Chapter 9
The fourth game of the season occurred on a rainy October Sunday afternoon.
It was their last one before the first international break, where the players lucky enough to play with their national teams would disperse across the globe, and Erin would be left behind to continue her rehab.
Not that she was bitter or anything.
Albion’s opponents were a team in form, and the first half had been an edgy, timid affair. Beside Erin, Maisie was tense as the minutes ticked by in the second half.
“Come on,” Maisie whispered as Albion mounted their next attack. “You can do this.”
Erin leaned forward in her seat as Lia received the ball at the edge of the box. “Shoot,” she said, though Lia couldn’t hear her. “You’ve had no luck trying to be cute and playing passes into their penalty area, so—”
Lia thumped a shot into the top of the net, sending the crowd wild. Even Erin raised a fist in celebration while Maisie jumped out of her seat so fast, her sweets went flying over the couple in front. They didn’t seem to mind.
“That’s more like it.” Erin relaxed her shoulders, some of the tension leaching out of her.
With so few teams—twelve in total—in the league, a single loss or draw was costly when it came to deciding who won the title.
But Albion had an excellent defensive record; Erin wasn’t worried about them keeping out goals for the remainder of the game.
A few minutes after the restart, Lia was in the box once again, about to let another shot fly, when she was taken out by the dirtiest tackle Erin had seen in a long time.
It was made worse by the slick grass, the opposition defender sliding in with her studs high.
Lia’s shout was audible from the stands, her hand immediately clutching her right ankle.
As one, the Albion bench leapt to their feet, furious to see such a reckless challenge. It was the clearest penalty and red card Erin had seen in a long time.
“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Maisie clutched at Erin’s sleeve, her voice full of anxiety.
On the pitch, Lia lay on the grass, being seen to by the team physios.
Erin didn’t know how to reassure her. “I hope so.”
It didn’t look good. Lia was stretchered off the pitch a few minutes later, her hands over her face.
“Can we go and see how she is?” Maisie peered at Erin with her best puppy-dog eyes.
Erin supposed she was in a rather unique position. The rest of the team wouldn’t be able to check on her until the match finished. Plus, Erin knew what it was like to deal with a serious injury.
“Okay.” She slid off her seat and made her way to the treatment room with Maisie hot on her heels. As they stepped inside the stadium, the crowd roared—the penalty clearly scored and Albion’s lead assured.
The Albion pass around Erin’s neck afforded her access to wherever she wanted to go, and Erin was waved into the treatment room by one of the stewards.
Inside, Lia was reclining on one of the beds.
She rested her weight on her elbows, her face white and her teeth worrying at her bottom lip as her right leg was examined by the team doctor.
Her shin was cut, blood trickling along her calf, but it was the ankle that was the concern, a frown on the doctor’s face as she gently moved it from side to side.
“Not yet.” Erin stopped Maisie from bounding inside by wrapping a hand around her shoulder. “Give them a minute.”
Lia lifted her head, her eyes meeting Erin’s, panic in her gaze, terror that this could mean she was out for weeks or months, a feeling Erin knew wouldn’t be assuaged until a scan properly assessed the damage.
“Can I get you anything?” The doctors would be more focused on the injury than on Lia and her emotional wellbeing.
Lia shook her head.
“Anyone you want me to find in the crowd?”
“No one is here watching me.” Lia sucked in a harsh breath when her leg was stretched. “And there’s no one to call, either.”
Erin found that hard to believe. “You sure?”
“No one who will come.” Lia’s smile was tight. “All of my friends are footballers, too. And I don’t have the best relationship with my family. Certainly not one where they’ll come and hold my hand and tell me it’ll be all right.”
Before Erin could react, Maisie squirmed out of her grip and bounded over to Lia’s side. She took her hand, her nose scrunched, and regarded Lia with a serious gaze. “Everything will be all right, Lia. I promise.”
Erin leaned her shoulder against the wall and pretended not to see the way Lia’s eyes filled with tears.
* * *
Three days after being stretchered off the pitch, Lia walked back into Park Lane training ground with only the smallest of limps.
Thankfully, her injury wasn’t as bad as first feared—no ligament damage. Just a hefty sprain. She’d be out for a couple of weeks, but it was far from a season-ending injury. It did, however, mean she’d missed out on joining her Welsh teammates for the international window.
