Number on me

1. Cassiopeia

September 2023

Maxine takes a deep breath as she unlocks the door to her new apartment. She has been there before, may times actually, over the last two weeks. This time was different. This time, her parents and twin sister weren't next to her, helping her preparing her move to England. This time, she was alone, moving in, finally.
The door creeks open. Maxine immediately makes a mental note to oil it, as she steps inside her new home. She has just dropped her parents and sister off at the airport. Ironic that a goodbye is the start of a new chapter.

As she walks into her living room, her eyes linger over the newly decorated space, stopping at her favourite photo.
Her sister Fay and her, aged 16, smiling over a long forgotten joke. Both wearing a number 16 jersey. Growing up, that jersey number was one of the only things that Max and her sister would fight over. They both started playing basketball at age 5, getting moved to their first competition team at age 7, they both wanted the 16 jersey.
Fay wore 1, Maxine got 6.

When Maxine was 12, she decided she wanted to play football. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy basketball, she just needed to do her own thing. People assumed that it would drive a wedge between the inseparable sisters, but if anything it made them closer. Now both wearing the number 16, they vowed to go pro. They worked every day to achieve their goals. Their dad always told them not to cry about losing, but to use it as motivation to never let anyone outwork you.
Maxine's mind snaps back to reality when her phone beeps with a notification. Her sister, asking her if she was missed already. With a hint of a smile lingering on her mouth, Maxine decided to get check her schedule for tomorrow. She didn't need to, she had checked it 16 times already. If anyone asked, she would be able to recite the text by heart. But she was alone now, nobody asked.

Dear Maxine,
I'm looking forward to see you again tomorrow, and get you started with the team. If it's alright with you, I would like to see you in my office at 10. I will arrange a tour around the facilities, and you can meet and train with the girls in the afternoon. Please let me know if this works for you.
All the best and see you soon,
Jonas Eidevall, Arsenal WFC

The office at 10. Ofcourse, Max didn't know where the office was, but that was tomorrows problem. Looking at the clock, she read that it was past 10. After dropping her family at the airport she got herself a quick dinner, so the empty fridge was yet another problem for tomorrow. Tonight's problem was sleep.

Max and Fay shared a room their whole life. Not because they had to, when they were 5, they were offered the choice. Fay loved sleep. She would nap when she could and then, at night, still fall asleep within minutes. Max would not. Her mind would rarely allow her the sleep she needed. When she would tell people that she couldn't sleep because she was thinking too much, they would assume that she was a worrier. Even though Max was great at worrying, it were stories that kept her up at night. During the day, she was always busy. It was as though her mind needed to dream, and it wouldn't let her sleep until that need was fulfilled. Too bad her mind needed to dream while it was awake. An considerate amount of their childhood was spent like that. Fay, sleeping in the loft bed on the opposite of the light blue and white painted room, and Max, dreaming like her sister, the only difference being that she was awake.

Maxine often thought about the many differences between her and her supposedly identical twin sister. And how it seemed like she had gotten the shorter end of the stick for most those differences. They both needed glasses, but unlike Fay's, Maxine's eyes reacted to contact lenses like water to an oil fire. She didn't wear glasses on the pitch, often times giving her a pounding head as a reward for her work on the pitch.
The final difference that Maxine thought about while still looking at the clock was her ADHD. When she was diagnosed at age 13, she thought Fay's diagnosis would follow. For once in her life she was wrong.

Blinking three times fast, she remembered that ofcourse, like so many times, she had failed to remember her medication. She sighed, realising she might be in for a long night. She never had the type of ADHD that made her jump around or talk loudly. Instead, she couldn't keep her mind in one place.

Laying in her bed, Maxine overthinks the last couple of weeks. Saying goodbye to her grandma, making her promise she would change her weekly visit to a weekly phone call. Hugging her best friend Fleur on the day she left for London, reminiscing 6 years of school, sitting next to her every lesson. Shopping for home essentials with her parents, realising she had no idea what she would need to be on her own.
Alone. That is how she felt. She never realised how much Fay made her feel safe. Feeling safe used to feel familiar. Now everything is unfamiliar. She turned to what she did know; stories. After a couple hours of dreaming, she finally fell in a dreamless sleep.