Shoot Your Shot

XII: Blame It on the Rain (Ellie)

The week had been unbearable.

Ellie had spent the entire week moping, being somewhat irrationally curt in speaking to those closest to her. As Cat and Riley knew Ellie well, they attempted to keep the conversations lighthearted and avoided poking the bear that had become of mentioning Dina at all costs.

This of course all turned out for naught when Ellie brought the defender up herself, her eyes glued to her water bottle with thinly veiled resentment.

"Dina two-timed me. That guy Jesse blew her cover."

Cat looked floored Ellie had even spoken about Dina, her face stunned speechless. Riley on the other hand handled this in stride, knowing Ellie well enough to surmise that talking about it would be done in a slapdash fashion such as this.

"Do you truly believe that's what happened?" Riley gently challenged as Ellie's face hardened.

"I know that's what happened. I witnessed it, she couldn't even look me in the eye."

"I saw the way she looked at you Ellie. I'm not you, but..." Riley trailed off at seeing anger flash in Ellie's eyes, realizing that perhaps now wasn't the best time to contradict her thinking. Ellie usually needed time to fully wrap her head around something, and she still needed leeway.

"You aren't me. I always know when someone is fucking with me. I'm pissed I didn't catch on to what she was doing sooner." Ellie snapped, gripping the table so hard her hands turned white and she winced, withdrawing them and shaking out her hands as they tensed.

"Sorry." Ellie mumbled, regretting her verbal outburst as Riley nodded, used to how Ellie dealt with difficult moments such as this.

"It's okay." Riley said as Cat gave her a 'wtf' look, Riley returning it with a headshake, a wordless promise to fill Cat in later on her thoughts.

"I just, I don't know. Can we drop it?" Ellie stumbled over her words, simultaneously frustrated and seemingly desiring to be saved from this endless conversation as Riley stepped in.

"Yes. I wanted to talk to you about this upcoming weekend actually. Coach has you as a starter but if you aren't comfortable-"

"I'm perfectly comfortable, I've been looking forward to that game all week."

"I hope for the right reasons." Cat cut into the conversation, unsure on Ellie's tone as the striker looked over at her.

"It is for the right reasons. They're our rival school so winning twice in a row would be quite the accomplishment and would look like progress in my skills which would be good for college." Ellie said flatly, her tone indicating no wiggle room to challenge her on it.

Cat went to respond but Riley pressed the heel of her shoe into Cat's foot, not enough to hurt but enough to catch her attention. Ellie clearly wasn't in the mindset to accept any sort of criticism for her feelings or advice about them, and any attempt to do so was futile. Riley knew that if Cat continued to press, this could get out of control, as Ellie wasn't yet able to grasp at the complexities of her negative feelings.

Sure, it had improved greatly since they both got adopted and on a day to day got better, but Ellie still struggled with the concept of trust and mistakes, particularly that a mistake wasn't an end all be all scenario. Riley had full faith Ellie would come around to the whole Dina issue, but for now she had to let sleeping dogs lie, and so did Cat, which clearly took some convincing.

"We're hoping to meet here earlier than usual to get situated on the bus, so ideally the team would meet by the lower doors at about six thirty in the morning. Think you both could make that?" Riley asked to divert the attention away from Cat and Ellie's charged conversation.