A Steady Slope; Or: Five Moments of Quiet Change for Louisa Nécib
Title: A Steady Slope; Or: Five Moments of Quiet Change for Louisa Nécib
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Louisa Nécib / Samir Nasri
Word Count: 2,835
A/N: For distira, who asked for Louisa Nécib fic for the Sant Jordi fic exchange.
i.
Louisa’s seventeen when the Centre National de Formation et d'Entraînement selects her to attend the academy at Clairefontaine, and even though that should be the best thing that ever happened to her football career, everything just goes to hell, like the farther away she is from her family, the worse her playing gets.
“What’s going on?” her coach asks, pulling her aside after practice one day. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Louisa says, because everything is okay, except for how nothing’s okay at the same time. “Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong. I think I’m just tired.”
“Alright,” her coach says, and then as Louisa’s walking away, he calls out, “Nécib, don’t let it get to you.” Louisa just waves back because it’s already getting to her, and that’s part of the problem.
Back in her room, Louisa lies on her bed with her feet propped up against the wall, reading Brandi Chastain’s It’s Not About The Bra and debating getting dinner before the dining hall closes. She had hoped, to be honest, that reading about football would put her in a better mood, but all it really does is make her think that even though female athletes can achieve so much in a world where they’re mostly ignored, maybe she can’t, and maybe she won’t ever be able to.
There’s a knock at her door, then, even though her door’s open, and Louisa cranes her neck to see Élodie, one of the forwards on the squad who she knows but doesn’t really know. Élodie’s carrying a plate of food and she smiles small as she says, “I brought you dinner.”
“Oh,” Louisa says, and she sits up, marks her place in her book. “You didn’t have to do that, but thanks.”
“No problem,” Élodie says, handing over the plate, and then she throws herself down on Louisa’s empty desk chair. “So what’s up?”
“Nothing,” Louisa says with a shrug, spearing a broccoli floret with her fork. “Just reading.”
Élodie laughs a little bit and says, “No, I mean-” before changing her mind and instead asking, “Have you always wanted to play football?”
“No,” Louisa answers honestly. “When I was younger, I wanted to be a gymnast. I didn’t even know there were football clubs for women.”
“That’s still better than me,” Élodie says. “When I was younger, I wanted to be a bird when I grew up.”
Louisa laughs and it doesn’t feel out of place for her to joke, “Yeah? And how’s that going for you?”
“Horribly,” Élodie says, laughing, and then after a pause, she says, “I hate that boys get all the recognition for football and we get nothing. So now I want to be the best footballer I can, just to prove them wrong. You know?”
“Yeah,” Louisa says, because that’s what she wants too, even if she’s having a hard time getting there. “I do.”
“So then just play,” Élodie says. “They all keep telling me you know how.”
Louisa laughs a little at that, but before she can respond, Laure pops her head in and says, “Hey, Élodie-Jessica’s looking for you. She says her cousin saw you playing the other day and is very interested.”
“Oh god,” Élodie says, and she covers her eyes for a second like that embarrasses her for some reason. “Duty calls,” she says to Louisa, and then she’s out of the chair and down the hall before Louisa can even respond.
Louisa eats another piece of broccoli and opens her book back up. Élodie’s alright, she thinks.
ii.
The comparisons start, and when they do, they don’t stop.
Her teammates at Montpellier seem to find it funny, and they cover her locker with edited photos, her head on Zidane’s body, Zidane’s head on hers. They even get a new training kit for her, number ten with Zidanette on the back.
“Next step is you shave your head,” Julie says as she changes, and she makes snipping motions with her fingers.
“Never!” Agathe yells, pulling Louisa to her and placing her hands over Louisa’s head, as if to protect her. “I love her hair.”
“Then you can have it,” Louisa tells her, and she ducks away so that she can pull her hair back into a ponytail. “It’s long enough that it’s just annoying now.”
The door to the locker room is thrown open then, and Élodie walks in. Normally, Louisa’s really glad that she and Élodie ended up at the same club, but this time, Élodie looks at her and says, “Titou!” and Louisa can’t help but throw a balled-up pair of socks at her.
