Back to us | Alexia Putellas

Moving on.

Alexia's POV

It had been a month or so since Isy had sent the letter she had written to her birth mother, but there had been no response.

Not a single thing.

She had been trying to put on a brave face and pretend that she wasn't upset and disappointed, but I knew that she was and I was too. This had been something that she had wanted for years and to finally take that step and get nothing back was heartbreaking.

"Are you ready Cariño!?" I called up the stairs to her after placing my bag by the front door.

"Yeah! I'm coming" she replied, her voice quickly followed by the sound of footsteps on the floorboards.

Tomorrow was the first leg of our Champions League quarterfinal against Chelsea so we were traveling there today and spending the night in a hotel in London to prepare for game day.

"Have you got everything?" I asked as Isy reached the bottom of the stairs, suitcase in hand and backpack thrown over her shoulder.

"Yeah, let's get going" she smiled, placing a peck on my lips as she made her way out of the front door and towards the car.

We arrived at the training center like usual, parking the car in the car park before gathering our bags and boarding the coach that would take us to the airport. Isy made her way onto the coach much quicker than usual, placing her suitcase in the luggage hold and immediately making her way on board. She had been more distant than usual, not just with me, but with our teammates too, it's not that she didn't want to talk she just wasn't her normal self and we could all see it, but I was the only one who knew the reason why.

"Hola Ale" Jonatan greeted me as I placed my suitcase onto the coach.

"Hola" I smiled back at him

"How are you feeling Capitana? ready for the game tomorrow?" He asked.

"100 percent, I just wish we didn't have to do all this traveling" I joked.

"Me too... me too" He smiled, before placing his bag down next to mine.

"How's Isabel?"

"She's ok" I answered softly, glancing up towards the coach windows to see if she was watching.

"It's just that she hasn't seemed like her usual self recently, is everything ok?" He asked, lowering his voice slightly so as not to be overheard.

"She's just got some family stuff going on at the moment, but she's ok. I've got her" I smiled, before slowly making my way towards the coach.

"If I can do anything, let me know ok?" he quietly called after me.

I sat down in my usual seat next to Isy, who had already made herself comfortable, airpods in, listening to music as she scrolled through her phone. We were some of the first to arrive which meant the coach was quiet and I could hear the song that was playing through her headphones.

"Hey... can I have one?" I smiled and gestured toward her AirPods.

"I thought that you didn't like Taylor Swift?!" She raised her eyebrows at me before offering me one.

"I like this one" I whispered as I put it in my ear.

She rested her head on my shoulder after that and we sat there in our own little bubble as we waited for the rest of the team to arrive so that we could finally leave for London.

I had been texting back and forth with Ona over the last few days, She knew about everything that had been going on with Isy and her birth mother, and she knew that she had been struggling with not having a response from her so we had been planning to get her down to London to surprise her. She had told Isy that she couldn't make it due to training commitments, which she was obviously really disappointed about, but I knew that she would be over the moon to be reunited with her best friend.