Chapter Text
The first time Tobin spoke, her tone was so casual that Alex didn’t pull her attention away from her computer in time to catch the words.
“Huh?”
Tobin leaned against the doorframe of Alex’s room, hands in her pockets. “I said, I resigned with PSG,” she repeated.
Alex took a moment to close her laptop and nodded. She had been expecting this for a while now; everyone had.
“When do you leave?”
“September sixth. They’re letting me play in the friendly and finish up things before I leave.”
Only 66 days away.
Tobin’s current living situation felt temporary enough already—she’d shown up in Portland a week earlier than expected (on Alex’s birthday, of course, gift in hand and a shrug in her shoulders, as if this had been the plan all along) and was living out of her suitcase for a few days in the Rose city before going south for Cheney’s wedding. It seemed like Alex had just stopped missing her and already the countdown to when she would miss her again had begun. She had only two months with her best friend.
She put on a smile anyway.
“Well, now that it’s set in stone, that’s just one more thing to celebrate tonight. I’ll bring extra sparklers to the barbeque and we’ll remind you how Americans party. A fourth of July to remember.”
Tobin smiled too, looking relieved. “Deal.”
The morning after the fourth of July, Tobin left again to attend two weddings, across the country from one another; she returned on Monday, her official Portland arrival date, to Alex's plans of dinner with the whole team. Her unofficial debut, Alex called it, delighted. She needed to meet everyone. Or rather, Alex had to show her off to everyone.
“But dude, I’m so tired. Can we do it tomorrow?”
“I already made dinner reservations!” Alex said. Her exasperation rose as Tobin dove onto the couch and pressed her face into a pillow, uttering only a noncommittal groan. “Tobin!”
“Mmm…I’m gonna nap instead.”
“C’mon, it’ll be like my belated birthday dinner. We need to do it!”
Tobin turned her head just enough to look at Alex with one eye. “Uh, I was at your birthday dinner. That’s the whole reason I came into Portland last week. I slept on the couch because my bed wasn’t even here, remember?”
“Don’t be a martyr, you could sleep on the floor and be happy.”
“Sounds good to me,” Tobin said, rolling onto the ground with her pillow and a mischievous smirk.
“You fu—I don’t even know why I try to take you places.”
Eventually Tobin, who never intended to refuse Alex in the first place and only played obstinate in order to fluster her, roused herself from the floor to Allie’s laughter and Alex’s shout of mingled relief and triumph.
The media and the public had expectations for Tobin Heath. Any player of that caliber arriving midseason should understandably galvanize a tired Portland squad with such an injection of creativity and energy in the midfield. If their dinner was any indication, the media was completely right: the young team centered around Tobin, drawn to her first for her newness and novelty and then for her laughter and smile. She had their names down within five minutes and she had four different conversations going within fifteen. Even the wait staff and other patrons seemed to be entertained.
Of somewhat greater interest and entertainment to the team, however, was Alex; for the past three months they had only been around one half of the duo, never imagining that their competitive, impatient, straightforward teammate could descend into such childlike lightheartedness in the presence of her best friend, who was supposedly known for her blasé approach to everything.
Even Alex's occasional antics with Allie hadn't prepared them for this. Whenever she thought Tobin wasn't paying attention, she would reach over and steal some fries off Tobin's plate, and more often than not, the midfielder was paying attention and the ensuing battle resulted in the stolen fries being either knocked to the ground or stuffed hastily into someone's mouth. They made faces at one another during each lull in conversation. They told stories in alternating pieces, finishing each other’s sentences and crumbling into breathless laughter before they could get the entire story out, not caring that the rest of the team had no idea what they were talking about.
"Damn, you're like a kid who just got her favorite toy back," Sinc said with a nearly disbelieving laugh, causing Alex to beam over at Tobin as the latter talked to Mana about Hawaii's surfing scene.
"You have no idea," Allie jumped in, "They’re basically inseparable. Without her, Alex has been moping for weeks."