“Oh, come on,” Louisa groans, and she doesn’t really know how to explain it, the way that she’s mostly just embarrassed by the comparison. It’s not that it’s Zinedine Zidane that they’re comparing her to, but that she’s Louisa Nécib, and that’s not even close to being the same thing. “Cut it out.”
“Never,” Élodie says, and she smiles like she knows she’s being obnoxious before she starts digging through he locker for her boots.
Later that night, after practice and more Zizou jokes and one really cold ice bath, Louisa finally makes it back to her apartment and calls her parents. They’re not in, but her brother’s there for some reason, and he says some really nice things to her that immediately put her on edge, because he’s her brother and brothers don’t do that.
“Saw that they’re calling you the female Zinedine Zidane,” he says. “That’s crazy.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I know. I don’t even know what to say.”
“So don’t say anything,” he tells her. “But still. You worked hard for it.”
“As hard as anyone else,” she points out, sort of noncommittal, and he keeps talking like she hadn’t even said anything.
“I mean, Zidane. He’s really good.” He pauses-for effect, maybe-and then adds, “Don’t let it get to your head though. They’re just saying that because you’re Algerian and from Marseille; you’re not actually that good.”
“Better than you,” Louisa shoots back, because she was expecting him to say something like that, saw it coming a mile away, and he just laughs like she still has a lot to learn. And maybe she does, but when Louisa finally goes to bed, it takes her a long time to fall asleep.
Zinedine Zidane, she thinks. Unbelievable.
She smiles until her cheeks hurt.
iii.
Coming off of a first place finish in the Champions League, Louisa almost forgets what it feels like, to hit a low point; of all the ways for her World Cup to end, she never expected it to end with her sitting on a physio’s table, watching her team lose on the tv in the corner.
Élodie comes to find her afterwards, sweaty and still in her boots and shin guards, and she doesn’t even have to ask Louisa how she is, because there’s no way she doesn’t already know.
“I’m pissed off,” Louisa says anyways, and Élodie sits down in a free chair and props her feet up on Louisa’s table.
“Me too,” Élodie says. “I thought we had it.”
“At least you scored,” Louisa says. “I might as well have not even showed up.”
“Shut up,” Élodie says lightly, and even though Louisa’s mad, even though she’s upset, she notices what Élodie’s doing for her, and what Élodie always does for her. “Everyone’s already saying we only made it as far as we did because of you.”
“Not true,” Louisa says, and that’s something she really believes. “We made it this far as a team; Barcelona doesn’t win just because of Messi, you know?”
“Ooh, ego!” Élodie jokes, and Louisa can’t help but laugh with her just a tiny bit, because she didn’t mean it like that, and Élodie knows she didn’t mean it like that. Messi’s the best player in the world, but even he can’t win by himself, without the rest of his team, just like France didn’t make it to the semis all because of one person. Football doesn’t work like that.
“You know what I mean,” Louisa says. “Although he can’t win a World Cup, either, so maybe we have more in common than I thought.”
Élodie laughs a bit at that, and then the two of them lapse into silence, just sitting there and trying to figure out what comes next, how they’re supposed to bounce back from this and return to club play.
“You know,” Louisa says, “I thought I wanted it as much as a person could want it, but now I just want it so much more.”
Élodie doesn’t respond-she doesn’t need to-but she does sit with Louisa until the physios tell her that she can leave, and then the two of them head back to the hotel, climb under the covers of one bed, and stare at the ceiling together. And Louisa doesn’t know how, but before she even realizes it, Eugénie’s there, and Caroline’s there, and Sabrina and Marie-Laure and Gaëtane, and they’re all lying like sardines across two hotel beds, as if they were throwing a Les Bleues recuperation party.
Gaëtane says, “Four years is practically right around the corner.”
“Yeah,” Caroline agrees. “We’ll be back before you know it.”
