Between the flags

She had learned, over time, what it felt like to be overlooked.

At twenty-five she trained with Sydney FC Women knowing her name would rarely be the one called first. She ran the drills, followed the systems, did the quiet work that never made highlights. Football had never been kind to her, but she loved it anyway - loved the rhythm of boots on grass, the early mornings, the belief that one good moment might still be waiting.

The ocean was different.

At Bondi Beach, she was certain of herself. The whistle, the flags, the endless stretch of water - this was where she belonged. Here, she was trusted. Here, she didn't disappear. She watched the tides the way others watched scoreboards, reading danger before it arrived, moving without hesitation when it did.

Steph Catley had passed her more than once. At training. On the edge of vision. Another player, another lifeguard, another presence easy to miss when the world was already loud.

Until the morning the sea turned.

Until the whistle cut sharp through the air and Steph looked up in time to see her run - not away from danger, but straight into it. Calm. Commanding. Unafraid. A woman who did not need an audience to be extraordinary.

And just like that, everything shifted.

This is a story about the space between who we are and who the world sees. About loving two callings, even when one never loves you back. And about a quiet kind of devotion - built not on trophies or noise, but on the moment someone finally notices you properly, exactly as you are.

Between the flags, she had always been enough.