by Tara Wimble
She thinks about the Olympics a lot. More than she knows she should. The one selfish act she played and the memory of it is still clear in her mind. She remembers the medal, the blur of the final match, Bella and the party that had been thrown for them. The sex she remembers more but never untainted with a haze of guilt and an intense upset that has her, even now, keeling over to catch her breath.
Her bag is close enough to grab for water . There are still too many people around for her to give anything away. Stupidly she wonders, if one of these girls were to know about her and Bella, how fast would the news be spread?
Jacque gulps down a mouthful of water and then reluctantly picks up her phone. Maybe things wouldn’t weigh as heavily on her mind if she changed her screensaver from the picture Niav took of Bella squashed between herself and Oliv with the Olympics rings in the background.
She taps open her phone and clicks the email app and there it is. The list.
Jacque stares at it, taking another drink, and wondering if she should just wait until later to look at it but there’s buzzing and message previews from Kathryn who’s texting her and Sadie in a group message that starts with ‘OMGGGGGG!’ that she knows she has to look or be told by someone else.
The US gives 22 players, Canada offers 18 and the Mexican national team offers 12.
The NWSL shows all its neutrality by listing where the US players are going first and the only raise of her eyebrow goes to the combination given to Portland, especially when she reads further into the Canadian selections to find that Whemb is heading there as well.
Then she pulls up her own number. Chicago Red Stars.
That’s not a bad pull. The franchise is a solid one with a good organization within it. They’ve been allocated Shannon Boxx with an option to be allocated another US player in the future. That’s probably because of the uneven distribution.
Jacque checks her name. She then checks Sadie and feels more confident about their ability to keep goals out and to have a friend on the team. She’s ready to move on to look elsewhere for Bella when she catches sight of it. Right underneath Sadie’s name.
They’re down a US allocation but up a Canadian one and suddenly everything’s gotten complicated again.
Kathryn’s message is short and sweet but the tone is clear; what the fuck is happening?
*
Kathryn isn’t the first person to call and try to figure out what the fuck is happening but to her credit she is the most polite. It’s a function of the fact that Kathryn actually knows exactly what’s going on and that the story they decided to tell everyone is not true.
Sadie isn’t so magnanimous.
Not even in the slightest.
They’re in their regularly scheduled Skype call when Sadie makes those feelings very clear. It’s a fight they’ve been having in some iteration or another for most of the call and it has Jacque in an almost constant state of exhaustion. “She can play in Chicago, whatever, I can’t stop that. But I’m not living with her.”
“Sadie, come on.” Jacque tries to calm her down because the Red Stars have made it clear that the three Canadian allocations will be housed together in some form.
“No.” She shifts, running an angry hand through her hair, stopping to readjust the ponytail. “How can you even stand to think about living with her?”
“Because we have to do it. It’s not negotiable.” Jacque reasons, trying to keep Sadie from escalating.
“She fucking cheated on you.” It always comes back to that and Jacque covers her face, hiding her annoyance at the story she got talked into making the official one. The only thing it’s brought is anger and confusion and questions. So many questions.
“I’ve forgiven her, okay? You should too.”
It’s the wrong thing to say because Sadie’s jaw clenches and she tilts her head like she’s about to tear into Jacque and give her a piece of her mind. “You’ve--I’m sorry. I can’t even process that.”
“We’re already divorced, Sadie, do you want me to sit around and spend all of my time thinking about how much I hate that?” Jacque asks seriously, trying to ascertain Sadie’s endgame. “Because I can’t do that. I won’t do that.”
“Maybe you can’t.” Sadie agrees. “But I sure as hell can. And I will.”
Jacque sighs and closes her eyes in frustration, opening them again to see Sadie giving her a face that says clearly ‘this is what I’ve decided’. “Do what you need to do, Sadie. But you’re living with her, that’s already decided so don’t make a big deal about it.”
The conversation has already been taken to an awkward place so it’s not a surprise when Sadie suddenly has to go a few minutes later, more than likely to get on the phone with Oliv and vent about how Jacque isn’t complicit in starting a scarlet letter campaign against Bella.
But there’s no way she can do that. She was as shocked as the next person in the know when the allocation list came out, though, she should have known putting Chicago on the list at all was asking for trouble.
Maybe there was always the little part of her that knew that Bella would put Chicago down as well and perhaps subconsciously this was a possibility she had been seeking.
It didn’t make it any less complicated.
And it wouldn’t make the few months between now and preseason run any more smoothly. The anticipation already proving too much to handle.
“
Cyprus Cup time rolls around again and Jacque looks forward to it, thankful for the distraction from the daily bullshit that comes with waiting for the NWSL to start and training on her own and coaching in her spare time.
But the call never comes, at least, not the one she’s been waiting for. John does call but it’s not with the news she was expecting to hear, the new she’s gotten for the past four years.
