Page 60 of Couple Goals

To make up, Maeve instead spends her ‘day off’ on Monday training alone in her room, crunching sit-ups and push-ups until her muscles spasm.

Walking into the dressing room on Tuesday, it’s like she’s being punished for lying, because she comes face to face with the last person she feels like seeing right now: Kira.

The two of them stand facing each other silently. Maeve feels like they’re the only people in the world. Maeve doesn’t think of herself as someone who believes in auras or anything like that, but she has this sense of Kira surrounded by red waves of loathing. Even as she looks so disgusted with her, she’s still the most beautiful woman Maeve’s ever seen.

‘Recovered from your ‘illness’ have you, Murphy?’ says Kira.

Maeve flushes. Maeve tries to match her energy, but it barely lasts a second before she fails and she has to look away. She feels ashamed and upset, terrified she might start crying. Did Kira always hate Maeve, even when she was hooking up with her?Was it always part of a plan to distract Maeve and then end things when Kira had got what she wanted? Maeve feels like she’s doubting everything.

Kira turns without saying anything to Maeve, picks up her stuff.

‘I’m going to change somewhere else,’ Kira tells the others. ‘See you guys on the pitch.’

Maeve feels the humiliation of past experiences course through her body. Girls refusing to change with her, calling her a dirty lesbian, as if she wouldn’t be able to keep her hands off them.

Maeve glances at Nat, Milo and Liv, who have been in the locker room the whole time and watched this exchange.

‘Hey,’ Maeve mutters, embarrassed.

‘Hey,’ they reply, looking awkwardly from her to the door slamming closed behind Kira.

‘Bet you had a bad hangover after Joust,’ says Milo, after a moment.

‘Yeah, it was… a bit of a struggle!’ Maeve, tries to joke but it feels feeble. No one laughs, and no one continues the conversation. Maeve feels her stomach clench. She wishes she had the skill for this, like Adriana.

She used to be better, didn’t she? Before Kira came along and knocked her confidence like this.

On the plus side, in training, Maeve’s shame and humiliation seems to be good for her performance. She feels like a race horse with blinkers on, using it to fuel her focus. Coach doesn’t praise her, but she can’t find fault either.

However, thereissomeone playing noticeably badly today.

‘Kira! Again! That was an open goal!’ Coach is exasperated. ‘Focus! What the hell is happening with you today? Did you catch an illness from Maeve?’

Kira doesn’t reply with her usual brashness. She doesn’t even lash out. Just winces.

‘Kira, if you play like this I’ll have no choice but to sub you out for this week’s game.’ Hoffman sighs. ‘Alright. Nat, get up here please. Let’s try that set piece with you taking Kira’s place.’

That brings some energy into Kira, a cynical eyebrow raised towards where the other strikers are stood. It’s very abrupt, Maeve can understand that, and she too can’t help feeling that Coach is being unusually harsh on her – but that’s the other side of being Coach’s protegee, she supposes. She’ll always expect you to be the best, and be brutal if you drop from that standard, even for a moment.

Kira doesn’t acknowledge Nat as she jogs past her, which seems rude as they normally fist bump or high five to keep up the team spirit and energy in training.

Maeve feels as if her mother is stood behind her own shoulder, whispering to her to seize the moment. Maeve tries to do so. She points out Kira’s faux pas out to the defenders near her, stage-whispering her commentary quickly.

‘Ouch,’ she says to Milo and Nat. ‘It’s not Nat’s fault! That’s not great leadership, is it? Kira’s not exactly a team player, is she?’

The others nod, if a little warily. Then Coach blows her whistle for them to continue working on this set piece for the weekend’s game.

Maeve should see this as a win, shouldn’t she? Even if it was a bit of an own goal from Kira. That’s two modes of Maeve’s attack plan against Kira successfully carried out with Coach also seeming to be unimpressed. So why does she feel so hideous?

Watching Kira sat on the bench, her head down, her hair carelessly mussed to the side, and expression subdued, Maeve’s chest aches. She remembers their first meetings, when she and Kira had wrestled on the pitch and Maeve had ended up being sent off – how Kira had encouraged her afterwards.

As if she can somehow sense Maeve’s eyes on her, Kira then looks up, and their eyes meet. Kira doesn’t even look angry with her anymore. Just very, very sad.

Maeve swallows painfully, feeling so lost and confused. Maeve really had thought she was just playing a game Kira had started – that Kira’s ruthlessness on the field was something she should be trying to channel off the pitch in their rivalry – but now she can see that it isn’t a game at all. She’s really hurt her. And in this situation, both of them have been so obsessed with winning that they’ve lost.

The rest of the training session passes in a blur. Nat doesn’t score from any of the set pieces and during the drills, it’s much easier to stop Nat from scoring after being used to going up against Kira’s more aggressive style of play.

Coach calls Kira and the rest of the extended team back over, talking through the recap of their session, concentrating particularly on the attackers, and complimenting Adriana’s performance as a support midfielder, being a continuous playmaker. Maeve watches her old friend’s face as she receives the praise,as ever unable to just take a compliment, handing the praise to her other midfielders. Maeve is really looking forward to catching up over dinner realising how much she’s missed her when she hears Coach Hoffman calling her name.

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