"I have not—"
Allie put her hand over Alex's mouth and continued: "Just try living with ‘em, Sincy. They'll sit in complete silence and then exchange one glance and burst into laughter. At first I felt like I wasn’t getting the joke, but it turns out they’re just dumb."
Alex looked ready to protest again, despite the fact that her reddened face supported Allie's claim completely, but was cut off by Tobin shooting a spoon forward towards the last bit of Alex's brownie sundae.
"No, damn it, Tobin!" Her defense failed and Tobin leaned back out of reach, smirking around the ice cream in her mouth, looking supremely pleased with herself. Alex threw a french fry at her.
Christine grinned at Allie. "Good luck on your two months of babysitting."
"Uh, good luck to you too—you have to captain them."
In addition to her on-field potential, Tobin Heath arrived in Portland to a battery of other expectations.
The teammates who had not yet met her expected everything from aloof professional star to a zealous young kid: instead they found a willing participant in any adventure her teammates could come up with. At any given moment, she could be found coming up with goal celebration dances with Danielle or elaborate handshakes with Nikki, or else plotting out Karina’s mayoral campaign, of which she had naturally declared herself manager.
Alex, of course, expected the same old Tobin: she took great pride in taking Tobin around the town and showing her every little café, diner, music shop, and hole-in-the-wall bar she had discovered in the prior months. Every morning, they went running together—though Alex refused to allow Tobin to accompany her to yoga class after the first time, when she looked over to find Tobin asleep face-down on the mat. At practices, she was simply ecstatic to have back someone who knew all of her favorite runs and could hit her in stride nine times out of ten, while still making her smile between every play.
The general public expected Tobin would neutralize Alex Morgan’s competitiveness and bring an element of balance to the rest of the much-maligned team. Even Alex expected this. Tobin had always been there with a well-timed word of advice or joke to blunt whatever emotion was taking over her play.
Instead, it was to Cindy Parlow Cone’s expectations that Tobin rose to more faithfully than any of the others: Cindy expected the true heart and grit endemic in Carolina alumni, and she got it. Tobin’s very first practice, she slammed into Foxhoven and knocked the wind out of her, and then proceeded to demand more cutthroat head-to-head play from the rest of the team if they wanted any chance at playoffs. And that was only the beginning. Cindy loved it. She had spent the last four months recreating Anson Dorrance’s culture of competitiveness, and Tobin’s arrival had only increased the friction, increased the intensity, and everyone had marks to prove it.
Alex poked the green and purple design on her upper thigh. “Tobs, I’ve decided that since you left me with such a clear imprint of your cleat, you are paying for dinner tonight.”
From the other end of the couch, Tobin frowned over the top of her magazine. “What about when you kicked me in the back of my calf?”
“Not my fault, you slid just as I shot. You weren’t even a defender.”
“I still have a wicked bruise though,” Tobin said. “So we’re at least even.”
"Tobin, mine is ten times worse! I'm pretty sure you can see the Nike imprint."
"Then we'll call them and have them pay you for advertising. But I'm not buying if mine is just as bad as yours."
Alex laughed eagerly; the challenge had her sitting up and looking hungry when Allie walked into the room with a bowl of cereal and reminded them of her usual role as referee.
"We're really getting into a debate about bruises?" she asked, falling into the armchair.
"Allie! Whose is worse, mine or Tobin's?"
Both girls immediately thrust out their injuries for judging. Allie didn't even glance up from her food. "Alex wins." Tobin tripped over her words trying to argue, but Allie was unmoved.
“Dude, she pouts when she doesn’t win. I’m just trying to maintain domestic harmony.”
There was no more arguing with that point; Tobin acquiesced by grabbing her phone with a sigh and dialing the restaurant as Alex resettled on the couch, contented. The small victory made for what had been a rather lackluster practice and now she could smile again, at least until the next day's training. It was a habit now: kill each other at training, come home, and palliate the stress and tension with a movie night or big dinner. Everything from Saturday morning famer’s markets, balmy evening barbeques, 2 AM donut runs increased four-fold and centered around her smile, which seemed to brighten everything around her. The summer was golden.