He’s not calling her into camp. And she won’t be going to the tournament. He tells her that it’s nothing personal and that she’s still an integral part of the national team but that he wants to start experimenting with youth and getting younger players some full national team game experience.
The call is short and after he hangs up Jacque cancels her entire day to sit in her apartment. She doesn’t want to say she’s sulking because she’s supposed to be prepared for this. It couldn’t happen at any time and it’s only one camp, one tournament, but it feels like much more than that.
The big clock that ticks in the background of all of their careers starts to get a little louder, a little more insistent in the back of hers.
And there’s not much that she can do to stop the time ticking down once it starts.
*
Bella has commitments with PSG until their push for the Champions League comes to an end which, unfortunately, ends up being at the beginning of April with a shocking loss over the course of two legs to a surging Arsenal squad.
She’d been so tied up in PSG and making sure that her focus was away from the mess her life had become back home that it was daunting to think about the fact that it was all over. Now she actually had to go back and face reality.
Face Jacque.
When she’d picked Chicago as her top choice there was never any thought in her mind that it would end up putting her on a collision course with Jacque again. Or that Jacque would even be playing in the NWSL in general.
For some stupid reason she’d assume Jacque would keep coaching and stay with the Whitecaps on the side between camps and matches but it turned out, not for the first or last time, that she was wrong.
And it’s probably a good thing as well that Jacque decided to play. Bella had heard through the grapevine about her exclusion from the Cyprus Cup and she’d had to stop herself from reaching out to Jacque and offering her sympathies. But she was the last person that Jacque wanted any pity from surely and something like that would only make her work that much harder to get back into the picture.
She had and Bella was thankful for the games that were schedule on the same dates as the European friendlies b
ecause she wanted nothing more than to head down there and see her team, well, to see Jacque seeing as most of her team didn’t want to give her the time of day.
Now her life was once again condensed to about two suitcases and she glances anxiously out of the window of her plane seat as they taxi the runway at Chicago O’Hare airport.
One part of her wants the taxiing to get over with, so she can get off of this plane she’s been on for hours but a cowardly part wants it to never end because then she has to face the world again.
Jacque’s picking her up.
It was the first time they would speak in almost six months but Alyse had called and said that she was sending her wife to get her and Bella didn’t have the heart to correct her.
So there was an unknown quantity waiting for her through baggage claim and the butterflies flying around in her stomach didn’t seem to understand she needed them to stop.
Unluckily they get stuck on the runway because, as usual, O’Hare is running behind schedule and it only serves to build up the moment even further.
By the time she gets off the plane and through into the baggage claim area she’s exhausted. But still she scans the area looking for Jacque, knowing that she’s waiting somewhere inside.
She sees Jacque before Jacque sees her and everything slows down.
There’s nothing different about her physically. Still the same body, still the same goofy face, and she’s appropriately dressed head to toe in Canadian national team gear. Just as Bella remembers her. Still though, she’s different in the way that she carries herself. Her shoulders hunched just slightly more than they’ve always been and she lacks that normally cheerful aura.
She looks like she’s waiting for her grave and not for Bella and there’s a part of her that wants to sneakily grab her luggage and get a cab somewhere, anywhere so she doesn’t have to face it.
But she’s left Jacque one too many times to do it to her like that again.
Jacque at least deserves this much.
Taking the long route is the best way to do this because it has her approaching Jacque from the front instead of sneaking up on her. Once upon a time sneaking up on her would have been the fun way to do things but that was before.
Now the fewer surprises the better.
It takes a second but Jacque sees her and stands just a little bit straighter, pulling one hand out of her pockets to give a brief wave before shoving it back in.
She’s closing herself off, her whole body language. She’s made it perfectly clear that there might as well be a force field around her that says ‘please don’t touch’.
And for her part Bella doesn’t. She respects Jacque’s implicit wishes and hangs back, even when she’s only a few feet in front of her, and waves back.
It’s awkward but then again there was no way it wasn’t going to be.
“Hey.” She speaks first because Jacque looks like she wants to be anywhere but standing in front of her.
“Hey.” Jacque fidgets, looking away. “You have a good flight?”
“It was okay.” Bella is already moving them towards the baggage carousel that will hopefully give all of her stuff back. “Long travel day, what are you gonna do?”
“Definitely.” That’s it. That’s the end of the conversation. Of course, because her karma is the way it is, her bags are the very last to come down the conveyor so they stand in stilted silence while they wait.
Without even thinking about it Jacque grabs her bags like she always used to and starts walking in the direction of the attached parking garage.
They catch an elevator and other than her humming along to the muzak it’s still just a whole lot of nothing.
Jacque’s parked on the very first floor, she opens up the trunk of the car and places Bella’s bags in carefully, gesturing for her to put her carry-on in the back as well.
Getting out of the maze of O’Hare isn’t a problem but they make it about fifteen minutes before they hit bumper to bumper traffic on the highway.
It’s like the universe is conspiring against them.