As a result, Park Lane was unusually quiet as Lia made her way to the gym to meet with Joey, the Albion physiotherapist who was in charge of her rehab. Lia hated it. Usually the building was loud and raucous, a teammate around every corner.
Today, she was met with silence.
Even the gym was empty. Joey must have been running late.
Lia dropped her bag to the floor and started her warm-up stretches, wishing she were at Dragon Park with Cerys and the others.
She hated letting people down, but at least the matches they were scheduled to play were friendlies, rather than qualifiers for the World Cup.
Those would be happening soon, and Lia wasn’t planning on missing them. Wales had never made the tournament, and she was determined to be the difference this time. But she couldn’t do that if she didn’t recover and recuperate from her injury.
The gym door opened and Lia turned, expecting to see Joey.
Instead, Erin strolled inside wearing shorts and her Albion jersey. “You’re back.”
“I am.” Lia should have realised Erin would also be in the gym. Her individual training programme still had her some way off from being back on the pitch.
“How’s the ankle?” As she crossed the room toward her, Erin gave Lia’s leg a once-over. “I heard it wasn’t too serious.”
Lia refrained from teasing Erin about checking on her, suspecting it wouldn’t be well received. Just because she’d come to see how she was afterwards didn’t mean anything had changed between them. “Should only be out a couple of weeks.”
“Good.” Erin’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. No doubt she was wishing her own injury had such a quick recovery time.
Lia hadn’t seen Erin since the match, since breaking down when Maisie had held her hand. “I, um, wanted to thank you. For coming to check on me when I got hurt.”
“Oh.” Looking uncomfortable, Erin shrugged. “It was Maisie’s idea.”
Lia should have expected her to brush it off. “Well, thanks anyway. It was nice to see a familiar face.”
“Did you mean it?” Erin’s gaze was focused on Lia’s face, her head tilted to one side. “That no one else would have come if you’d called?”
Lia wished she hadn’t said that, but she’d been honest. “Yes. My family… We’re not on good terms. They don’t come to my matches.
And I wouldn’t want them to, either, for that matter.
” Where the hell was Joey? Lia hated talking about her family at the best of times.
Talking about it with Erin, of all people, was odd.
“I thought you wanted to stay in Manchester because of your family.”
Did Erin remember everything Lia said? “I did. But my father, stepmother, and stepbrother aren’t my family—my grandmother is.
She was the one who came to all my games.
” Lia took a deep breath. “She has dementia, and her care home is here. I didn’t want to move her because I left Wanderers.
Leaving Manchester was never an option for me. ”
“I’m so sorry.” Erin had never sounded so sincere. “You don’t deserve that. Any of it—your family, your ex, what happened at Wanderers. No one does.”
“Thanks.” Lia let out a relieved breath when the gym door opened and Joey raced inside.
“Sorry I’m late! Traffic was hellish.” He waved at Erin and smiled at Lia. “Ready to get that ankle back to full fitness?”
“You bet.”
* * *
It was nice, having someone else in the gym.
Erin had gotten so used to solitude. And Lia was quiet most of the time.
She didn’t chatter idly, too busy focusing on her own recovery.
But she also pushed Erin in hers, too. Unsurprisingly, they made it into a competition—who could do the most reps, who could stretch the furthest, who could be the first to reach a certain point in their respective recovery plans.
Lia pushed her, and Erin had been missing that aspect of training.
Was she starting to like having Lia around?
One person who did like having Lia around was Maisie.
It was the school holidays, and Jessica had been called into work unexpectedly, with too short notice to find any childcare.
Enter Aunt Erin to the rescue—she was lucky that Albion were understanding and happy for Maisie to follow her around all day while she went through rehab.
“You’re supposed to be doing homework.” Erin used her best no-nonsense voice as she eyed Maisie from across the gym.
She sat on an exercise bike next to the treadmill Lia was jogging on and had been talking Lia’s ear off for the past ten minutes while Erin did her knee stretches under Gregor’s watchful eye.
“I’ve done it all,” Maisie said. “I didn’t have much.”
“Well, Lia might appreciate some peace and quiet.” Erin loved Maisie more than she loved anyone else in the world, but she could be a lot when she got excited. And around Lia, she operated at a higher-than-usual level of enthusiasm.
“Oh, it’s fine.” Despite fifteen minutes on the treadmill, Lia had barely broken a sweat. She wasn’t out of breath, either.