“Except for Sabrina,” Eugénie says. “She’s practically ancient as it is.”
All of them erupt into much-needed laughter, and Sabrina says, “Hey! I’ll only be thirty-four! Sandrine’s still playing and she’s thirty-seven!”
“I think I’ll keep playing forever,” Marie-Laure says. “Even once I’m retired.”
And it’s such a simple idea, one that Louisa always thought without ever being able to put into words, but hearing someone else say it… Something about that resonates with Louisa, knowing that she’s not alone in feeling like that. She’s never going to be able to stop playing, not before they win the World Cup, and not after, either.
iv.
They’re all in the locker room after practice, sweaty and exhausted, and Louisa barely gets her top off before her phone rings, blasting Blowing Money Fast by Rick Ross so loudly that Camille hears it from across the room and catcalls.
“Ten euros I know who that is,” Camille says, but Louisa’s not stupid enough to take the bet, because with a ringtone like that, everybody knows who it is.
“Yeah, yeah,” Louisa says, rolling her eyes, and she takes a quick second to brush back a few strands of hair that have come loose from her hair tie before answering her phone. “Hey,” she says, and it’s weird, because it’s been almost three months already, and yet talking to him still makes her feel like this, like stepping onto the pitch before a match.
“Hey,” Samir says, and the locker room’s loud enough that Louisa has to press the phone tight to her ear, just to hear him. “So, it’s been a good run, but we’ve been found out.”
“Yeah?” Louisa asks. They’ve talked about it, and she doesn’t really mind too much, because she likes him and he likes her, and that’s sort of all there is to it, but she gets that it’s not really anyone else’s business, either, and that it’ll change things, the amount of privacy that they have and what people focus on in interviews. “What happened?”
Élodie walks up behind Louisa, then, and throws an arm over her shoulders. “Monsieur Nasri,” she says, loud enough that Louisa can hear it but quiet enough that Samir can’t. “Ooh, Monsieur Nasri.” Louisa gives her a shove and mouths, Shut up, and they all laugh at that, Camille and Laura and Wendie and whoever else is paying attention.
“What? Sorry, I couldn’t hear you,” Louisa says into the phone, even though it’s mostly a lie; she can hear him fine if she actually listens, but it’s a different story when she’s not even paying attention.
“S’alright,” Samir says, and his voice is light, like he probably knows the truth, anyways. “I had an interview this morning; got asked what it was like to be dating the female Zidane.”
“Gross,” Louisa groans, mostly out of embarrassment. She still doesn’t mind the comparisons, not really, because to be compared to someone like Zizou is nothing short of the highest compliment, but at the same time, the comparisons don’t do anything for either of them. “What’d you say?”
“I said I didn’t know; I was too busy dating the next Louisa Nécib,” Samir says, and Louisa bites her lip, leans into her locker just to hide her smile. Élodie would never let her live it down, if she saw.
“Yeah,” Louisa says. “That’s alright, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Samir says, and then they’re quiet for a minute, just the two of them on the phone even though everything’s still going on around them. And then Samir says, “I didn’t mention that you played for Lyon, though. I hope they forget to bring that up in the article, or there goes my street cred.”
“Oh, shut up,” Louisa laughs, and she likes that Samir laughs, too.
v.
Louisa feels almost at home, sitting there in a crêperie in Zurich’s Kreis 3 with Élodie and Samir and her parents, except for how now there’s a FIFA World Player of the Year award on the table next to her, and that’s something she definitely didn’t have back in France.
“I still can’t believe it,” Louisa says, her fingers playing with the base of the award. She’s sharing a couch in the corner with Samir, the others seated in armchairs around the table, and they must look ridiculous, all of them still in their clothes from the award ceremony.
“I told you that you were big time,” Élodie says, and even though it’s been years and years since they’ve met, sometimes Louisa thinks that playing poorly at the academy was the best thing to ever happen to her, how it gave her another sister. Élodie’s been there with her through everything, and Louisa likes knowing that Élodie can say the same about her. “And to think, you wanted to be a gymnast.”
