You're only going to work, dunno why you bother with all that?!" He screws his nose up as he watches Beth riffling through her bulging make up bag.

"Just like to look nice, that's all."

She always looks nice. It's something he has started to notice about her more and more. "Not that you'd know about that..." he watches her smirk at herself in her compact mirror as she powders her face. He breathes a sigh of relief; he has watched her get ready enough times now that he knows this is approaching the final step. The very last thing she'll do is spray this weird liquid across her face that she claims 'sets' her make up, but he doesn't understand how it doesn't do the opposite and wash it off, he's convinced she's fallen for a marketing ploy.