The Wait Is Over

A Camping We Will Go

US National Team Camp opened this afternoon in Chicago. The players from the Olympias were technically the first to arrive, since they were already staying at the Best Western Grant Park Hotel with their NWSL team. Christen spoke with Joy upon checking in and asked her who her roommate for camp would be. When told that this would be the first camp where couples would be paired from the start, the forward asked her assistant coach for someone different. Joy obliged and shuffled a couple of the pairings, putting Christen with Alyssa, Julie with Moe, and Crystal with Rose. Kristie, Vanessa, and Katie Naughton came with their partners to the team hotel after taking a walk through Grant Park, where Steph and Sofia did a bit of visualization around the fountain in anticipation of October 16th's wedding taking place there, while Katelyn walked with Sammy Jo out to LA's team bus to get a few extra minutes with her before the 10-day separation. Shelina had left earlier for Vancouver, flying out with Gabby Carle and Sarah Stratigakis for Canada's camp.

Throughout the afternoon, the rest of the players showed up and were welcomed by Joy. The roommate assignments for camp were as follows:

Alyssa Naeher/Christen Press, Julie Johnston Ertz/Morgan O'Hara, Adrianna Franch/Lynn Williams, Crystal Dunn/Rose Lavelle, Jane Campbell/Andi Sullivan, Katelyn Rowland/Cari Roccaro, Lindsey Horan/Emily Sonnett, Sam Mewis/Abby Dahlkemper, Taylor Smith/Jaelene Hinkle, Steph McCaffrey/Sofia Huerta, Mallory Pugh/Ashley Sanchez, Savannah Jordan/Christina Gibbons.

With a Midwest location for the start of this camp, everyone was at the hotel by 2:30pm, leaving them a few hours of "play time" before the opening dinner at 6:00 and the opening meeting at 7:30. Christen had opened up to Shelina about her situation with Julie last Sunday, following the Charge's departure from Los Angeles, and rooming with Alyssa would give her a chance to get some close-to-the-situation advice from her former club keeper.

Alyssa: Chris, why aren't you rooming with Julie? You know you're allowed to this camp.

Christen: I actually asked Joy not to put us together. Things aren't sunshine and roses right now, at least for me they're not.

Alyssa: Care to talk about it?

Christen: Sure. You're probably the only one here at camp that has seen the twists and turns of our relationship from the beginning and can actually interject some constructive advice.

Alyssa: Take your time, we've got a good bit before dinner.

Christen took a deep breath and began.

Christen: I'm tired of Julie's game-playing. We spent a couple of days in LA at the start of the last international break and it was wonderful. She bought me this bracelet engraved with our initials and the inscription"Para mi esposa. Te amo con todo mi corazón." (For my wife. I love you with all my heart.) I thought that was the sign that she was ready to leave Zach and we could FINALLY be together exclusively. When the Charge came to town last weekend, we talked after the game and she said she was finally willing to ask for a trade to the Olympias for the 2023 season, but not to ask her to leave Zach until after it happened, the earliest which is November 1. With Sam and Abby's wedding a couple of weeks before that, I was hoping that we'd be able to attend it together as a couple and not +1s. She didn't seem to get the difference between the two and that's when it dawned on me that she might take the trade, but would never leave Zach unless literally forced to do so. That's why I'm taking a bit of a passive-aggressive stance with her this week, to see if she will finally come to her senses and realize that there is a chance she could lose me if she doesn't act.

Alyssa: Whoa. The two of you have been together eight years. *I* know she shouldn't have married him in the first place, YOU know she shouldn't have, and you also know that she's only with him to keep a lid on the bisexual rumors.