Mila Ellis has never had anywhere to call home, she's been moved from foster placement to foster placement and has never solidly lived with anyone for longer than a week to 6 months.
Mila is now living in a foster home with her foster carers Beth M...
It's been around about two months now since Mila moved over to Barça on loan, she still calls Beth and I twice a day, sometimes if she has an afternoon free, we get a call around lunch time. Beth and I check the Barça pages most days to see if we can see Mila but she doesn't often feature, they seem to use the same few people for their media. It sucks but we move.
However today was slightly different, the person behind the camera was recording all the players coming out. Beth and I sit on the pitch the girls all round us. "Where's my best friend?" Kyra breathes out impatiently. "Patience Kyra." Beth grins. We watch on as Alexia comes out, she smiles at the camera, then Aitana. Lucy and Keira come out next "el Clasico." They reply when asked where they're playing tomorrow. Something we all already know, since we have booked group tickets to watch our girl play. As Lucy and Keira walk on Mila jumps on both their backs and grins at the camera. "Bon Dia!" She looks so tanned and it's obvious she's in the gym a lot. The muscles in her biceps bigger than ever. "Mila!!" Kyra grins hard seeing Mila. "Our baby speaks Catalan!" Beth tears up, I put my arm around her. "She's growing up... she's gonna be so surprised to see us all when we go." I grin. "She looks good in blue and red." Kyra smiles, receiving raised brows from half the team. "What she does." Kyra defends.
"Tomorrow we get to see Mila." I say to Kyra, the pair of us grin like mad. "I'm so excited to see my best friend! Does she know we're coming Beth?" Kyra asks. "No. I haven't told her, I thought it would be a nice surprise for her. Oh her first game with us there!" I rub my hands excitedly. "I know can you believe it's been two months?" Kyra asked. "It's madness. I want the rest of the year to go as quickly so I can have her home." I close my eyes picturing us all home together again.
We head off to train with Jonas, he didn't seem particularly happy today. God knows what's up with him. We had lost our last two games but surely that wasn't the issue? "Can you put your phones away. I need you all focused." Jonas sighs. "What's going on girls?" He continues, we all look blankly at him. What did he mean? We weren't performing that badly were we? We slide our phones into our shorts pocket and zip them up. "Right I think we will start on four laps of the pitch, stretch's and tactics as you stretch... we seem to have lost our way and we're losing against teams at lower levels." Jonas sighs harshly. So we are underperforming...the team hasn't been quite the same since Jen left and the youngsters going on loan. Of course mine and Viv's heads have been a bit all over, we're Mum's of course it was going to happen. Nonetheless we all did our laps round the pitch, each one of us taking turns to mock Jonas... I can't decide between Steph and Kyra who's was the best. One thing was for sure though, no one was thrilled with Jonas taking his frustration out on us. After all it was him who decided who took loan for a year with or without possibility to buy.
At lunch Beth and I sat with our team to eat. The topic of discussion was still mostly on Jonas and his behaviour towards us all today. "Is everyone packed then?" I asked a bit afterwards, I'd had enough hearing about Jonas. "Pretty much, I looked at that villa you booked Viv, it looks great." Lessi smiled. "It just seemed perfect. We can all stay together that way." I smile with a shrug. "Hey Viv, what's the first thing you're gonna do when you see her?" Katie asks taking a forkful of food in her mouth. "I'm gonna hug her and tell her how proud I am." I grin. "I'm gonna kidnap her and bring her back to Arsenal." Kyra chimes in. "We get it you miss her." Lessi laughs, Kyra swats Lessi's arm and sticks her tongue out cheekily. "What about you Beth?" Lessi asked. Beth looks deep in thought. "To be honest I'll probably cry, give her a hug and then cry some more." The table where we sit at laughs at Beth's sensitivity.