Louisa laughs, mostly because now the idea of being a gymnast seems so ridiculous, and Samir drapes an arm around her, the fingertips of one hand tracing the curve of her bare shoulder. She looks at him and he smiles, his dimples on display, and she wants to kiss him so badly.
“Shut up,” she says instead, rolling her eyes because she knows what he’s thinking, knows that he’s holding back gymnast jokes. She elbows him lightly in the side, and he lets out a loud, surprised laugh.
“I didn’t even say anything!” he says.
“You didn’t have to,” Louisa tells him, and she shifts in her seat so that she’s leaning into him. She’s never felt like this with someone else before, never felt so much like herself, and she thinks maybe that says something, something more than that she just wants to spend all the time with him that she can.
It’s just strange, Louisa thinks, that she can have all of this and still not have to give anything up in return. When she started out-really started out, from the very beginning-she just played because she liked to, and she wanted to keep playing until there was something else that she had to be doing. Only now, it doesn’t seem like there’s ever going to be something else, because suddenly she’s a footballer. And that’s stupid, so stupid, because she’s been a footballer her whole life, at Marseille and Montpellier and Lyon, with the National Team and on the street outside her parents’ house with the neighborhood boys, and that’s not something that an award can or even should change.
“Is it setting in yet?” Samir asks her when Élodie’s telling Louisa’s parents about how her family is doing.
“No,” Louisa says back, because it’s not. “I don’t think it ever really will.” And that’s the point of it all, she guesses. Louisa’s never going to wake up, feeling like the best player in the world, not even if Samir’s there to remind her that she is, or her teammates, or the news; Louisa doesn’t know how she can be the best if she’s not playing her best, and she knows that she’s not there yet, that she’s got a lot of football left in her, and a lot of improving left to do. But for one night, at least, she’s the best in the world, surrounded by the most important people in the world to her, people who are only in Zurich with her and for her, and while a part of her wants to stay in this moment forever, an even larger part of her is dying to get back to France, to get back on the pitch, to keep playing and keep training and to see what else football brings into her life.
It hasn’t let her down yet.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Louisa Nécib / Samir Nasri
Word Count: 2,835
A/N: For distira, who asked for Louisa Nécib fic for the Sant Jordi fic exchange.
i.
Louisa’s seventeen when the Centre National de Formation et d'Entraînement selects her to attend the academy at Clairefontaine, and even though that should be the best thing that ever happened to her football career, everything just goes to hell, like the farther away she is from her family, the worse her playing gets.
“What’s going on?” her coach asks, pulling her aside after practice one day. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Louisa says, because everything is okay, except for how nothing’s okay at the same time. “Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong. I think I’m just tired.”
“Alright,” her coach says, and then as Louisa’s walking away, he calls out, “Nécib, don’t let it get to you.” Louisa just waves back because it’s already getting to her, and that’s part of the problem.
Back in her room, Louisa lies on her bed with her feet propped up against the wall, reading Brandi Chastain’s It’s Not About The Bra and debating getting dinner before the dining hall closes. She had hoped, to be honest, that reading about football would put her in a better mood, but all it really does is make her think that even though female athletes can achieve so much in a world where they’re mostly ignored, maybe she can’t, and maybe she won’t ever be able to.
There’s a knock at her door, then, even though her door’s open, and Louisa cranes her neck to see Élodie, one of the forwards on the squad who she knows but doesn’t really know. Élodie’s carrying a plate of food and she smiles small as she says, “I brought you dinner.”
“Oh,” Louisa says, and she sits up, marks her place in her book. “You didn’t have to do that, but thanks.”
“No problem,” Élodie says, handing over the plate, and then she throws herself down on Louisa’s empty desk chair. “So what’s up?”
“Nothing,” Louisa says with a shrug, spearing a broccoli floret with her fork. “Just reading.”
Élodie laughs a little bit and says, “No, I mean-” before changing her mind and instead asking, “Have you always wanted to play football?”
