All Worth It In The End - Katie Mccabe

Chapter three

When we get to Beth and Viv's house they open the door letting me, Katie and Leah in first. I thank them and am led into their living area by Leah and Katie who have been over before.

I sit on one of their sofas and start a conversation with Beth. "So how are you finding it here so far," she asks. I shrugged slightly, "I have only been in England for about two and a half hours. I went straight to Arsenal's training ground after putting my bags in my house." She nods, "Do you want a drink?" I think for a second, "Could I just have a glass of water?"

She nods and gets up, going into the kitchen. She comes back a few minutes later with two glasses of water and Viv comes in with another glass of water and two glasses of coke. I get passed a water by Beth and she keeps one for herself, while Viv hands Leah and Katie the cokes. "Thank you," I smile at Beth. She smiles back, "It's no problem."

"We invited the team round. They should be here by half six. So we have a good hour and a half until they all arrive," Viv says. I smile at her, "Okay. Thanks for giving me the heads up." She laughs slightly. "Yeah no problem," she says her accent coming out strong.

The conversation just flows with these four and at one point the conversation landed on my family. "I have an older brother called Daniel, a younger sister called Chloe and a little brother called Jacob." I smile.

"How old are they?" Leah asks. I smile at her, "Daniel is 27, Chloe is 19 and Jacob is 6." She nods as she listens, "So you're the second oldest?" I nod, "Yeah I am."

"How'd your friends react when you moved?" Katie asks. "My best mate Josh said he would miss me. His little sister said the same and that I better visit at the World Cup. My other best mate Mollie was sad I hadn't told her until the day before I left but she understood. And Toby my closest mate was upset and was anxious for me." I laugh at the last bit remembering his reaction.

They all nodded listening carefully to everything I was saying. Viv went to say something but as she did the door knocked. We all looked at the time seeing it was half six. Beth got up to answer the door. She came back with Alessia Russo, Lotte Wubben-Moy, Jen Beattie and Kim Little following her.

They all introduced themselves before Beth got them a drink and when she got back the door knocked again, to which she jokingly sighed loudly. She went to open the door and when she came back some very familiar faces emerged.

Caitlin Ford, Steph Catley and Kyra Cooney-Cross came up to me pulling me up. I hugged them all one by one before we all sat down. I sat back where I was before and Steph and Caitlin went either side of me. An inside joke between me and the Matildas was to just sit on my lap when there were no free seats.

I looked at Kyra and tapped my lap. The Australian girls laughed while I dragged Kyra onto my lap. I rested my hands on her knees. The others look at us confused.

"It's a Matildas tradition where if no seats are left they always come sit on my lap," I say to everyone as they all look less confused. "How did that start?" Jen laughed.

"Well, that's a funny story. Basically, last World Cup we were allowed to invite our partners to the camp for a day so I invited my girlfriend at the time. There were no free seats so she ended up having to sit on my lap. The next day as a joke when there was no seat for Sam she just came and sat on my lap. Everyone laughed and thought it was hilarious and it just kind of stuck," I explained while everyone shook their heads chuckling.

I rested my chin on Kyra's shoulder and remembered something. "Oh, Kyra!" I said suddenly making her and a few others around me jump, which everyone laughed at. "Fucking hell Ellie. What?" She said.

"Daniel wanted to know if you wanted to come visit him when I do on one of our free days during the World Cup?" I told her. She smiled, "Yeah okay. Will your dad be there?"