by Tara Wimble
Jacque really wants them to have a blank slate for the tournament. The Olympics only come around once every four years and unless your name is Christie Rampone, you’re not guaranteed to make more than one. Especially not at Jacque’s age.
So tonight is about mental preparation for the long haul of matches that will hopefully lead them to the final.
And that means discussing a few other things that are almost final, or rather, agreeing to not discuss those thing for the next two weeks.
“Blank slate.” Bella puts out there. “We’re at the Olympics, we should soak in every experience, and not dwell on anything else.”
They have their laptops open on the bed because there’s nothing good on television and most of the serial programs don’t have an intro that catches them up on what’s been happening previously. Bella’s mainly been tweeting about her excitement while Jacque catches up on the schedule for tomorrow.
“That’s easier to say than to do.” Jacque points out. “I know that you’re saying that with the best intentions but life doesn’t stop the minute we start playing.”
“No, but we leave everything in the locker room anyway before we take the field.” Bella explains. “So what’s so hard about leaving our stuff here, in this room, before we even make it to the locker room.”
“Because neither of us are robots.” Jacque answers, tamping down her minor agitation because she knows Bella only means well but there’s no conversation that’s going to stop her from feeling the way she does. She can’t just shut that off. If she could she would have already, saved herself the trouble. Feelings don’t work like that.
“We’re in a better place than we were.” Bella pulls at the covers of her duvet. “I know I might be jinxing it by saying that but, I’m happier that we’re talking and even this-” Sitting on the same bed and not feeling stifled by being in the same room together. “-it’s more than I could have imagined at Christmas.”
“I’m happy about that too.” Jacque mumbles because this is neither the time nor the place to want more. “We’re in such a good place but we can’t just shut it off or forget about it or whatever you’re proposing because I play for my country but, you know, also the people on the field with me. You’re a huge part of that.”
Bella abruptly jumps in the second she stops talking. “I’m not leaving you, y’know.” Jacque freezes. “I know that I am. That this divorce is happening and that the way I’ve gone about all of this- It was never about hurting you. You’re my best friend. And I’ll be here with you still. Whether you want me here or not.”
Jacque is able to breathe again momentarily because she has to laugh. “God, even when you’re trying to be sweet it’s still the most unintentionally creepy thing. How do you even manage to pull that off?”
The humor she’s trying to bring out of Bella doesn’t emerge straight away because Jacque isn’t subtle about how she’s deflecting. Bella’s hands are pulling at the sheets, closer and closer, to her. “I mean it though.”
Jacque knows she does. Bella is hanging onto the hope of friendship just as much as Jacque is hoping for something more. Both of them are deluding themselves in a way. “Can you- give me a sec.” Jacque pushes off the bed and walks to the bathroom. She won’t leave but she won’t sit in front of Bella while she cries.
It comes out as a dry sobbing behind the door she closes. Jacque bites down on the back of her hand and keels over the sink trying not to make a sound.
Bella knows. Of course she knows. But she doesn’t need to see this. She doesn’t need to see the full expressions her face goes through as they try and work this out. As Jacque fails to keep the disappointment off her face.
It’s not even her fault. Jacque can’t wish for her to feel something that she doesn’t feel, just as much as they can’t ignore what they’ve been through together either.
Her shaking sobs subside enough for her to stop biting her hand and use it to support herself against the sink counter. There’s dented marks by her knuckles that grow pink again. She knows that looking up means looking at herself and deciding that Bella is right. That they have to manage and they have to try. That, in a way, Jacque has to give up on this.
It’s funny, she thinks looking at her tear stained face, to look into the eyes of a quitter.
Turning on the sink to splash her face with cold water is the loudest sound she’s made since walking into the bathroom. Her hot tears are washed away with only the red trails around her eyes to tell their story.
She buries her face into one of the fluffy towels on the rack, keeping the pressure against her face as if it will put her back together again. It works for a moment while she walks out.
Instantly she knows that she wasn’t quiet enough for Bella to politely ignore her.
Bella strides from the bed, ignoring the weak protest Jacque is about to make, and embraces her. Actually embraces her. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Sorry for bringing it up. Sorry for the hurt. Sorry for starting this all in the first place.
Jacque feels the wave of tears threaten her again and her face scrunches up trying to stop them. “It’s not your fault. It’s not-”
It’s a whispered truth. A harsh reality.
Bella can’t apologise for this. Jacque never predicted she’d fall in love with her.
Somehow they both end up holding onto each other, keeping themselves together by clinging onto each other. Jacque twists her hand into the back of Bella’s shirt, pushes her cheek against the top of Bella’s head, feeling her breathing leveling out. Bella abandons the barriers that she may have put up between them and hides her head into the crook of Jacque’s neck. Her hands are locked behind Jacque’s waist and she mumbles ‘sorry’ until they fall into a comfortable silence.
“We’re gonna leave it all in here.” Jacque breathes in, closing her eyes. “We’ll leave it all and go and win this thing and I’ll still be here.”
Bella’s hot sigh stings against her collar.
