parity | trent alexander-arnold²

nine.

oblivious dilemma

With Jürgen occupied with press conferences, the players were scattered all around Melwood – the majority of the players in the game room either playing FIFA or simply lounging there until training resumed while others were in random areas of the training grounds doing Gods knows what.

After his silent meltdown he'd gone through, Trent acknowledged the fact that he couldn't bear to keep everything to himself, somewhat having to let out his complex thoughts to someone since quite frankly, he himself couldn't handle the weight that came with them as if it were complementary. So when the scouse found himself in the canteen with Virgil, Jordan and Joe and the topic of Wynter came into the conversation, he knew it was the right time for his problems to crawl out of privatisation.

"Hey, where's Winnie at? She told me that she was going to help me pick out something," Joe frowned, mainly directing the question at Trent.

"I think she's with Mo and Dejan. I don't know. She's really been getting into table tennis lately because of them, but anyway," Trent sucked in a deep breath, turning his attention on his teammates. "Can I tell you guys something?"

"Sure, what's up?" Jordan asked.

"It's about Winnie," Trent noticed the looks shared between the trio before they turned back to him.

Virgil's brows dipped as he straightened his tone. "What about Winnie?"

"Has Winnie ever come to any of guys talking about our relationship in, like, a bad light?" Trent asked, rubbing his hands in attempts to inhibit the amount of sweat seeping through his glands.

"Not that I can recall, no," Jordan shook his head slowly. "I mean, yes there are times where she talks about how you stop her from talking to other guys from time to time, but we all know she doesn't mean any bad with her words. Why do you ask?"

"Honestly, I don't even know how to explain this well but basically, all of that action over Winnie isn't for nothing," when he noticed the uncertain looks on his teammates' faces, he continued.

"The truth is I haven't been feeling myself lately in our relationship which isn't the fault of Winnie in any way. With the media nowadays, if Winnie's ever seen with any player or guy, they'll be so quick to ship them or whatever and. . . I don't know. I guess knowing that a lot of players fancy Winnie like that kind of makes me feel like I'm not good enough for Winnie in some kind of way 'cause why else would the media shed us in such a negative light?"

Comprehending the seriousness in his words, Joe looked up from his phone, placing it face down on the table. "Trent, whether any player fancies Winnie or not, she only has eyes for you so why be bothered with what the media has to say?"

"'Cause I-I'm scared that she'll break up with me. With all these unnecessary arguments that I start between us, I won't even be surprised if she decides to cut ties with me at all. She's always asking me if I'm okay and I say yes when in reality, almost every day I feel so uncertain about our relationship to the point where I think she's going to break up with me anytime soon because of how I'm acting."

Virgil and Jordan shared a glance between each other, both players swallowing the scouse's words like a hard pill. While they would never deny Trent help if he requested some, they found his dilemma quite out-of-character for him, seeing as they've never seen him wield such low morale, including the Champions League loss against Real Madrid during the previous year.

In his girlfriend's presence, Trent seemed confident though never crossing over the borderline to cocky, simply showing off the fact he indeed was dating Wynter Reyes. In the pair's free time at Melwood, they also came to notice that the scouse couldn't keep his hands nor affection to himself and they finally concluded why—'cause Trent feared he wouldn't be able to shower Wynter with affection one day to come.