Lost and Found

four

Alex's POV

After dinner, I made my way back to Kelley and I's hotel room to get changed and took a minute to sort my hair out. This gave me a short amount of time to compose myself.  Like Jill had said not only was I the big sister by many years but I was also one of the team captains and it was important I was a bigger person and sorted our relationship out for the sake of the team.

I texted Mal for her room number as it occurred to me that I didn't even have Addison's number and made by way along to their room. As I knocked on Addison and Mal's door, I suddenly felt a rush of nerves and took a deep breath to calm myself. 

Surprisingly, Rose answered the door and soon realised there was a large group of them there watching something that they must have started before dinner. 

Addison was sat on the end of her bed in Nike leggings and a sweatshirt, putting her shoes on; She said goodbye quietly to the girls but didn't get any response so grabbed her room key and left, me following after her.

"I thought we could just go for a walk around here and chat." I told her as we made out war to the elevator. She nodded in agreement, the whole time staring at her shoes. 

She was a lot quieter than I thought she would be. The self-assured girl I had seen shouting and calling for balls on the pitch earlier today was no where to be seen. Taking a good look at Addison as we walked, I noticed she was more like me than I had thought. Her hair was lighter blonde than mine and she was a lot smaller than me but facially we looked pretty similar. You could definitely tell she was a Morgan.

We were still walking in silence and not achieving anything when we passed a small park so I pointed to a bench and we both sat down there.

I remembered Jill's words again about being the bigger person and how once Addison and I had fixed our relationship, everyone else on the team would follow. 

"Firstly, I want to say that I'm sorry for my reaction when you arrived. That probably didn't make you feel very good. I knew exactly who you were and it scared me a bit. Do you remember me at all?" I asked.

"It's fine don't worry about it and I don't have any memories of you. I think you were at college or maybe getting ready to go when your dad left me and I knew who you were but that is really it. I had a couple of pictures somewhere that dad must have forgotten when he left but I don't really remember anything about him or the Morgan side of the family."

I nodded, listening to her and taking it all in. It made sense. We knew that my dad had another daughter but he never really mentioned her and we never felt the need to look for her. Jen, Jeri and I had been blissfully ignorant to the fact Addison may have wanted to meet more of her family. 

"Do you ever see our dad?" She asked me suddenly. 

"Yeah all the time, he's at quite a few matches. Why? When was the last time you saw him?" Suddenly getting the hint that it may have been a while for her.

"Alex, I haven't seen or heard from him since the day he left us. He never gave my mom any money for me and pretty much pretended we never existed. It was just my mom and I up to a few years ago. I think I was six the last time I heard from him." She explained.

Not only had my dad caused chaos when he left my family for her. After only a couple of years, he decided they weren't worth it and to do it again. My heart broke for her but I didn't realise it was going to break even more when she continued to tell me what had happened. 

"We were okay for a while, mom was good at making things work. She died when I was sixteen though and I thought I would try and  get in contact with him.  I managed to find him pretty easily thanks to you being pretty well known but he told me he wanted nothing to do with me and I should stop trying to disrupt his family life." 

I could tell she was starting to get more and more upset over the situation and I decided to open my arms towards her. She immediately cuddled into me and I let out a breath I was holding. The silence wasn't uncomfortable and I could tell that Addison felt the same. Her whole body had begun to relax and she was taking deep breaths. 

 "I'm so sorry Addison. I'm sorry for how he's treated you. I'm sorry that I never tried to get in touch and when I did eventually meet you, I'm sorry for reacting badly. I'm hoping we could work on our relationship and I can finally start being your big sister.  You seem pretty cool and you were amazing today in training, much better than I ever was at seventeen." 

She stayed cuddled into me but I could see her smiling, making me smile as well. I watched as she clicked her phone to check the time and noticed her lockscreen was the sweetest, little blonde haired girl. 

"She's gorgeous." I told her, pointing to the screen and trying to change the subject to anything but our dad.

"I suppose that would be your niece."