Charlie's POV:
When I woke up, I noticed that I was in a bed, which meant I'd fallen asleep yesterday at the team quiz. Keira must have carried me up to bed. I glance over to the bed beside me to notice Ellie slowly waking up. I hop out of my bed and slowly open the door connecting our room to mum and Keira's, I notice the bedroom light on and turn and look to see Mum sitting up in bed on her phone. 'Keira must be in the bathroom', I think to myself. "Good morning sleeping beauty", Mum says looking over at me. I run over to her bed and jump onto it. "Is Ellie awake ?", Mum asks me as I get under the duvet and start moving around. I just nod my head and continue rolling around wrapping myself up in the duvet. "Charlie you're taking all the duvet", Mum chuckles at me. I just ignore her and roll around again. Mum starts to tickle me and I try to escape her. While Mum is attacking me with tickles Keira walks out of the bathroom and instantly smiles over at us. "Kei, save me ", I plead with her. She just smiles over at me and replies with a simple "I'll go get Ellie" and walks out of the room. Eventually after what feels like eternity Mum stops tickling and I can finally breathe. Keira walks back into the room, with my cute baby sister cuddled into her chest holding onto her Man City blanket, that she brings everywhere. "Right let's get dressed and ready for breakfast", Mum announces, getting out of bed and heading into the bathroom. I slowly unravel myself from the duvet and head back into my room. I start looking through my suitcase trying to figure out what I'm gonna wear. I finally decide on a pair of black shorts and my England Bronze jersey and grabbing my Man City Walsh hoodie. I grab my hairbrush and brush my hair. "Kei, can you help me ?", I call out, Mum walks into the room, "Keira's busy with Ellie, what do you need help with ?", she asks me while opening the curtains. "Oh, uhm, never mind it's ok I got it", I reply quickly before grabbing a hair tie and putting my slides on. "Are you sure ?", Mum asks uncertainly. "Yep I'm sure thanks Mum". "Ok, well let's head down to breakfast", Mum replies and we both head back into her room where I can see Ellie in tears and Keira comforting her. "Me and Charlie will head down to breakfast now, let me know if you want me to bring you up something, if you decide not to come down", Mum tells Keira before giving her a quick kiss and kissing Ellie on the top of her head and nudging me towards the door.
We start to walk down the hallway neither of us really speaking. I want to ask Mum why Keira and Ellie aren't coming with us to breakfast and why Ellie was crying, but I feel like it's not my business so I keep quiet. As we're walking down the hallway towards the lift Katie and Niamh come out of their room and join us to the lift. "Good morning mini Bronze", Niamh says to me, I look up at her and half smile up at her, I then run to the lift and push the button for the lift. I can see Mum talking to Katie quietly and Mum looks worried. When they reach me waiting at the lift, Mum stops talking and Katie looks away before looking at nothing. We all get into the lift and I stand in the corner. Just as the doors are about to close, someone yells for us to hold the lift and Niamh presses the button for the doors to reopen and Sandy and Jess come skidding into the lift. I move to stand behind Mum, who looks at me weirdly. I just whisper a made up comment about making space, when it's that I don't really know Sandy or Jess that well so I don't really feel that comfortable being that close to them. It's not that they're not nice or anything like that, it's just that I don't really know them that well so I'd rather stand beside someone I know and feel comfortable with. But I don't want to say that to Mum because she might think there's something wrong with me. When the lift stops we all walk out and into the dining hall which is fairly busy, I quickly grab a bowl and fill it with my favourite cereal which is of course Coco Pops. I grab a glass of orange juice and start looking around for a table to sit down at. Then I feel two hands steer me towards a table near the back of the room where I find G and Leah sitting at, alongside Mary, Alessia and Tooney. I sit down next to Le, when I notice the seat beside me being pulled out and I turn to look who it was that steered me here. It was Beth Mead, of course. She grins over at me and then starts chatting to Tooney, who's telling everyone about how Alessia tripped over thin air this morning on her way to the bathroom. I just start eating my cereal and zone out. I then feel a kiss to the top of my head and turn my head to see Keira smiling down at me with Ellie in her arms, with no traces of tears on her face, but instead squeals when she spots me "Lottie !!!, mama look, Lottie !!!", everyone stops talking and look over at me and Ellie, who is trying to wriggle her way out of Keira's arms in an attempt to get to me. Keira lifts her back up and then looks over to me and tells me about the plan for later. Said plan consisting of me and Ellie hanging out with anyone who is in the gym today and watching the team train. Keira tells me I can bring my IPad to play games on, which I was obviously gonna do, because it can get a bit boring. Don't get me wrong I know how lucky I am to live the life I do and have the parents that I do, but sometimes it all just gets a bit to much for me and I just want to live like a normal kid my age. But I would never tell Mum or Keira that because they might think I'm being ungrateful and give out to me, so I keep it to myself.