But even that omnipresent grin couldn’t heal all wounds, especially ones that had been forming long before she came home from France. When the Portland Thorns returned from their cross-country trip to Boston with only a narrow 2-1 win, the training environment only grew more acidic, overly competitive in some areas and completely unsupported in others, an imbalance that divided the group. Some players liked the burn and let it fuel their legs as they sprinted and played on instinct, for better or for worse; others just got burned, needing consistency and receiving only patchy support.
Alex fell somewhere between the two groups. She hadn't had a good practice in weeks. She didn't know the term for the sensation, but given it's impact on her game, she figured there she be a name for the way every run she made felt just a step slow, every touch coming off her foot just slightly uneven. She went whole trainings without hitting the ball true, always just a few millimeters out of alignment, not enough to be able to fix but enough to unbalance every shot and pass.
It seemed she spent every break in practice readjusting her cleats, her shinguards, her pre-wrap, as ifby fixing whatever was out of place she could restore the patent smoothness to her game. She couldn’t stand the feeling of a ball coming off her foot wrong, but she didn’t know how to fix it. Nothing worked. As the days passed, movie nights and water front strolls stopped lifting her after a bad practice and instead the ever-increasing irritations and inconsistencies in her life began to bend her shoulders under their weight.
The growing disturbances in the flow of her life manifested in her game, as well: a yellow card for stupidly kicking the ball out of bounds after a foul caused Cindy to bench her for the last half hour of the game against Chicago. Three days later, she mis-played a pass and tripped the defender who stole the ball for another yellow against Sky Blue, but Cindy had learned her lesson in the Chicago tie and left Alex on the field to ride out the win.
Three days after that, she narrowly avoided another yellow when Desiree Scott shoved her from behind and Alex whirled, looking for a fight and held back only by a word from Tobin behind her. For a half-second, she hoped that Scott would force the issue. Maybe that would have felt better.
Even scoring goals wasn’t helping. Tobin became a lifeline, but a tenuous one.
"I can't believe we just did a full hour of 1 v 1s. I’m in so much pain right now,” Alex grumbled on the way through the parking lot. She had to pause to hold back a wince as they climbed into her car.
Tobin shrugged, hopping into the passenger seat. “Well, Cindy was pretty pissed about the loss yesterday. We should have at least tied Kansas City.”
“I know, I know.” But the ache in her muscles created an ache in her chest and Alex’s next words came out with a bitterness she had been holding back for a while. “I don’t get her sometimes. She has us so fired up all the time, we get out and the rookies can barely contain themselves and it’s a mess.” She didn’t mention the work she had to put in to control her own heart rate and fire, or the fact that both she and Tobin were approaching the yellow card max.
“That’s how Anson coaches,” Tobin mumbled. “That’s how it always was at UNC. I guess since it works there she’s trying to bring it here.”
"I mean I'm glad for the competition, I really am, I just think it would be better to balance things more."
"Mmm. Different coaches just do things differently, I guess."
For a moment before replying, Tobin's distinct lack of outrage while she focused on her phone caused Alex's eyebrow to lift. "Don't you think she should ease up a little though? Everyone's fighting for playoffs now, these last seven or eight games are going to be hard on us, hammering each other at practice won’t help."
"No idea." Tobin shrugged.
Alex let it drop after that, as she always, instead using the pretense of driving to avoid any more discussion with someone who didn't seem to care. Every few moments for the rest of the drive, she glanced over at the passenger seat; Tobin barely looked up once, and only then to warn Alex, "Light's green, dude."
After a practice like that, it took Alex a long shower and plenty of game visualization before she could stand in the doorway of their shared bedroom with a smile. The midfielder seemed completely unconcerned about practice and lay curled around her pillow, half-asleep.
“Tobs?”
“Sup?”
"I had an idea. Let’s…do you wanna go out to dinner tonight? I don't feel like ordering out or making anything. We could go somewhere new."