"Oh! New post on insta from Barça." Katie grins. "You might wanna watch it..." she continues. Beth and I eagerly pull out our phones and open up insta. "Wait. Here you go." Somehow Katie had gotten the projector on and was passing me the lead to connect my phone to it. "Katie we can't." I try to protest. "Oh come here." She says taking my phone off me and plugging it in. My phone shows up on the projector and Katie loads the video of the reel they posted. Of course Mila was central. "Turn up the sound Katie." I asked gently. By now everyone had crowed round to see what was going on and most, if not everyone were smiling widely at Mila on the video.
*the video- in Spanish* Ona- "say it" Mila-"say what?" Ona- "say it" Mila- "but say what?" Ona and cata- "you already know! Say it!" Mila- "what are you talking about?" Ona, cata, Lucy, Keira, Esmee- "come on, say it now!" Mila- "tomorrow is El Clásico!" Everyone jumps up and down excitedly as Mila smiles.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzyxdC4MpKN/?igsh=MW1rdjBjcHp5ZnhoeQ== (Link to the video if anyone wants it- also crappy gif for context - I've kinda changed up the people too)
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We all reshare the video on our instagrams. "How good is her Spanish?" Kyra grins. "I bet they've had to tell her what to say and then record and pause after each bit." I grin, surely she can't have gotten that good at Spanish just shy of two months in Barça. "Valid point my Vivi." Beth laughs. "I know, it would be awesome if she's soaked it up that quick though." I smile lightly. Lunch was soon over and it was back to training, Jonas really wasn't letting up with us today.
Training match day-1 was so different in Barça, we trained a bit, did some recovery and then had a tactics meeting before being free for the rest of the day. I headed to the beach with Keira, Lucy and a few of the other girls. I've learnt that I love any opportunity to worship the sun. On this particular occasion some of the men's team joined us... I was not complaining. We join together, sunbathing and enjoying the sea as well as playing ball games men vs women. Of course we were careful, now would not be a good time for injury before the match at El Clásico tomorrow. "Hm, you looked good out there today" A voice says causing me to smirk. "Oh really? I didn't realise you were a fan..." we swim on the spot in the sea, enjoying the refreshing feeling on our bodies. "Hm, well since you're English and I am Spanish... on this occasion actions are much better than words.." I bite my lip, this seems to be becoming a regular thing with Gavi. "Your place?" I ask, he winks. "Yes beautiful...pre game luck.. just for you." I don't reply, I just smirk as he slides his hand against my abs, looking in my eyes for a moment before we head back to the group.
Back in our group Lucy looks at me with her brow arched, I smile back at her. I know she knows somethings going on but she's too chicken to ask. I lay on my stomach and sigh happily letting the sun dry off my sea soaked body. We spend a couple of hours laughing and joking between teams, I'm still not fully able to understand everything so Lucy, Keira and even Aitana has a go at explaining to me. It's amazing how much I've been taken under everyone's wing. It really is home away from home.
"Mi..Keira and I are heading out to the cinema in the next 20 mins or so, do you fancy tagging along with us?" Lucy asked as she stuck her head round my door. "Aww thank you Luce, I'm gonna take a miss tonight. FaceTime appointments with some special fans." I joke as Charli lets out a "hey." I laugh at her. "Ah no worries, we'll probably be home around 10ish at the latest." Lucy informed me, she comes closer to me and waves to Charli who immediately gets star struck. "Hi." Charli squeaks, you best believe I spent the next half an hour teasing her over it. "Right then Charli pops, I've got somethings to do...so I'm gonna have to love ya and leave ya." I say after a bit. "Yeah, you're a busy woman now... must be tiring being amongst big names.." Charli rolls her eyes playfully. "Oh shhh, you're so jealous. What was it you said to Lucy?" I start "hi" I squeak mocking her. We both laugh and say our goodbyes.
I headed over Gavi's place around half an hour or so after I ended FaceTime with Charli. I was home from Gavi's before Lucy and Kiera made their way back, it always works best when you don't want to raise suspicion or to have to answer a million and one questions. Gavi and I aren't serious, it's just fun and we're both very much on the same page with that. No doubt if we win tomorrow we'll be reenacting scenes from tonight again...it's the same whenever his team win. Its just works so well for the both of us, a bit of fun all round.