“I’ll still be here after we end it.” She’s signing herself over for a new regret but how can she not? How can she do anything more than this? The pain will lessen. Time will heal and day by day this feeling will fade.
Bella nods into her neck.
Jacque takes a chance. A chance that brings Bella to hug her tighter after she presses a kiss to the side of her head. “You’re my best friend too.”
Signed, sealed and a model of selflessness. Bella chokes out the sentiment to her, exhausted with emotion, still holding her with no intention of letting go.
Jacque lets her because there’s a part of her that doesn’t want to let go because once she lets go that’s it, it’s solidified, she’s sealed her place in Bella’s life. She’s the friend, the best friend even, but nothing more. She’s not the person Bella will ultimately hold onto, she’s the person she’s actually trying to let go of in the grander scheme of things.
So she’s lets her hold on and she tamps down the urge to isolate herself again, to chide her stupid need to be close to Bella in whatever way she’ll allow, for placing herself in the friend zone.
It starts to feel like too much. “I need you to let go, I can’t breathe.”
Bella loosens her grip just a little bit but she doesn’t let go, shaking her head to the negative in the crook of Jacque’s neck. Bella mumbles something against her neck.
“What?” Jacque answers softly.
“Hold me.” Bella pulls slightly away from her neck, just enough to be intelligible.
“I already am.”
“No,” Bella leans back so they’re still touching but she’s looking in Jacque’s eyes. “Tonight. I just--I need you to be there.”
She wants to be able to say no, to say that it’s not something she needs as well. That physical closeness they’ve come to rely on in the important moments of their lives. But even after the doors been closed on them, practically slammed shut herself, she can have this. Take this one last moment before every day becomes a
nother step closer to over.
Jacque can preach to Bella that she won’t leave after all of this is said and done but this plea is asking her to show her.
“I can do that.” Jacque’s already moving them towards the closest bed, disengaging only for the moment it takes to pull down the covers and lay down on her back.
Bella climbs over her and settles on her side, body draped halfway over Jacque, head nestled in the crook between her chin and her shoulder, arm slung tightly over her midsection. Jacque turns Bella towards her even closer with her left arm, and uses her right to brush a few strands of hair out of Bella’s face before draping it protectively over Bella’s back.
It shouldn’t be so comfortable, pressed so close together, it shouldn’t feel like the most right thing she’s ever done but they lay there, not sleeping for the longest time, just silently basking in each other’s presence.
When they finally do fall asleep, exhausted by everything that’s happened, everything this room represents, it’s with a feeling of utter content.
*
25th July 2012;
Canada v Japan;
John leaves the dressing room before they do. The trainers and the assistant coaches follow him out past the Canadian flag they’ve brought into the room. The door is shut behind them.
“It’s game time.” Imogen grins.
Whemb gets them into a circle and they put their arms over each other’s shoulders. There’s a small scuffle to keep the circle as close together as possible. Bella is squeezed next to Sadie and Kelly for the pre-game talk. Whemb takes point on this because it’s the opening match but over the next few games different players will step up into the role. Imogen, Carla, Sophie, will all have a shot at opening the match.
It’s short and sweet. It’s heartfelt and it’s determined. Japan are the World Champions and beating them won’t be easy. Bella can see it in everyone’s faces. The joking is done. The smiles are anticipation. The roar of the crowd they can only just hear has them bouncing on their toes.
Bella feels so much love just standing between her teammates. The confidence isn’t a sure thing. It’s a want. It’s a desire to go out and play. Their jerseys hold more than the weight of their personal dreams but the hope of the nation they represent.
She’s been wearing the red and white for three years. The number three isn’t the number eight that it used to be. It isn’t the dream she held as a little kid. This wasn’t the team she imagined to be standing here with.
Jacque has her head ducked while Whemb finishes her speech. She doesn’t know Bella is looking at her and there’s a grace and humbleness to the way she completely gives herself to the words being said that makes her hard to look away from. Especially after everything last night.
Maybe this wasn’t the dream team she imagined but this is the only team that she can ever see herself standing with now.
“Hands in.”
Coventry brings them eighteen thousand voices, clapping hands, stomping feet and enthusiastic supporters. Many of which have no claim to either of the countries facing off against each other. The Olympic announcers introduce the teams playing and the flags and before Bella knows it she’s standing on the sideline facing the starting eleven that are singing along loudly to the national anthem. Bella winks at Lauren.
There was no illusion that she’d start any of the games. John has made the game plan for the subs quite clear. You have to make an impact. You have to change the game. Bella takes her spot on the bench knowing that. Her job is to make a difference when it’s the only thing between them winning and losing.
Whemb shakes hands with the referees and the Japanese captain, Aya Miyama. Then the whistle is blown. The game begins.
Bella spends most of it with her elbows digging into her knees. Japan is the team that everyone said they’d be. Drawing a group with them was always a risk. World Champions. Bella can’t afford to be negative but the lingering thought in the back of her head is, if we weren’t able to beat the US, how will they beat Japan?
