One Hell Of A Life

chapter twelve: ninety minutes of hell.

Em POV:

Erm, can we just say that shit went down on the 2nd of June.

-

I woke early, around 6am. Which was weird, considering that I'd attempted an early night of 10:30pm.

When I'm asleep, I'm asleep. Fully out cold.

I'd restricted myself from my phone and laptop at that time, hopefully getting a healthy, good night's sleep.

Well, all of that turned to complete shit, didn't it?

I couldn't turn over and go back to sleep due to my immense nervousness for the day ahead. Most of the guys that I'd be working with either played last year or in both of the previous matches. So, really, I was the amateur.

The only thing I could do in that moment was prepare. So, in my best attempt to get me off to a flying start, I did some deep stretching like Dida told me to. He's our PT; he trains most of the Sidemen including Deji and Kon.

Speaking of them, Kon wouldn't be attending. He was ill, apparently. Poor guy. But, of course, Deji was playing, and arrived at the hotel at the same time as Simon, JJ, Vik, Josh, Chris, Lachlan, JME and Wizzy. As far as I knew, Jay and Romell would be making a morning trip and everybody else would meet us at the stadium.

So I called them.

"Yo, Jay?" I spoke.
"What's up, bro?" He answered.
"What're you doing up so early, Em?" Someone who sounded like Romell questioned in the background.
"Went to sleep early last night." I told them, swinging my legs out of bed.
"You bunking in with anyone?" Jay asked.
"You're joking, aren't you? No chance. Everybody else paired up."
"Nah, just checking incase JJ stayed with you." He added.

"How long 'til you're here?" I attempted to flatten out my hair in the mirror, putting the call on loudspeaker.
"We got about three hours to go." Romell informed.
"Ugh. Hurry the fuck up! I'm so lonely!" I shouted, half serious.
"We'll try, man."
"I guess I'll see the pair of you later?"
"Yeah. We'll see you in a bit, Emmy." The call ended.

I sighed to myself.
What should I do?
What can I do?
I hate my brain for waking me up so early.

So, I watched last year's charity game, in full.

That's right, ninety minutes of heartbreaking hell, watching Simon get competitively distraught, seeing Vik come on for pretty much two minutes, and my brother look like a wanker with his goggles on.

I swear I will implode if he does that this year.

I've always been compared to Manny when I play football. Just a bit more accurate. The pair of us have a similar build - slim, short, agile. When I watched how he played in the second match, it opened my eyes a little.

Calfreezy, Gibbo and Whiz were the ones to watch out for. Freezy is competitive, Gibbo is feisty, and Whiz is just an amazing goal keeper.

By the time I had procrastinated getting dressed, and then finally did, it was 8:30am. 'Surely there must be some people awake by now?' I reckoned, grabbing my phone and heading down for some breakfast.

I bumped into JJ and Simon on the way down.
"Rah, you two are awake bright and early." I smiled, waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs.
"That's how we do!" JJ's loud and deep voice boomed.
"I don't think you realise how fucking loud you are." I laughed.
"I massively agree." Simon pointed to me whilst chuckling.

"Shut up. I legit get bullied, fam." Jide protested.
"Yeah, yeah. It's not like you don't already deserve it." Simon slapped the back of his head.
"Hey!" He stuck his bottom lip out.
"For Gods' sake, man, go and sit down!" I wafted him over to a table of three, where Simon, JJ and I plopped ourselves down and ate our breakfast.