“No,” Louisa answers honestly. “When I was younger, I wanted to be a gymnast. I didn’t even know there were football clubs for women.”
“That’s still better than me,” Élodie says. “When I was younger, I wanted to be a bird when I grew up.”
Louisa laughs and it doesn’t feel out of place for her to joke, “Yeah? And how’s that going for you?”
“Horribly,” Élodie says, laughing, and then after a pause, she says, “I hate that boys get all the recognition for football and we get nothing. So now I want to be the best footballer I can, just to prove them wrong. You know?”
“Yeah,” Louisa says, because that’s what she wants too, even if she’s having a hard time getting there. “I do.”
“So then just play,” Élodie says. “They all keep telling me you know how.”
Louisa laughs a little at that, but before she can respond, Laure pops her head in and says, “Hey, Élodie-Jessica’s looking for you. She says her cousin saw you playing the other day and is very interested.”
“Oh god,” Élodie says, and she covers her eyes for a second like that embarrasses her for some reason. “Duty calls,” she says to Louisa, and then she’s out of the chair and down the hall before Louisa can even respond.
Louisa eats another piece of broccoli and opens her book back up. Élodie’s alright, she thinks.
ii.
The comparisons start, and when they do, they don’t stop.
Her teammates at Montpellier seem to find it funny, and they cover her locker with edited photos, her head on Zidane’s body, Zidane’s head on hers. They even get a new training kit for her, number ten with Zidanette on the back.
“Next step is you shave your head,” Julie says as she changes, and she makes snipping motions with her fingers.
“Never!” Agathe yells, pulling Louisa to her and placing her hands over Louisa’s head, as if to protect her. “I love her hair.”
“Then you can have it,” Louisa tells her, and she ducks away so that she can pull her hair back into a ponytail. “It’s long enough that it’s just annoying now.”
The door to the locker room is thrown open then, and Élodie walks in. Normally, Louisa’s really glad that she and Élodie ended up at the same club, but this time, Élodie looks at her and says, “Titou!” and Louisa can’t help but throw a balled-up pair of socks at her.
“Oh, come on,” Louisa groans, and she doesn’t really know how to explain it, the way that she’s mostly just embarrassed by the comparison. It’s not that it’s Zinedine Zidane that they’re comparing her to, but that she’s Louisa Nécib, and that’s not even close to being the same thing. “Cut it out.”
“Never,” Élodie says, and she smiles like she knows she’s being obnoxious before she starts digging through he locker for her boots.
Later that night, after practice and more Zizou jokes and one really cold ice bath, Louisa finally makes it back to her apartment and calls her parents. They’re not in, but her brother’s there for some reason, and he says some really nice things to her that immediately put her on edge, because he’s her brother and brothers don’t do that.
“Saw that they’re calling you the female Zinedine Zidane,” he says. “That’s crazy.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I know. I don’t even know what to say.”
“So don’t say anything,” he tells her. “But still. You worked hard for it.”
“As hard as anyone else,” she points out, sort of noncommittal, and he keeps talking like she hadn’t even said anything.
“I mean, Zidane. He’s really good.” He pauses-for effect, maybe-and then adds, “Don’t let it get to your head though. They’re just saying that because you’re Algerian and from Marseille; you’re not actually that good.”
“Better than you,” Louisa shoots back, because she was expecting him to say something like that, saw it coming a mile away, and he just laughs like she still has a lot to learn. And maybe she does, but when Louisa finally goes to bed, it takes her a long time to fall asleep.
Zinedine Zidane, she thinks. Unbelievable.
She smiles until her cheeks hurt.
iii.
Coming off of a first place finish in the Champions League, Louisa almost forgets what it feels like, to hit a low point; of all the ways for her World Cup to end, she never expected it to end with her sitting on a physio’s table, watching her team lose on the tv in the corner.
Élodie comes to find her afterwards, sweaty and still in her boots and shin guards, and she doesn’t even have to ask Louisa how she is, because there’s no way she doesn’t already know.
