Strawberry Kisses | Sam Kerr

01 ~ Did you miss us?

7 year old Maddi walked into the swarm of kids sitting on the grassy turf. Her frizzy hair pulled back in tight bun and a purple headband hiding any loose strands much like the hairstyle her favourite Arsenal defender Alex Scott. Her red Gunners guernsey worn out from the many occasions she had worn it before. She held on tight to her favourite possession her mother had bought her; her first ever soccer ball that she cherished like a trophy but in her eyes nothing was better than the blue and white checkered ball which she had spent hours upon hours kicking and dribbling by herself. 

She scanned the crowd of young kids all looking at the many adults setting up equipment and goals for them to later use. Majority of the crowd was filled with boys and by majority basically all of them. She looked around a bit more before she saw a girl with brown hair and hazel eyes smiling at her. Maddi looked behind her to check that the girl wasn't directing this gesture to someone else but realised it must have been to her. She walked over and sat next to the girl.

'Hey I like your ball I used to have one just like that.' The other girl spoke first. 

'Thanks, I like your top, even though I hate Man City.' She replied instantly feeling comfortable in the presence of this girl. 'I'm Maddison by the way but you can call me Maddi.' 

'I'm Sam, nice to meet you.'

__________

(maddi)

My tired, heartbroken and heavily jetlagged best friend was leaning on my shoulder informing me on all the events in her life I'd missed out on in the year we were away from each other. We were currently on a bus heading to our training grounds in Sydney with the rest of the Matildas all having there own conversations about the time away from the place we all called home. I slip an airpod in and a shocked Ellie turns to face me.

'Are you even listening to me?' She asked frustrated

'Yeah, you were talking about Danielle and how she-' I trail off and grin sheepishly at Ellie who rolls her eyes.

'You suck at lying don't even try.' She slightly laughs but then her mood quickly changes back to a mixed of grumpy and serious. 'Anyways as I was saying one second Dan's all over me and then next thing I know she's packing her bag and saying we're not good for each other, then I get a call the next day saying she made a mistake.' She runs her hand through her bleached hair in frustration 'I just don't understand.'

'I know your confused, but can we please talk about something other than Danielle, we haven't seen each other in a year and all you want to do is talk about a girl. I didn't sign up to sit next to someone who was gonna complain the whole time when I chose to sit here.' She groans yawning before eventually nodding her head.

Good idea, so how was... uhm'. She stops clearly thinking about something to ask. Whilst she's thinking I look at her face, at her eye bags and skin that's slightly more pale than usual. 

El you look tired have a sleep so your not exhausted for training.' She nods again and leans her head against my shoulder almost instantly falling into a deep sleep. I open up my phone and scroll through instagram for a while looking at posts from a vast range of people. I eventually get bored of staring mindlessly at a screen and place it down leaning my head back against the head rest of the chair. I take a small look at Ellie who's still deep asleep before falling asleep as well.