Interlinked- Kyra Cooney-Cross

*TWO*

"Ya alright Evie?"

Katie McCabe greeted me with an Irish grin as I stepped out of Christine's new electric car. She was so proud of it that she had demanded to escort me everywhere, fishing for compliments on its silver, glossy finish or specially designed tires. Luckily enough, it was people like Katie who gave her exactly what she was after.

"Nice car." Katie added on, offering Chris, an enthusiastic thumbs up to which my adoptive mother replied, "What this old thing?". I rolled my eyes and gave her a wave of goodbye before slinging my kitbag over my shoulder and jogging to catch up to Katie and Caitlin on the pavement.

"You should really learn to drive you know." Caitlin sniggered

"I am trying." I correct her as we walk in-between the two training pitches, "But you know how shit my hand-eye coordination is." I face-planted, at the remembrance of when I swerved to avoid a pigeon on my last practical lesson, and nearly hit an innocent pedestrian. Katie and Caitlin continued to raucously tease me as we were interrupted by Beth Mead, scaring the living daylights out of me.

"EVIE." Beth, yelled as she jumped onto my back, clinging onto my shoulders. I let out an abrupt scream of shock as I caught the apologetic expression of her girlfriend's, Vivianne Miedema, face.

"You guys need to quicken the pace." Beth explained, forcefully pushing me in the back to make me stumble forward faster, "Apparently Jonas is introducing a new signing."

I shake my head, running my fingers through my streaked blonde hair, "You always say this, and it's just some dumb meeting about misuse of the water cooler." I glance over at Katie's bemused expression and point my finger at her. About a week ago, she thought it would be incredibly amusing to dump a whole can of cold water on me in freezing conditions. To make it worse, she posted it all over her socials, to which it went absolutely viral. I guess people love to my vulnerable side for once, instead of this fierce and aggressive facade I put up in games. Anyways, I wasn't over it, and I would for sure get my own back soon.

"Or maybe.." Viv interjected, slinging her arm over Beth's shoulders, "It's him publicly shaming you for that red card on Saturday."

I rolled my eyes and groaned. It was most likely that. To be fair, it was a horrendous tackle that I wasn't attempting to get the ball in, but the Brighton girl had been winding me up all game. Snarky comments and remarks was enough to make my blood boil. And, sure enough I retaliated.

"You should really get a grip on that Evie." Caitlin remarked seriously, her Australian accent thick as we entered the glass sliding doors of the Arsenal Club facility, "Your anger is really costing not just you but the team."

I nodded solemnly, taking her words to heart, "Like my driving license, I'm trying."

Individually we all lined up to sign at reception. As we queued, I couldn't help but reflect upon Caitlin's words, my attitude was shit, and it wasn't helping anyone. I could of seriously injured that player. Thinking, I couldn't just blame everything on the absence of my parents anymore because I had Christine, my not so new super-hero. However, a lot of it, I believe was because of the trauma I had experienced in the past. The anger at the audacity of my father to just leave all responsibilities behind or the constant moving from home to home because nobody wanted us. I refused to believe I inherited this mentality from my own father. It pained me to think like that.

Once signed in, our group conjoined with the other flow of players, all heading to the same destination. The meeting with Jonas in the tactics hub.

"What do you think this is about?" Leah Williamson, joined my side as we headed down the winding corridor, the eyes of previous Arsenal Women and academy players watching us in frames.