A young lioness

One step forward, and 3 steps back

Maeva's point of view:

I woke up feeling good, the sun was really bright outside and I could already see the dew had lifted off the grass. I got up and went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror- I obviously had a deep sleep because my hair looked like an utter train wreck, so I decided it would be best to shower before anyone saw me. I came out of the bathroom fully clothed and clean, to a half asleep Keira who waved in my direction. "Morning Kei", I said, unsure if she actually heard me due to her drifting in and out of sleep still. She gave me a thumbs up which made me laugh, she definitely was not a morning person. I was sat scrolling on my phone, whilst waiting for Keira to get ready, when I saw a news story come up on my Twitter feed. Usually I ignore things like this but for some reason I couldn't help myself, the story surrounded the squad selection for this camp- brutally analysing each player. I definitely knew this was the wrong thing to be reading but I was curious as to what they would put about me, that was until I read the titles written underneath my photo.

"Shy camp debutant is set to be the biggest waste of potential seen in an England squad" 
"Sources say camp debutant, Maeva Williams, has a history of drug addiction. Surely her loud side, isn't the only thing she's hiding..."

Wow that one hurt that a motherfu... I know I shouldn't have even gone there in the first place but now I was concerned that the truth would come out. My addiction was such a dark period, one that I didn't wish to relive, and now the tabloids have got a sniff of it. I could feel myself start to breathe heavier and my skin felt like it was strangling me, so I popped six pills of my anxiety medication- I was only meant to have one a day but recently it felt like the more I took, I better I felt. I know this was a slippery slope to go down again, especially with the recent news story but what else was i supposed to do.

"Earth to Maeva!" I suddenly heard Keira say, snapping her fingers in front of my phone. "You okay?" She asks, "I've been calling you for the past minute". I was still in a bit of shock over the story so I didn't really know how to respond, "yeah, yeah, sorry I was in my own head for a bit there" I said to her. She didn't look overly convinced but we headed down to breakfast anyway.

Keira's point of view:

Okay that was weird. There was definitely something going on with Maeva there, I just couldn't figure out what it was. I mean, she seemed absolutely fine until I came out of her bathroom, she must of seen something on her phone. Walking down to breakfast she didn't seem overly affected by whatever it was she saw, she was definitely spaced out but she still had a smile on, so I decided to drop it.

"Morning Kei, everything alright?" Leah asked, I decided that whatever it was that was bothering Maeva would stay between us, I didn't want Leah to be even more worried than she already looked this morning. "Yeah everything's fine Le, good sleep?" I responded, to which she nodded, with a mouthful of strawberries.

Lucy soon joined us, rambling on about some fifa game that she lost to Rachel yesterday, she really doesn't take losing lightly. "Is it me, or does Maeva look like she's in a whole different dimension?" She asked. Great I thought, how on earth am I going to dig her out of this hole. "Hmm she looks fine to me, maybe she's still waking up I don't know" I responded, trying to cover up the fact that Maeva is probably the biggest morning person i know from rooming with her, and that she was up quite spritely this morning. Lucy seemed content with that response and went back to shovelling some porridge down her, whilst Leah continued to stare at the girl, who had not taken her eyes off the blank wall opposite her. I knew we had a big team press conference this morning from when I overheard Sarina and Leah chatting yesterday, so I was quietly plotting in my head, how I was going to get Maeva back in the zone and Leah to stop panicking over every minor detail. God, anyone would think I was the captain at this rate.