"Sounds great." Alex's heart rose for the first time that day. "I'll call up Mana and a few of the other girls. I'm sure Dani knows a good place we can all go."
"Yeah...great." If Tobin noticed the lack of conviction in Alex's smile upon hearing this, she did nothing to show it, instead rolling over with a yawn.
"Killer. Wake me up in an hour or so."
For Tobin, her friendship with Alex was, as always, comforting in its steadfastness: no matter how little they may have interacted during the day, she relished the fact that they would fall asleep each night talking to each other across their shared bedroom, the same way they did at every US camp, and the same way they did in Los Angeles.
But for Alex, sometimes—usually on the days of trying practices or exhaustingly long fan meet and greets—her smile felt a little harder to maintain than usual; she would bid Tobin goodnight and then lay awake for hours, quietly simmering in vague discontent. She constantly worked out the math in her head: 51, 46, 42, 35 days until her summer ended and France reclaimed Tobin until next May. This expiration date gave her a sense of nameless urgency that Tobin seemed to lack. Wake up, coffee, train, explore, eat, sleep. Granted, Tobin’s presence did dull the ache of frustration soccer had left her with lately. They were together, best friends, constantly surrounded by teammates they adored, but shouldn't there be more? 42 days, a US camp and game against Mexico capping their time together. Alex glanced sideways at Tobin, who snored lightly. How could she not feel the same way? A summer in Portland warmed their skin with infinite possibilities. They could have it all. The time of their lives. So why didn't they?
“Man on! Man, man, man!”
The ball arrived at Alex’s feet the same time the defender arrived at her back and both hit her with equal force, sending her to the turf, the plastic grass leaving yet another burn on her knee. The ball bounced out of bounds.
“Shit,” she hissed. The sound of the referee’s whistle and the indignant shouts of her teammates did nothing to soothe the hot rush of anger in her throat.
Alex Morgan the Diva. The New Hope Solo. No self-control, a sense of entitlement, a national team primadonna who let fame go to her head and expected preferential treatment. Normal media was intelligent enough to keep fan chatter out of the headlines but this perception of her was ubiquitous in social media, no matter what she did. As she smacked the turf and drew herself up slowly from the foul, she took a steadying breath.
“Keep it under control, ladies,” the referee said. Rachel shot Alex a look of concern—Alex waved it off—and jogged away to retrieve the ball.
Their prior games against Western New York had been tough as well; with the added pressure of playoff positioning and of playing in Rochester, the second-to-last game of the season had Alex’s heart hammering from the moment she woke up. She had expected to get hit, and she needed to keep her composure. A win would be golden going into the playoffs.
Run at goal. Studs up. Knee high. Pain. These were the fragments of thoughts that filled Alex’s mind as she bounced and rolled across the turf after a defender’s slide tackle went awry. Tobin had played a ball in behind the defense and let Alex run at goal, and the last-ditch slide tackle from a Flash player was the only thing that kept the game scoreless—she knew it was a smart tackle in theory, but when she went down and felt the defenders legs still tangled in hers, all thoughts of smart tackles and playoffs and yellow cards went out the window.
Still face down, she lashed out with a hard kick behind her and her foot connected, with what she didn’t know. A yelp and boos from the crowd met her ears.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know.” The words spilled out of her mouth as the ref sprinted toward her. Alex put her hands up in surrender. “It was an accident, our legs got tangled—”
“Alex!” Tobin nearly collided with her teammate as she rushed in, stepping between Alex and the ref. “C’mon, man, you saw the tackle, there was nothing on Portland’s end, it’s fine! Everyone’s up.”
“Cool it, all three of you,” the referee demanded. “Thirteen, you’re on thin ice already…”
Tobin instinctively reached back and put a hand on Alex’s chest, just as the forward opened her mouth to protest.
“She’s fine,” Tobin responded for them both, “It’s fine, we’re good. Just let the game go on.”
“If I hear another word out of either of you again, I’m booking you both.”
