american dream || pulisic

two

MEE-SHA-JEE

Christian said it over and over again in his head. Paper in hand, the first thing he wondered was how the hell do you pronounce Mishaxhi?

Of course with the x in there, it fucked him up real hard, so he had to look it up online. Scratch two hours of wondering the origin of her last name on Google (only finding some weird Facebook profiles), he eventually decided to search it up on YouTube. He watched one of those how to pronounce videos at least five times now—he wanted to make sure he got it correct.

Because if he mispronounced the last name of a girl he seriously liked, Christian might as well say goodbye to his will to live because that girl would never seriously date him.

Not like she's date him in the first place...or he thought.

"Mee-sha-jee," he says to himself in the comfort of his lonely room in Dortmund. "Ellie Mishaxhi."

It sounds nothing like the way it's spelled, but that's what it is. Christian tapped the follow button on both her Instagram and Twitter this morning, and tapped add on Snapchat just a few minutes ago. And apparently he's been living under a rock this entire time.

Ellie is merely eight months younger than him, so that makes her eighteen, just graduated high school back in June. She never mentioned it, but she's been with the senior women's national team since she was sixteen-turning-seventeen. And she has her own Wikipedia page, but Christian felt that he was going a little too far if he actually went on her page.

But he didn't even know that she was this big, rising star back in the United States. Christian's been too focused being in Germany that he hasn't even had the time or thought to keep up. Initially, he never thought of her to be this huge sensation back home. He just thought she was someone who just happened to love the same sport and be at the right place at right time.

To him, she was simply Ellie Mishaxhi from Santa Clara, California. Or, just Ellie.

However, Christian hasn't spoken to Ellie since their thirty minute date back in Wolfsburg, three days ago.

He doesn't want to make it seem like he creepy or too eager. Actually, he doesn't know what to do.

Did you really expect him to know what he's doing? This is Christian Pulisic, the literal hope of the United States men's national team, who has never been on a real legitimate date with a girl unless you counted football as one.

So this was new to him.

His life was great and all, playing football for a club he loves dearly. Friends and teammates who cared about him, and the greatest fans in the world. And then Ellie just comes in and hits him like a truck, leaving him hanging by the thread.

He shuts his laptop and leans back on his spinning chair, putting his hands behind his head. He doesn't get how they from lots of contact to virtually no contact at all.

Maybe she's just busy, he thought to himself, trying to steer away from negative thoughts. It's probably that, yeah? After all, she must be as busy as me—going to practice and matches to play all the time.

Well, Christan hopes it's that reason why they're so distant now. But nothing can explain why he's been overreacting about this entire ordeal because it's literally been three days. Three days.

He's never been so heated about a girl, let alone a thirty minute date. He could feel himself get even more frustrated by the minute if he keeps thinking about it, so he leaves his room, taking his phone as he left for the kitchen of his shared apartment with Felix Passlack.