“I’m pissed off,” Louisa says anyways, and Élodie sits down in a free chair and props her feet up on Louisa’s table.
“Me too,” Élodie says. “I thought we had it.”
“At least you scored,” Louisa says. “I might as well have not even showed up.”
“Shut up,” Élodie says lightly, and even though Louisa’s mad, even though she’s upset, she notices what Élodie’s doing for her, and what Élodie always does for her. “Everyone’s already saying we only made it as far as we did because of you.”
“Not true,” Louisa says, and that’s something she really believes. “We made it this far as a team; Barcelona doesn’t win just because of Messi, you know?”
“Ooh, ego!” Élodie jokes, and Louisa can’t help but laugh with her just a tiny bit, because she didn’t mean it like that, and Élodie knows she didn’t mean it like that. Messi’s the best player in the world, but even he can’t win by himself, without the rest of his team, just like France didn’t make it to the semis all because of one person. Football doesn’t work like that.
“You know what I mean,” Louisa says. “Although he can’t win a World Cup, either, so maybe we have more in common than I thought.”
Élodie laughs a bit at that, and then the two of them lapse into silence, just sitting there and trying to figure out what comes next, how they’re supposed to bounce back from this and return to club play.
“You know,” Louisa says, “I thought I wanted it as much as a person could want it, but now I just want it so much more.”
Élodie doesn’t respond-she doesn’t need to-but she does sit with Louisa until the physios tell her that she can leave, and then the two of them head back to the hotel, climb under the covers of one bed, and stare at the ceiling together. And Louisa doesn’t know how, but before she even realizes it, Eugénie’s there, and Caroline’s there, and Sabrina and Marie-Laure and Gaëtane, and they’re all lying like sardines across two hotel beds, as if they were throwing a Les Bleues recuperation party.
Gaëtane says, “Four years is practically right around the corner.”
“Yeah,” Caroline agrees. “We’ll be back before you know it.”
“Except for Sabrina,” Eugénie says. “She’s practically ancient as it is.”
All of them erupt into much-needed laughter, and Sabrina says, “Hey! I’ll only be thirty-four! Sandrine’s still playing and she’s thirty-seven!”
“I think I’ll keep playing forever,” Marie-Laure says. “Even once I’m retired.”
And it’s such a simple idea, one that Louisa always thought without ever being able to put into words, but hearing someone else say it… Something about that resonates with Louisa, knowing that she’s not alone in feeling like that. She’s never going to be able to stop playing, not before they win the World Cup, and not after, either.
iv.
They’re all in the locker room after practice, sweaty and exhausted, and Louisa barely gets her top off before her phone rings, blasting Blowing Money Fast by Rick Ross so loudly that Camille hears it from across the room and catcalls.
“Ten euros I know who that is,” Camille says, but Louisa’s not stupid enough to take the bet, because with a ringtone like that, everybody knows who it is.
“Yeah, yeah,” Louisa says, rolling her eyes, and she takes a quick second to brush back a few strands of hair that have come loose from her hair tie before answering her phone. “Hey,” she says, and it’s weird, because it’s been almost three months already, and yet talking to him still makes her feel like this, like stepping onto the pitch before a match.
“Hey,” Samir says, and the locker room’s loud enough that Louisa has to press the phone tight to her ear, just to hear him. “So, it’s been a good run, but we’ve been found out.”
“Yeah?” Louisa asks. They’ve talked about it, and she doesn’t really mind too much, because she likes him and he likes her, and that’s sort of all there is to it, but she gets that it’s not really anyone else’s business, either, and that it’ll change things, the amount of privacy that they have and what people focus on in interviews. “What happened?”
Élodie walks up behind Louisa, then, and throws an arm over her shoulders. “Monsieur Nasri,” she says, loud enough that Louisa can hear it but quiet enough that Samir can’t. “Ooh, Monsieur Nasri.” Louisa gives her a shove and mouths, Shut up, and they all laugh at that, Camille and Laura and Wendie and whoever else is paying attention.
