ᴍʏ ᴍᴏᴍ ɪs ᴡʜᴏ? ✔︎

Haunted

| Alex |

"Baby, what's going on?"

"Argh!" I watch my daughter as she throws her head back, and Ali leaves the room, giving us some privacy. "I've been fielding calls and screening colleges for weeks."

"What do you mean? You're not even 17 yet."

"I know. They want to offer me an Early Admissions Scholarship so that I can play on their soccer teams."

"Which colleges?"

"UCLA, NYU, Berkeley and Stanford, those are the ones I've actually answered. UCF, the Univeristy of Central Florida has been calling me almost nonstop."

"And you don't want to go to college?"

"I do, mom. It's just..." I watch my daughter pause, taking a deep breath while she bites her lip. "Don't take this the wrong way, but it just feels like they only want me to be there because you're my mom. They never called me before the media found out, nobody cared. They're even calling Jack because Hope adopted her."

I watch on, not bothered by what she's saying. I know they're calling because she's my daughter, I know that without that they wouldn't be chasing her so badly - same with Jack. What I do care about is that it's bothering her so badly. I care about how she's stressing herself out just rehashing the past to me, how the bags under her eyes have grown significantly.

"It's not just schools mom, teams have been phoning me."

"What teams?"

"Washington, Arsenal, Chelsea, a few Australian teams and...Lyon."

I see my daughter cringe when she mentions my former club, and I instantly want to pull her into a hug and never let go.

"Mom, it's making me fall out of love with soccer. Before when I lived...where I lived, it was my only outlet, I felt free. Now it's like I'm suffocating. People look at me and they see you, they see how I should  be playing like you and when I don't meet those expectations..." She trails off, tears threatening to spill from her beautiful blue eyes. "It makes me feel like a loser."

I take a minute to think about how to approach this situation. Never having been in her shoes, I think of all the pros and cons but the only thing that really matters is that my daughter is happy.

"Then don't be like me." I start, and her attention snaps to me, a look of confusion across her face. "Sweetheart, you don't have to play soccer if you don't want to. Despite all these calls from schools and teams, you don't have to say yes to anything  you don't want to do. You can stay in high school, finish at the same pace as everyone else, then think of your future. Right now, there's no pressure to do anything other than grow up and happy. I'll make some calls and hopefully get all this attention to stop. I only want one thing from you, besides your health and happiness."

"So three things." She sasses. "What's that?"

"I want to be the first to know if you say yes to anything."

"I'll always tell you first, mom." I watch the tension in my daughters shoulders visibly ease away, her smile growing, making me smile in return.

"How is Hope dealing with all this when it comes to Jack?"

"I'm not sure if she knows. I didn't even mean to tell Ali, but she's like a fly on the wall, she hears everything-"

"I'M NOT A FLY!" I laugh at my teammate and my daughter when her eyes widen, her face coming closer to the screen as she whispers.

"See what I mean?" She jokes, pulling away from the screen to where she was sitting before. "I have to go mom, I have homework."

"Okay baby girl, just remember what I said, ok?"