Alex stalked away, fighting to regain control of everything before play restarted. Tobin didn’t look back as she retrieved the ball.
After the game, Alex had exactly six minutes to herself in the locker room before her solitude was broken by a lean, lanky figure standing over her. She didn’t even have to look up.
“What’s up?” she asked Tobin’s ankles.
“How are you doing?”
“Just fine.”
Tobin fell into the seat beside Alex; the lie had been blatant enough to eliminate any further niceties, and in a moment they would be able to play their usual post-match game of Alex venting and Tobin nodding along until they were both exhausted.
“So listen, about the yellow card thing,” Alex cocked her eyebrow and looked over, surprised that Tobin initiated the conversation and even more surprised when she saw the apprehensive curve of her lips as she spoke. “This team can’t lose you, Lex, even for a game.”
“How may yellow cards do you have, out of curiosity?” Alex asked, pursing her lips.
She inclined her head slightly to acknowledge Alex’s point without saying anything. “But still, remember to take a breath sometimes.” Tobin shifted in her chair, rubbing the back of her neck, but she tried a smile anyway. “I get that it’s tough to always get beat up on and stuff, but you’re better than that, you know? Just take a breath and focus on what’s important.”
“Sorry,” Alex said, her voice dripping with the acrimony she’d harbored since halftime. “It’s kinda hard to just take a breath when I keep slamming into turf.”
The tone of Alex’s voice shifted Tobin from discomfort to defense and apology. “I know! But at the same time, fouling them back doesn’t do anything but take you out of the game. We need you.”
She couldn’t stop the frustration from pouring into her muscles again, as if she were out on the field, being pulled down, being elbowed…except this time, it was Tobin. The betrayal stung.
“What was I supposed to do? You saw them ripping at my jersey all night, Tobs, you’re supposed to be on my side about this.”
“I am! I was! Arguing with the ref while you were on the ground was why I almost got carded—”
“If you saw it, then why are you on my ass about it right now? Fuck.”
The words left a bitter taste on her tongue. She put her head in her hands. Out of everyone…Tobin? Her emotions had reached their breaking point during that game and the one person she needed more than anyone, the only one she felt comfortable falling asleep against on the bus, was coming down on her.
By this point, their voices had escalated so that most of the team had stopped to look over at the two girls; Tobin seemed to sense that Alex was breaking down. She softened her face and dropped her voice.
"Look, Lex, I'm on your side. You know I always am. I'm just saying that you’re better than that."
"Yeah, I got it." Holding her breath, she jumped to her feet and grabbed her already-packed bag from her locker with unnecessary force, thankful that most of Tobin's gear was still strewn about the locker room. She strode out the door and headed for the bus without a glance back.
They may have tied Western New York in the penultimate game of the regular season, but sour as Alex may have been, “fraternizing with the enemy” didn’t really bother her when the enemy was Abby Wambach and they sat opposite each other at Abby’s brother’s bar, surrounded by members of Portland and the Flash.
“What’s up, Al, you don’t like your beer? Want another one?” Alex had barely touched her beer, just enough out of character to draw Abby’s concern.
“I’m fine.”
“You know,” Abby said, “My brother has a rule that if you’re moping in here, you have to keep drinking.”
“I don’t understand why everyone thinks I’m moping all the time,” Alex said with a laugh.
Abby called the bartender for another beer anyway. “Okay, you’re not moping. I guess it’s just weird to see you sitting back while Tobin, of all people, is up laughing and dancing.”
The answer rolled off her tongue before she had time to soften the edges. “Well, we have other friends on the team, don’t we?” She took a long drink of her new beer to pacify Abby.
“It’s just that you’re usually inseparable. But…wait…” Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Shit. Was she really being so obvious that Abby, of all people, could tell? They read each other like books on the field but loud, brash Abby Wambach didn’t exactly have the deftness required to discern subtle social undertones. That was more Hope’s—and lately, Kelley’s— style. She hadn’t expected to be called out on anything tonight and didn’t have an excuse ready.
