LOVESTRUCK - Taylor Swift

SEVENTEEN

THROUGH THE EYES OF
LEX

(lmao)

THE year 2010 was probably one of Sophie's favourite years ever. She turned twenty-one and could finally drink, she was absolutely dominating the tennis court, and was ridiculously in love.

She didn't win Wimbledon that year, so her dream of winning the big four tournaments in the same calendar year, a feat done by only a handful, went out the window for the year. She had been the youngest person to ever do it, but she wanted to do it again. She would do it again two years later, and nearly again later on in her career before the injury, but not that year.

However, she was one point away from collecting the US Open trophy for the third time in her short career, which would've put her as the winner two years in a row. She'd worked hard to keep herself in order, no penalties for poor sportsmanship, although it was never an issue. She'd declined the invitations to go drinking with her friends, she'd spent ample amounts of time training, eating the right diet, finding the right racket.

And then her opponent missed the ball.

She won.

"Yes!" She dropped the racket and took a deep breath, ultimately deciding to drop to the court and put her hands over her face for a moment while on her back. The crowd of spectators was loud, tunnelling through her ears violently. She knew she needed to get up, but she just needed a second to collect herself, to swallow the lump in her throat that the match had brought.

She got up and picked her racket up, offering it to the kid who passed her the balls when it was her time to serve. The kid's face lit up so bright that she felt good about the decision, and then she walked around the net towards her opponent.

"Good game," she offered a hand out for her to shake, "Really good game. That could've gone either way."

Her opponent had been overwhelmed with emotion too, coming so close to the big win, but still shook her hand and offered a watery smile, "You too, congratulations."

"Party's at my place in the upper west side tonight, you should come. Bring anyone, it's an open invite."

Before she could say anything else, Sophie was dragged away to receive her trophy. It wasn't long before the hype died down enough that she could sneak away to her player box, where she'd had a few familiar faces sitting.

"You won! Con-graph-ulations!" Eight-year-old Poppy exclaimed with a toothless grin, lunging towards Sophie. The blonde picked her up and squeezed her tight, pulling her right over the border separating them.

"Thank you, kid," Sophie smiled and set her down, only to be hugged by her aunt next. Luke didn't hug her, but he did congratulate her. He was in that weird phase where he was trying to figure himself out, having landed his first real acting job that month, and wasn't big on the hugs.

"You were so great," Anna pinched Sophie's sweaty cheek with care, beaming with pride.

The moment didn't last long, however, because suddenly the tennis player was being swept off of her feet and into someone's impatient arms, making her squeal at the unexpectedness, "You did it, superstar!"

"No congrats?!" Sophie chuckled as she felt her feet hit the ground again.

"You'll get a congrats from me when you win Wimbledon again, how about that?" Jon said without much of a laugh to it, although she took it as a joke. She kissed him quickly, he put his arm around her waist and kept her next to his side as people funnelled out of the seating left and right.