Hold Me Close

the return, the lie, and the train to birmingham

"Fleur, it's good to see you." Emma stands as I enter her office at Cobham. It hasn't changed since the day I terminated my contract, though there is an extra frame hanging on the wall: a picture from the day they won the WSL this year.

I reach over her desk to shake her extended hand, but she retracts it with a good-natured smirk and steps around the mahogany, pulling me into a fierce hug. I sink into the feeling.

Emma and I have not always seen eye-to-eye. She picked me up from a soul-destroying season at Lyon, but she was not going to let her new star player wallow in pity for herself, and so she showed me a form of tough love that knocked me down only to build me back up. Greater, stronger, and one of the best in the world. She told me she'd keep her word if I kept mine, and every time I turned around to back out, she'd be there to instruct me to try again.

There were times in which I hated her. Hated how hard she pushed, hated the severity of her cutting words or the truth in the lectures she always had to give. Her callousness reminded me of my father's – unforgiving, unaccepting, and unwavering – but the softness in her touch, or the hug she'd envelope me in if the tears spilled down my cheeks and the world caved in was as helpful as the insightful advice and the harsh instructions she administered. And, I guess, she watched me blossom. She planted me in her garden, and it fucking worked.

When we part, there are tears in my eyes.

"Sit down." The chair is comfortable and welcoming, congratulating me on my return, and the contract on her table shines in the sunlight pouring in through the large windows behind her. There are small figures on the training pitches her office overlooks. Preseason has started at Chelsea Women.

Emma leans back in her chair.

"You're not signing this."

"I was never going to." Then, I add, "Barcelona would never let me."

"You would never let yourself. We don't want you back, and you know that." Everything she says is true. The offer on the table is not there, not really. The print is wrong, and the words are phoney. "Which begs the question: why are you here?"

"Why did you ask for me to come if you knew I was going to say no?"

"Because you have something to tell me, and I'd like to find out what it is."

━━━━━━━

London. 20th December 2022.

Our bedroom is a mess when I walk in, and Scarlett sits among the piles of clothes strewn across our floor with her head in her hands. I kick an old Tar Heels hoodie to the side, clearing a path for myself. The movement causes her to look up.

"Don't even start," she says quietly, voice wobbling, threatening to tip her just over the edge that I have seen coming. There is nothing beneath her if she slips off the cliff. We will fall to our deaths.

"Packing is hard," I tell her with a small smile. Her eyes, starry and lost, follow me as I perch on the edge of the bed, and when I settle on the ruffled sheets, she lets her neck droop once more. "It's only two days though, schatje. We're not moving."

"We aren't."

It stings.

My agent has just called me. Barcelona is getting impatient, and there is not much time left. I either go now, or I don't go at all.

I swallow the cutting remark I could reply with, noticing her wince as she reaches out to fold a training top. My suitcase was packed earlier, but she has opened it up, presumably to see what I am bringing and to copy it. "Your head hurts," I state, intending it to be a question but well aware of what the answer is. "Scar, let me do this. Go get yourself a glass of water."