“Alex, did something happen between you and her?”
For a moment, she considered telling Abby everything, simply because the weight of it had been pulling her down for so long. Everything, from the beginning, when Tobin had first showed up to Portland, through the rough practices, even the humiliating ripples of jealousy.
“It’s just—” she stopped short and bit her lip. It took only a deep breath for her to decide that now was not the time, and to fall silent.
“It’s what?”
Alex shook her head. “Nothing. I kinda snapped at her after the game tonight, I’m forming an apology right now for later on.”
Abby sat back with a slow nod, rubbing her chin, searching for the perfect piece of advice that she so often spouted whenever Alex was having a problem. “Well, it’s Tobin. She understands you better than anyone else, I’m sure she knows what’s going on. Just hug her like always, say you’re sorry, and fall asleep watching an Adam Sandler movie. Isn’t that the usual?”
“Yes, it is,” Alex laughed. The usual for when she gets fed up with me accusing her of cheating at board games. Not ripping her apart for trying to comfort me after a soccer game.
And truly, tonight had only been the tip of the iceberg when it came to things that needed to be said. She just didn’t know if she could say them.
“Tobs, I’m really happy for you,” Alex said, “France is gonna be huge for your game.”
Tobin had to lean in to talk beneath the chaos of their Fourth of July cookout; everything had been tame enough until the sun went down and the drinks got stronger and the homemade pyrotechnics had emerged.
Tobin shrugged, then looked out at the rest of the party. “I’m excited…it’s no Portland though, and there’s a lot I’m going to miss.”
“Like me?” she joked.
“Of course you.”
“You know I’ll miss you too. I just feel betrayed you’re leaving me so soon.”
“I would love to stay here.”
“Alex!” Nikki jogged forward and interrupted their conversation. “Dude, go grab the rest of the rocket fireworks from my car, and a few more beers!”
Tobin cocked an eyebrow. “This seems like a safe combination,” she observed dryly , even though she held a beer of her own, and it wasn’t her first.
Alex laughed over her shoulder as she made her way out to the cars, using her phone backlight to navigate through the pitch-darkness and search Nikki’s trunk.
The light timed out and plunged her back into darkness just as she heard footsteps crunching on the gravel driveway, so she didn’t bother to turn it on again. “Nikki, I got them—” she began, to no response. The glowing afterimage of fireworks against the sky lit up her retinas and made vision impossible. Listening instead, she recognized the lazy gait just as it halted and Tobin arrived in front of her.
“Tobin—”
She felt Tobin’s arms shake as they encircled Alex in a tight hug; pressed up against Tobin’s chest, Alex relaxed, releasing a sigh she hadn’t known she was holding. “Tobs. Don’t go to Paris,” she said with a small laugh.
Instead of responding, Tobin shifted slightly, pulling away by inches, and when Alex turned to meet her face she hissed in a breath just as Tobin leaned in and kissed her, as sharply and startlingly as the boom of the fireworks behind them.
Minutes slowed and Alex’s heartbeat sped up to match the percussion symphony she could feel in Tobin’s chest. Another boom followed by an excited squeal was what broke them apart at last and before she could react, Tobin was stumbling back, away, leaving her in the dark once more.
For the rest of the night, Tobin was deep in animated conversation with Mana, then with Allie, then with Tiffany. Even if Alex had gotten the chance to talk to her, she wouldn’t have known what to say. Her mind whirled with possibilities she couldn’t face.
The next morning Tobin left early for her two weekend weddings and Alex awoke once she was gone with a strange, giddy feeling in her chest that muted her anxieties from the night before. She didn’t know what exactly it was—because she didn’t know what, exactly, had happened on the driveway—but it was caused by and centered on Tobin. She spent the rest of the weekend relentlessly refreshing Instagram and twitter, waiting for whatever pictures and cryptic tweets Tobin could come up with, and she was rewarded. By the time Tobin returned on Monday, Alex still hadn’t named the feeling in her chest and the lump in her throat, perhaps out of reluctance to face it, but her heart surged traitorously when she heard keys in the door. That was evidence enough.