“What? Sorry, I couldn’t hear you,” Louisa says into the phone, even though it’s mostly a lie; she can hear him fine if she actually listens, but it’s a different story when she’s not even paying attention.
“S’alright,” Samir says, and his voice is light, like he probably knows the truth, anyways. “I had an interview this morning; got asked what it was like to be dating the female Zidane.”
“Gross,” Louisa groans, mostly out of embarrassment. She still doesn’t mind the comparisons, not really, because to be compared to someone like Zizou is nothing short of the highest compliment, but at the same time, the comparisons don’t do anything for either of them. “What’d you say?”
“I said I didn’t know; I was too busy dating the next Louisa Nécib,” Samir says, and Louisa bites her lip, leans into her locker just to hide her smile. Élodie would never let her live it down, if she saw.
“Yeah,” Louisa says. “That’s alright, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Samir says, and then they’re quiet for a minute, just the two of them on the phone even though everything’s still going on around them. And then Samir says, “I didn’t mention that you played for Lyon, though. I hope they forget to bring that up in the article, or there goes my street cred.”
“Oh, shut up,” Louisa laughs, and she likes that Samir laughs, too.
v.
Louisa feels almost at home, sitting there in a crêperie in Zurich’s Kreis 3 with Élodie and Samir and her parents, except for how now there’s a FIFA World Player of the Year award on the table next to her, and that’s something she definitely didn’t have back in France.
“I still can’t believe it,” Louisa says, her fingers playing with the base of the award. She’s sharing a couch in the corner with Samir, the others seated in armchairs around the table, and they must look ridiculous, all of them still in their clothes from the award ceremony.
“I told you that you were big time,” Élodie says, and even though it’s been years and years since they’ve met, sometimes Louisa thinks that playing poorly at the academy was the best thing to ever happen to her, how it gave her another sister. Élodie’s been there with her through everything, and Louisa likes knowing that Élodie can say the same about her. “And to think, you wanted to be a gymnast.”
Louisa laughs, mostly because now the idea of being a gymnast seems so ridiculous, and Samir drapes an arm around her, the fingertips of one hand tracing the curve of her bare shoulder. She looks at him and he smiles, his dimples on display, and she wants to kiss him so badly.
“Shut up,” she says instead, rolling her eyes because she knows what he’s thinking, knows that he’s holding back gymnast jokes. She elbows him lightly in the side, and he lets out a loud, surprised laugh.
“I didn’t even say anything!” he says.
“You didn’t have to,” Louisa tells him, and she shifts in her seat so that she’s leaning into him. She’s never felt like this with someone else before, never felt so much like herself, and she thinks maybe that says something, something more than that she just wants to spend all the time with him that she can.
It’s just strange, Louisa thinks, that she can have all of this and still not have to give anything up in return. When she started out-really started out, from the very beginning-she just played because she liked to, and she wanted to keep playing until there was something else that she had to be doing. Only now, it doesn’t seem like there’s ever going to be something else, because suddenly she’s a footballer. And that’s stupid, so stupid, because she’s been a footballer her whole life, at Marseille and Montpellier and Lyon, with the National Team and on the street outside her parents’ house with the neighborhood boys, and that’s not something that an award can or even should change.
“Is it setting in yet?” Samir asks her when Élodie’s telling Louisa’s parents about how her family is doing.
“No,” Louisa says back, because it’s not. “I don’t think it ever really will.” And that’s the point of it all, she guesses. Louisa’s never going to wake up, feeling like the best player in the world, not even if Samir’s there to remind her that she is, or her teammates, or the news; Louisa doesn’t know how she can be the best if she’s not playing her best, and she knows that she’s not there yet, that she’s got a lot of football left in her, and a lot of improving left to do. But for one night, at least, she’s the best in the world, surrounded by the most important people in the world to her, people who are only in Zurich with her and for her, and while a part of her wants to stay in this moment forever, an even larger part of her is dying to get back to France, to get back on the pitch, to keep playing and keep training and to see what else football brings into her life.
It hasn’t let her down yet.