Fighting Society

kiddo careful

The girls were all racing about, competitive in a training match.

They had been back at training for a few days now, and none of them had lost any sense of competitiveness. All of them were continuously shouting, yelling at one another to square it, or to take a shot.

Nothing had changed much at all, except for the fact that Lia hadn't spoke to Leah since their confrontation, nor had she had much to do with Jess.

It was something everyone was beginning to grow accustomed to. Somehow, they had worked out a routine where they never were in the same room, and would practically ignore each other on the pitch, unless entirely necessary.

Even today, with the girls so focused on winning their training match, both of them had hardly anything to do with each other, except for the odd call to pass it.

Jess was sat at the side, watching as the game went on, swinging her legs back and forth. Supposedly, she was meant to be doing some kind of work, In preparation for her new school, but she found watching the match much more entertaining. It didn't require her to talk to anybody, nor communicate.

She had found it a little more difficult recently at training, and it had been picked up on by everyone.

~~~

Some of the team had gathered out, into the Williamson's lounge area after training, planning on watching the Arsenal men's preseason match up against Ajax. They were gathered across the couches, all of them simply laughing away together, not exactly paying as much attention to the match as they were talking.

Beth and Viv were sat on the armchair, with Beth perched on Vivs lap, whilst Katie, Caitlin, Teyah and Steph shared one of the couches, Leah, Steph and Jess on the other.

Whilst they were mainly just laughing away about anything, Jess had found herself tucked into Leah's side, her head resting so that she couldn't hear much of what was going on. She didn't offer much, or anything at all, to the conversation, just embracing being with Leah.

Everybody had picked up on her reserved nature, despite not mentioning everything. Usually, she'd be joining in with the laughs, pointing fun at many of them. It was a shock to see her curled into Leah's side.

The only time they saw her break from it, was when she stood to grab herself a drink from the kitchen, which allowed the girls to immediately jump on it.

Within moments of her stepping out of earshot, Katie turned to Leah,

"What's up with kiddo? She's been practically silent these past few days?"

Some of the girls hummed in agreement, stopping their conversations so they could hear the answers. All of them wanted to see what was up with the kid.

"Yeah, well, when you have a neurodivergent kiddo that relies on you, relationship problems don't only affect you."

"Oh shit, are you still struggling with Lia?"

"Mhm, she won't even listen to me anymore, or even be near to me. She's taken everything on board and just ran with it. It's, well, I understand she's upset, I would be too if I saw that picture, but it hurts that she hasn't even made any attempt to speak to me about it, and just decided to throw everything away"