Tobin greeted her with a hug, greeted Allie with a hug, and spent the next half hour describing both weddings. Then she asked what was for dinner.
No mention of what had happened on the Fourth of July. Nothing but that same, cavalier smile. Alex herself was terrified to try to broach the subject, scared to say the wrong thing, scared to put a name to this.
She waited, but the days passed in nothing but friendship as Tobin extended herself to the rest of the team. That was when Alex started to crumble.
She looked across the bar and her heart flipped a little when she saw Tobin throw her head back and laugh with Nikki. This ache in her chest had been growing for weeks. Tobin had kissed her, with shaking hands and shaking legs and shuddering breath, and until Tobin had kissed her Alex had never minded the fact that their relationship stopped at friendship. Now with this cloud of complacency removed, courtesy the midfielder laughing across the bar, her skin crawled at the idea that they would only ever be just friends. In flashes that plagued her daily, she saw her relationship with Tobin as something it was always meant to be. Something more.
And Tobin didn’t seem to care either way.
First, it had been fear that crippled her. Then confusion as her fears dissolved and she accepted these new feelings. Then hurt. If she had been an excuse-making person, she even could have attributed her play to the undercurrent of emotion roiling around her and Tobin.
“Let it go,” Tobin had said, “Just breathe, relax. Focus on what’s important.”
She ground her teeth, but in the end she released a long breath. “Fine,” she muttered aloud. Abby turned to her with eyebrows raised, and Alex continued the rest in her head: Fine. If she wants to be friends, I can do that. I can stay focused. I need to stay focused. She’s my best friend.
Tobin laughed again and Alex made an addendum:
Playoffs. That’s what matters now. The end of her summer loomed ever nearer.
The newspapers called it a dream playoff run, a fantastic surge upward from the third place spot, spearheaded by “a possessed Alex Morgan,” and they were entirely right.
Kansas City wasn’t prepared for an Alex Morgan who had disengaged entirely from media distractions, from the weight of her responsibilities, and most importantly, from Tobin. She blasted shot after shot. She chased down even the most wayward cross or through ball. When over-matched defenders grew desperate and tried to drag her down, they found ice in her veins and an emotionless mask on her face. She shrugged them off and outran them, time after time, assisting two and scoring the game winner.
In a media interview after the game, Christine Sinclair was left speechless. “I don’t even know…I just…it’s Alex Morgan. That’s all I can say. And I think that’s the perfect way to describe it.”
And her laser-like focus, her sheer determination, continued to leave her teammates in awe: whether it was the post-game celebration, the practices in the run-up to the final, or simply downtime at a hotel, Alex maintained a constant reticence and the controlled fire in her eyes was almost alarming.
Coming into the final game against Western New York, no one had any doubt that the Flash had not only seen Alex’s manic performance, but also that Abby had taken great care to warn her teammates of Alex’s potency when she got into moods like this. And yet, she made an even greater impact in the final than she had against Kansas city: two goals, an assist, and walking calmly away from a foul that gave Portland a penalty and a Flash defender a red card. A four-two rout.
After the final, she was the first person to whom Sinc handed the championship trophy, but far more important to her was when Tobin leapt into her arms.
“We won!” the midfielder shouted in raw triumph. “We did it!”
“We fucking did it,” Alex repeated with a grin, setting Tobin down.
My best friend, she thought to herself. The words were somehow easier to say now that she had a medal around her neck. Or perhaps it was because she had spent the last week repeating them with every inhalation, and now that the pressure of playoffs had been lifted from her shoulders, so had the pressure on their friendship.
“I can’t think of a better way to end this summer, as champions.”
“Well…” She chewed her lip in barely concealed delight. “How about we throw on our US jerseys and go beat Mexico while we’re at it?”
Tobin jumped into her arms again with a wild cat-call of victory. What an end to their summer.
Six days left.