Enemy Lines (completed)

38

Waking the next morning I head to the gym to escape my thoughts for an hour.

Arriving at the gym I do my normal ritual of pre-workout, stretching, and the heavy metal music blaring through my headphones.

Today was legs. I tried to be as careful as possible as I wouldn't have to work around a bad knee in-front of the media. We had two days before the next game so we would need to start ironing the details out.

After destroying my legs for a little over an hour I limp out of the gym and head back to the hotel. I shower and dress in shorts and a t-shirt.

I check my emails and respond if need be.  I wake the kids up so they could get cleaned up before breakfast. Brett gets up easily and starts talking about his dream. He was apparently sitting on top of a subway, drinking Starbucks, as semis flew by on the interstate.

Ansley woke up madder then hell. She gave me the nastiest glare as she wordlessly walked past me.

I couldn't get mad at her though. She just lost her only biological parent who she is- or was very close with.

Even if it hurt me I would have to let her heal on her own. It's going to be hard as none of us will ever get closure for what stef has done, or why she did it.

After all of us are dressed and ready we head down into the meal room. The tension could be felt a mile away. Brett and Ansley decide to sit with Amy and her kids as I walked to our normal seat at the front of the room.

It hurt. I love those kids with everything in me and them turning their backs on me was worse then anything stef ever did to me.

I ate quickly before talking to the team. "Practice is heavy this morning, 3 hours, then you guys will do a one hour weight session with Dawn, after that one hour of recovery. After recovery we will eat lunch. After lunch we will watch film, please bring a notebook or a sheet of paper. After film we are going to do a mandatory team bonding session before dinner. After dinner I will give you an run down of tomorrow's schedule. We play Chile in two days. We need to iron out all the details before that game. You all are released get ready and head back down here in twenty." They just nod and throw away their trash before heading to their room.

Me and the kids chill in the lobby as we wait for the players to come join us. They join us soon after. We load on the bus and head to the training pitch.

Once everyone has their studs on I call them to the center circle. "We are working on through balls. Wing backs I want you to run 10 yards before sending it to the near corner of the 6 where our outside miss will be, miss send it across the mouth of the goal. Let's start capitalizing on the easy tap ins. Not every goal has to be a 20 yard screamer." They just as I set up the cones for everyone to see where they have to be.

They run it a couple times stumbling through the drill as if they have never played soccer since.

I adjust a few things and let them run it again. Once they get it fool proof I call them back into the center circle as our amazing equipment staff sets up the next drill.

"Now let's work on set pieces. Everyone will take a free kick that is 35 yards out from the goal. I want you to place it on a players heads and let's see if you can get it past our keeps." They just nod as we walk through it once before running to at game pace.

This one is a little easier for everyone to get and it also helps me pick who I want to take the majority of our free kicks. The players that stuck out the lost was Lloyd, Tobin, Lavelle, Ertz. But I couldn't remove Ertz or Lloyd from the box as they bring most of our Ariel presence.

We then decide on 1v1's for the rest of practice. The first to score gets to rest as the loser runs one twenty yard sprint before getting back in line. It keeps things interesting as most people don't want to run after 2 and a half ours in the sun.

By the time my alarm rings the girls are exchanging their studs for lifters and heading into the gym with Dawn for an hour of hell. I take this time to talk to my position coaches about what I think needs to be adjusted for the best results.

They all agree with my view of the players. We spend the next 30 minutes messing around playing Goal(horse but for soccer) nothing serious just messing about trying to waste time while also showing off our skills.

The teams finishes soon after and loads onto the bus. Every single players looks ready to plunge into an ice bath.

Arriving back at the hotel I head to the confrence room and set everything up as right after lunch we will start film. As I'm compiling the best plays from the Chilean team from the past few months. Just as I save the video Ansley comes in visibly upset.

I hear the door open as I lift my head from the computer screen.  The tear streaks still present as she walks into me. I just stand and pull her into me. Once in my arms she breaks down. I pull her down I got he ground with me.

I hold her as she breaks apart in my arms causing tears to come to my eyes. After about 45 minutes of full on sobbing she starts to calm down and catches her breathe.

She finally speaks her first word to me in almost 24 hours. "Why?" She sounds so defeated.

"Why what baby?" I question as I stroke her hair.

"Why did she have to leave you?"

I could lie and protect her image of her mother or I could tell her the truth and hurt her further. I chose the first option. "We didn't work out. We had different goals and us staying together was stoping us from achieving what we wanted to." I lie, well partially lie.

"Do you miss her?"

"Yes. I always will she have me the two greatest things in world."

"What?"

"She gave me you two."

"Why does it hurt so bad if she left us in the first place?"

"If you think she left you when she went to prison you are wrong. She fought tooth and nail to protect you all. She wanted nothing more then to spend as much time as possible with you guys but because of her actions she wasn't able to do so. And it will always hurt I'm not going to sugar coat it and say it gets better because it doesn't. You learn to adapt to the pain but you'll see something as silly as a flower in the park and cry since it was your mothers favorite flower or something like that."

"Momma? Did she ever hit you?" She questions staring at me with full sincerity in her eyes.

I'm taken back by her question, so straight forward and blunt. "Why?"

"Because She would hit me while shouting your name after you went to bed." She says like it's normal.

The seemingly perfect bond between the mother daughter duo turns out it not be so perfect as I had thought.

"What?" Is all I'm able to choke out as the thought of that woman ever laying a hand on Ansley. So what if you birthed her if you ever lay your hand on your child you aren't a parent your a monster.

"She would just go on and on about everything you messed up or didn't do."

I pull her into my as she starts to get emotional. "Why didn't you tell me. I would've protected you?"

"Because I didn't want her to hurt you more."

"How about this if anyone lays a hand on you, you tell me right away even if I'm 80 years old and in a wheelchair I will set them straight and if anyone lays a hand on me I will tell you." I would never hold up my side of the deal as I don't need her to stress about anything more then she needs to. No child should have to take on their parents problems as well as their own.

"Okay momma." We hug before standing.

"Wanna go grab some lunch. The teams eating right now?"

"Sure." She says as we walk into the meal room with her on my back since wanted to be carried. The rest of the day goes by smoothly after me and Ansley made up.

====+

Another short update but the plot thickens or I think it does.