After breakfast the team are split up into two groups, one who'll go to the gym first and the other who'll go to the pitch first, then they'll swap and after that regroup as one big team. Me and Ellie head off with the gym group which Keira is in so she carries Ellie who was refusing to walk with me. I walk between Kiera and Le, who are chatting about recent WSL transfers. Suddenly someone lifts me up in the air from behind me, I scream in panic, because I can't see who it is, but immediately stop when I realise it's Millie. Her and Rachel just laugh at my reaction and then Millie puts me down. I go back to walking with Keira and Le, but not without holding onto a bit of Keira's t-shirt without her realising, but I think Beth noticed because she was walking behind us. I started to play with Ellie who was in Keira's arms by pretending to eat her feet, which just made her laugh and squeal. When we reached the gym, one of the coaches explained that they would be following their own gym plan and from time to time coaches would help them or give them tips. Which basically means they would be left to their own devices.
Everyone was working away with their gym session, Keira was working on the treadmill while G was standing beside her with Ellie in her arms who was playing with some sort of toy in her hands. Every so often I had noticed Beth looking over at me so I walked over to her where she was about to get on the bike. "Can I talk to you ?", I whispered to her. She turned around and nudged me to the door. Without saying anything to anyone we opened the door and slipped out.
Beth lead me into a room that looked like it was used for meetings, she closed the door behind us and turned to look at me as if to tell me to begin. I began looking around the room trying to find something to focus on, but then I felt a hand push my chin up so I was looking directly in Beth's eyes. "I, uhm, I wanted to, uhm, uhh, I started to fumble on my words and I could feel the tears pricking at my eyes. "Hey, take a deep breath and when you're ready tell me", Beth told me. I took a few deep breaths before I was ready to try telling her again. "I uhm, was on my iPad a while ago", I said with a few stray tears falling "and then I uh saw a" , I stopped when I heard the door open and Tooney popped her head in, "oh sorry I've come to tell you it's time we got to the pitch, we couldn't find you both, is everything alright ?", she said when she spotted me close to tears . I just bolted out of the room. I wasn't looking where I was running until I collided with someone and I fell over. I looked up to see Leah looking down at me concerned. "Charlie, are you ok ?, why were you running in the hallway ?, we've been looking for you", "did something happen, why are you crying ?", Leah rambled, with her hands on her hips. I just got up and put my head down. "Sorry", I mumbled and didn't reply to any of her other questions, I just put on a fake smile and said "I'm fine". Leah just wraps her arm around my shoulder and pulls me into her, kissing the top of my head and then walking us towards the pitch. From the corner of my eye I notice Beth talking to Keira, looking all worried, they both look in my direction and I turn away to avoid eye contact. I think to myself 'why did I go to Beth ?, I should've just said nothing, because now Keira's probably gonna tell Mum that I was talking to Beth about something and they're both going to get all worried and start asking me questions". I just sighed quietly and continued walking with Leah.
