𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 ; 𝐜𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐜

𝐢𝐢. 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬

𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐀 𝐁𝐈𝐋𝐀𝐋 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐍 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐑. her locker that stored a whole seasons worth of certificates, awards, medals, letters and gifts from her teammates. the memories from when she received them, hit her like a rock. all of the good times she had, rushed through her brain, one after the other. maira's eyes had almost started to water as she took the magnets off the letters from her friends. the certificates were random topics really, the team often held award ceremonies where they would award players certificates for the stupidest things, like "player most megged" or "player with the least hours of sleep" which was the one maira ended up with her first time getting one.

it took her thirty minutes and a couple of eye rubs, prevention from tears flowing down her face, to entirely clear out her locker. it felt as if she was clearing out her memories, her life, almost. but never the less, she ended up closing the door of locker number seventeen for the last time that day. leaving her locker room, she saw trent waiting for her down the hall that lead into the car lot, so naturally, she went over to the scouse to talk to him, as they always would do after practices or home games. neither of them remembered when they started doing this, but they continued doing it like it was a tradition of sorts.

"mai! how was your practice? not too many tears i hope" trent teased as he slid his phone into his pocket and started walking to the car park, the pakistani girl following not too far back.

"practice wasn't bad, no tears, not from me at least." she remembered two of her teammates crying ever so slightly at the thought of maira no longer playing with them, but instead against them. "and yours? no tears on your end for the most perfect best friend you could ever ask for?" she teased back.

"for you? the girl who has stolen my dog from me for the past eight months?" it was true, trent's dog, prince, had taken a heavy liking to maira. trent was not fond of that at all, whenever he would tell her to get her own dog, instead of taking his all the time, she'd simply say that she wasn't a dog person, and more of a cat person. "no i don't think i could, maybe if you were to give me some money i could put up a little act though." their conversation continued on, teasing each other back and forth until they finally reached their cars.

"i still have an hour and a half till my meetings. you wanna go somewhere? i don't have anything to do." she told trent, who pulled out his phone to check his calendar for anything taking up his time. even if there was something, he'd probably cancel it anyways to spend time with his best friend.

"actually. there's an ice cream shop about fifteen to twenty minutes away, lets try that, yeah?" he put his phone back in his pocket, and turned around to see maira opening her trunk and putting her bag inside it.

"yeah that'll work, you wanna just ride together or should we just drive separately?" the girl asked as she reached her hand up and pushed her car's trunk down, closing it.

"we can use your car since you're gonna be driving back for your meeting anyway" trent told the girl who was already opening the door of her car. once they both got in maira's car, they continued whatever conversation they were having before. the two of them could speak to each other for hours on end, trent usually speaking, and maira listening and dropping comments in every now and then. their differences was what made trent alexander arnold and maira bilal such great friends.

𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐏𝐎𝐎𝐋 𝐌𝐄𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐀 𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐊 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐀 𝐁𝐈𝐋𝐀𝐋 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐒. every time she walked into that room, she'd always come back out with bad news, which at the current point in time, had only been twice. but she still had a bad feeling about this meeting in particular. it's a normal thing for someone to be nervous before a really important meeting, but for maira? it was the first time in years she had let her nerves get to her.