Caitlin didn't lie when she said she felt better in the car. She really had. But when they sat down to grab some food she started to feel weird. It was strange for her, usually on her period Caitlin could house some food but today she just stuck to picking on some fruit but was able to move enough of it around to make it look like she ate. This kept Katie from questioning her at least.
She had taken some tablets and drank lots of water hoping that would help but the cramps slowly started getting worse and worse. Not quite where they were early this morning, but they were getting close.
Caitlin went to the bathroom twice before heading out to the field to practice to make sure that a similar event to this morning didn't happen because she was embarrassed enough just in front of Katie. If that happened in front of the whole team and coaches.... She couldn't even begin to imagine how upset she would be.
Practice started the same as always with some warmups and stretching before getting into drills. As always Katie was behind her for warmup lines. Whether she noticed something was up with Caitlin or not she didn't mention it. But usually she was hot on her heels and always whispering something in her ears. Today she kept a step back. Almost as if observing Caitlin and making sure she was alright. She didn't say anything to her though and for that Caitlin was grateful. She wanted to ignore the pain as much as possible. Well that was until Katie noticed that Caitlin kept peering behind her and around her shorts making sure there wasn't any signs of her period appearing.
"You're all good baby. I'll let you know if anything changes, just don't worry" Katie whispered to her. Caitlin felt a sigh of relief knowing Katie had picked up on where her stress was coming from and reassured her it would be okay.
Having that stress taken off of her shoulders she did feel slightly better which gave her enough motivation to keep pushing on. During warmups the clouds were covering the sun as is typical in London, but as the practice continued on the sun started to come out making it extra hot outside. And making Caitlin very uncomfortable. She had already stripped off her long sleeve shirt but was still sweating way more than usual.
If Katie and Caitlin hadn't been separated for this drill she would have noticed immediately, but they had been, and instead Caitlin was left with Kyra making a joke about how sweaty she was.
As they moved into shooting drills Caitlin felt as if her leg was full of cement, she was just so run down at the moment and felt so tired despite actually getting a decent amount of sleep.
She continued to shoot worse and worse as the drill went on, and with her emotions all out of wack she was getting increasingly frustrated with herself. So much so that she threw her head back and let out a noise to indicate how annoyed she was.
But this was her job, her profession. She didn't get excuses to have a pretty pathetic practice, which is how she would describe today. Jonas had been observing the drill and pulled Caitlin aside.
"You don't look yourself today. Is everything alright?"
"Fine just having a bad day. I'll do better" she replied back. Very short, but she couldn't get her attitude under control right now.
"Is it something with Katie?"
Okay now she was really pissed. He had no right to bring up her relationship right now. And sure maybe her hormones were blowing this out of proportion. But she didn't care to put any effort into thinking reasonably right now.
"Really? No it's not Katie we are perfectly fine!" She yelled which elicited the looks of a few of her teammates
"Just a question Caitlin, sorry if I overstepped. You just aren't yourself today."
Caitlin thought steam would come out of her nose with how mad she was.
"Why don't you take the rest of the day off. Cool off a bit it's okay to take a rest day."
"I don't need a fucking rest day!" She yelled louder this time. Which now got everyone's attention, including Katie's.
"Take the day off Caitlin. This isn't up for debate."
At that Caitlin turned and headed toward the locker room aggressively opening and slamming any door in her way. When she got to the locker room her cramps hit her even harder and made her have to sit down and curl her knees up to her chest. Her emotions did a 180 also. Instead of being angry she was crying her eyes out. At the pain. At how she had just acted. At this whole situation. Why had today suddenly been the worst period of her life? She didn't know.
Everything was making her frustrated and added to her crying.
A few minutes later she heard the locker room door open back up again and she looked up to see Katie coming in, slightly out of breath clearly having just sprinted the whole way here after convincing Jonas to let her check on you.
"Hi baby" she said softly getting on her knees in front of caitlin to rub some of the tears off of her cheeks.
"I don't know what just happened. I couldn't control any of my emotions." Caitlin said still crying
"That's okay happens to the best of honestly. I should know I'm a hothead. Are you still not feeling okay?"
"I was earlier, but it's getting worse. I should have said something earlier but instead I just freaked out."
"Why don't we go get you some more tablets. Take ya home and we can cuddle up, bring out the emergency ice cream container."
"But I need to apologize to everyone. You should be practicing. We have a game in three days."
"Nah you can do all that tomorrow. We can both practice extra hard tomorrow. Today, I think my plan is better."
Caitlin couldn't fight it anymore. Not with Katie's arms around her making her feel better. So she gave in.
"Cookie dough ice cream?"
"All the cookie dough ice cream you want." Katie said giving her forehead a kiss.