Music plays softly between them but it’s not enough to fill the gaps. Bella looks out her window, there’s no sign that they’re going anywhere fast. “We can’t do this, Jacque.”
“What?” She looks slightly startled that she’s actually being talked to and it would be endearing if the forced aloof act wasn’t so damn annoying.
“We have to live together and play together and there’s no way we can do that if you won’t even look or talk to me.” Everything comes rushing out in one burst and then she just feels drained.
“I’m not trying--.” Jacque cuts herself off, taking a hand off the wheel to mess with her hair, it’s her tic, her main tell. “I thought this is what you would want.”
“To be ignored?” Bella says in disbelief. “No, why would you think that?”
Jacque presses her eyes closed quickly until she remembers that she’s technically still on the highway. “We were done and then-” She pauses to inch forward slightly with traffic, looking back over at Bella. “-then you just left.”
“That’s not fair.” Bella argues back against the truth. “We needed space, after all that happened, I needed some space.”
“I didn’t know you needed five thousand miles away from me.” Jacque shouts back, looking immediately embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“No.” Bella shakes her head. “Get it out while we’re stuck together at least. Say what you need to say.”
“You left me to deal with everything. With my family, with our friends, and our teammates. You just left again, Bella. Like you always do and left me to clean up the messes.” The more Jacque talked the more it looked like a weight was being lifted off of her chest. Like this had been wearing on her for months and she could finally drop the strong for everyone, okay with it act and just feel.
“I didn’t realize it was that bad for you.” Bella finally says, after a few minutes of resumed silence, they’ve only moved maybe one hundred feet in that time. “Nobody really wanted me around after the story we came up so I just--wasn’t.”
Jacque ducks her head. “I thought we were going to rough it together.” Bella gives her a strange look. “Not ‘together’ together. Not after everything. But I got stuck with all of the damage control while you played in Paris.”
“Fuck, I never meant--” Bella stops and laughs self-deprecatingly. “Even when I’m trying to do the right thing I fuck it up, huh?”
“It’s not like that. I don’t know, I didn’t even plan to say anything about it but you asked.” Jacque reaches over, probably to reassure her, but she catches herself halfway and pulls her hand back. “I guess it’s good to clear the air before we have to live together, eh?”
“It is.” Bella agrees. “We just have to get used to each other again. We’re going to be teammates.”
“Yeah.”
“And maybe we could possibly work up to being friends again?” Bella asks hopefully.
“We were never actually friends before. Not really.” Jacque answers and all of the hope that Bella hadn’t realized she’d been banking on collapses and the car starts to feel like it’s closing in on her. There’s no way this can work.
“Oh.”
“No.” Jacque interrupts, seeing Bella’s dejected form. “I just meant, there was so much else going on that we never were just friends. But we could try? No promises.”
Bella smiles. “I can deal with that.”
Somewhere in their heart-to-heart traffic starting flowing again and there’s a chorus of honks behind them as Jacque steps her foot back onto the gas before they have to deal with some serious Chicago road rage.
“Oh.” Jacque says, pausing to change lanes. “One more thing.”
“Yeah?” Bella keeps her eyes trained outside the window, not ready to look at Jacque again after they got so emotional together.
“Steer clear of Sadie when possible.” Jacque warns. “She’s not your biggest fan right now and I’m
pretty sure I’m understating that.”
Bella nods, only belatedly thinking how stupid that was because it’s not like Jacque’s looking at her. But that’s more like what she expected when she came back.
If only she has thick enough skin to deal with it.
*
Not her biggest fan was definitely the understatement of the century but Bella could at least thank Jacque for giving her forewarning that Sadie might attempt to actually make her life hell.
Well, that was a bit of an overstatement. It’s not like she was doing anything egregious, really, it was more in the sense that she wasn’t doing anything at all. She wouldn’t talk to her, interact with her, if they were in the same room Sadie would leave if Bella didn’t first. It made their decent-sized apartment feel claustrophobic.
Sometimes there were sly comments, or at least Sadie thought they were sly, that she would say underneath her breath as they passed each other. Snide remarks about her cheating on Jacque, about why she’d even come back and put them all through the agony. About how there’s no way Sadie could ever trust her again.
It would be a lie to say that it didn’t sting.
Before all of this shit went down she could count on Sadie as one of her closest friends, not even that, they were like family. And now she was apparently on her own scarlet letter campaign against Bella.
But to her credit, even though there was obvious awkwardness, Sadie was mostly able to keep her hate to herself and the bad blood stayed between the three Canadians. Which was good because Bella was most definitely not informed that there would be two Americans living in the front half of their apartment.
Quenby and Lexi were definitely cool though and more and more as the preseason wore on started to become her saving grace in the apartment. They definitely gave her a lot of shit but once Bella figured out it was all out of love it became her safe place. The place where she could go to feel like she belonged somewhere again.
And if they thought it was strange that she actively avoided her national teammates, especially her wife, then they chose not to say anything about it.
