More Than a Game | Mason Mount

Twenty Seven

Getting onto the bus later, it took a lot for me to keep it together. I could see Mason in my peripheral vision sitting with Olly, but I kept my eyes straight ahead as I walked down the aisle. I chose an empty row in the middle of the bus and was busy turning my headphones on as Kyle slid into the seat next to me. 

"So, want to hear a really funny story?" he instantly said. 

"Not really." 

"Well, it involves your mate Emma so I'm pretty sure you do." 

I sighed, but curiosity got the best of me. Unenthusiastically, I lowered my headphones and looked at Kyle. His eyes were bright and animated, but he frowned after a moment of looking at me. 

"You okay, Beck?" 

"Fine." I waved him off semi-rudely. "Just tell me the story." 

"Well now I don't really feel like it," he murmured with a pout. 

"Jeez, then don't tell me." 

I could feel the pettiness seeping out of me, but I couldn't find a way to stop it. The simple truth was that Mason had put me in a foul mood: after I sat on my hotel room floor and tried to stop crying for ten minutes, I pulled it together and channelled whatever I was feeling into anger. I'd had enough of Mason and the games he was playing, so it wasn't exactly hard to be pissed off with him. 

Turning away from Kyle, I covered my ears with my headphones. He hadn't done anything wrong except for chosen the seat next to me, so the guilt that hit me wasn't a surprise. Yet I still didn't have the energy to apologise and chat to him on the short ride to the stadium. 

Frank had announced the starting line up earlier that morning, so I spent the next hour trying to put everything out of my head. I needed to focus and play well today for the team: we had a bad habit of returning from international breaks and losing form. The Liverpool game was one instance, but it happened several times the season I was out, too. 

But it was tricky to focus on the game when the person on my mind was sitting two lockers away from me or warming up across from me. I was usually good at compartmentalising things in my head: prioritising what I needed to get done, then think about whatever I was feeling. I'd done it in the Wolves game by ignoring the fact that my best friend was my opposition. I'd done it in the Bulgaria game after the Czech disaster and everything with Mason. Why was I finding it so hard to do now? 

I sat through Frank's final words, but mentally I wasn't there. Whatever he said was lost in translation, because as Emil's cheers filled the room I realised that I was clueless as to what he'd spent the last minutes explaining. Releasing a deep breath, I gave myself a mental slap on the wrist for not paying attention. I needed to make up for it in the game. 

I trudged behind Annika into line, the pitch in front of me intimidating and unappealing. Already the crowd was going crazy. My legs were twitching, my fingers fiddling with my jacket sleeves. Behind me, I felt the presence of Mason and had to stop myself shrinking. Part of me anticipated his comforting hand on my shoulder, or a joke, or a good luck wish. But I felt nothing except for an intense strain between us. 

The ref nodded to the captains and then I was walking out onto the pitch. I felt hollow, sick. It shouldn't have made me so upset that Mason hadn't acknowledged me in the tunnel. I had come to expect it before games, thinking of it as our little pre-match tradition, as stupid as it sounded. But given the place we were in – the tension between us – what did I think? He would forget everything and give me a friendly shoulder squeeze before our game? 

His words echoed around my head. Maybe we've made this a bit too complicated. Had we? Was this really how things were just going to play out between us now? One weird moment when we almost kissed, one fight, and that was the end of relationship? Oh, God, I felt sick.