Her thoughts are emphasized in the thirty third minute when the defense is outplayed and Kawasumi strikes a ball over Sadie and into the back of the goal. Bella winces at the technicality required for that angle.
There’s hardly a reprieve and in the forty fourth minute Miyama strikes it again past Sadie, after Japan absolutely picks apart the back line, and suddenly they’re down two to nil before the first half is even over and it’s like flashes of the World Cup all over again.
She can see it in the way that Sadie stays down on the ground after the ball hits the back of the net for just the barest moment longer than necessary. She can see it in the slump of the backlines shoulders. In the way they jog instead of run for the last few minutes of the half.
John isn’t the type of coach to stay silent, he doesn’t let those things go. He calls them out, he calls them all out in the locker room. Tells them that if they want to play for Canada, if they want to wear the shirt then they’ll go back out and fight. But that if they want a repeat of last year's disaster, the embarrassment, they’re playing for the wrong side.
It galvanized them, they’re energized behind the coach who believes in them, who has done so since the second he stepped onto Canadian soil.
Oliv gives them hope in the fifty fifth minute, diverting a beautiful ball from Niav past the Japanese keeper. She turns and pumps her fists at the rest of them, pointing fingers as if to urge everyone forward towards an equalizer.
Bella leaps up on the bench along with Imogen and Dri as Oliv picks up Carla and Niav rushes on to congratulate her. They’re within one.
They stay within one when the final whistle blows.
Bella is one of the first to embrace Sadie when she gets off the pitch. There’s not much to say when you play world champions. The result, however bitter, was always thought of by the team. The shining moment given to them by Oliv though puts a spring in their steps back into the locker room. Whemb and Oliv are grabbed by the British media for interviews post-game, but the rest of them head into the showers to get ready to get back on the bus to the hotel.
Game one lost. Kathryn puts it perspective as Bella pulls up track pants. “Well, at least we got it out of the way.”
“Yeah, no more losing from here, guys.” Jacque puts on a clean shirt. “You heard Kathryn. It’s not allowed.”
That earns her a laugh from the few people standing around them. But it rings true, the Olympics don’t work on the same rules as the World Cup, there’s a larger margin of error with the two best third place teams getting through to the knockout stages as well, but they don’t want to think like that.
No more losing. That’s the order of the tournament from now on.
*
The team shakes off the opening loss with a tour around the city. It’s not London but it’s interesting in its own right. A few of the younger girls convince Bella to come with them shopping and Jacque decides to stick around with Kathryn. Even before she turned up at Kathryn’s door, she knew that this was going to be kind of an odd day.
Kathryn takes one look at her earnest face and sighs. “You’re going to have to buy me dinner for this.”
“You know that I haven’t figured out the coins yet...”
They ditch their Canadian emblazoned gear for a more subtle apparel and hide their Olympic lanyards to go out. It takes them awhile to explore the place enough for Jacque to settle on some chainless bar and grill where they can only eat what their nutritionists allow them to eat.
“So what’s going on?”
“Y’know. Olympics.”
“Don’t be cute.” Kathryn isn’t letting her get away with dodging.
“Should have dated you instead with those smooth moves.”
“We’re,” She doesn’t want to tell Kathryn everything. She’s still holding onto this cover as much as she can. Kathryn might know that she married Bella for something other than genuine love and affection but the less she knows the better. “-trying
to-”
“You told me she wasn’t gay.” Kathryn pours them glasses of water. “Like, you actually cried about the fact that she wasn’t gay to me when we found her fucking her boyfriend. Jacque, come on.”
Straight to the point then. “There’s nothing more to say. At least not yet.”
“I’m trying to look out for you.” Kathryn hasn’t even looked at the menu yet. “And for her to some extent. But I can’t do that if you won’t tell me anything.”
Jacque skims over the choices being presented to them. “It’s better if I don’t.”
“I don’t like being blindsided.” Kathryn murmurs.
“I know, but I can’t have a third person in on this. It’s too complicated already.” She knows that Kathryn has pieced together some parts of this. That she’s married Bella. That Bella isn’t gay. That what she feels for Bella has come about during the course of their marriage. And that they’ve never slept together.
Why Jacque’s doing this? She guesses Kathryn must have some theories but she won’t confirm anything. It’s safer that way.
“But you love her.”
Jacque presses her thumb into the fold of the napkin on the table. “Yes.”
“And she-”
Jacque closes her eyes. “She knows.”
“God.” Kathryn breathes out. Someone comes over and takes their orders. They struggle to pick something that isn’t going to make them regret eating out when they have to get back in the gym later.
Jacque sips on her water. “We’re not as bad as we were.” They’ve scraped together their friendship, what they can manage with what they’re going through, and it’s civil right now.
“What’s changed?”
“She’s left him.”
“She left him?” Kathryn must see something in her eyes. “Jacque, no.”
Jacque reels back the lift that her features must have given away. “What?”
“Why did she leave him?” When Jacque doesn’t answer she presses. “Jacque.”
“She missed me.” Jacque reluctantly admits. “She said that she missed me.”