This is the second part of "Commitment Issues" so I'd recommend to read the first part if you haven't already! <3

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THIS TAKES PLACE TWO WEEKS AFTER THE FIRST PART, RIGHT AFTER ENGLAND LOST THE WORLD CUP FINAL AGAINST SPAIN.

4510 WORDS.

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T W O  W E E K S  L A T E R

"You know you can't hide from the pain, right?"

There was a soft touch on her shoulder Lucy had not expected, so she flinched a bit before turning her head to the right to look at Keira. She wasn't capable to form any words in this moment as the extreme disappointment seemed to paralyze her.

The pain erupted from deep inside her heart and spread like poison through her veins. Did they really just loose the World Cup final or was it just another bad dream keeping her awake?

This final had been something she'd worked on for months, for years, with the team. There was absolutely no way that they'd let the win fall out of their hands just like that. There must've been some kind of mistake.

Lucy slightly shook her head trying to erase the intrusive thoughts fighting their way to the surface but she couldn't think of anything else than their loss. She didn't dare to look around not wanting to see all the others crying in each others arms. If she did, she would have to accept the fact that they've just lost the World Cup final.

While sitting there frozen in the grass, lost in her thoughts, she could hear the Spanish fans in the stands cheering loudly which felt like a knife stabbing directly into her heart. It should've been them. It should've been her family, her friends, their fans cheering, laughing, crying tears of joy.

Lucy wondered what Keira was feeling right now. She had to feel the same pain, maybe even more as she'd always been a bit more sensitive than her but Keira was good at hiding it most of the time. The brunette felt herself wanting to reach out for her, but Keira was long gone from her side and her gaze wandered slowly over the field. She couldn't stop herself from searching for her again.

Obviously Lucy knew that Keira was also far from being okay and after some minutes, she recognized her walking around with some of their teammates from Barcelona. It seemed like they tried their best to cheer the ginger haired up but deep down Lucy knew, that there was nothing that could heal the wound in their hearts right now.

Everything they'd ever wanted had just gone to waste and for her personally, the chance to try again in four years was nearly impossible. Moreover, she had not only lost the World Cup but much more than that as things between her and Keira were even worse than before.

Nothing had changed in the last two weeks, on the contrary. Mostly, the ginger haired didn't even look at Lucy anymore, almost as if she wasn't even there.

She could feel herself wanting nothing more than to be buried in Keira's arms. They'd always been there for each other, no matter if their team had lost or won. But the problems between them were far from being solved.

They hadn't really spoken for months, except for this one time two weeks ago where they all had been waiting for Keira's results concerning her knee. But honestly, neither of them dared to make another move.

Lucy felt the need to comfort Keira right now, but she couldn't bring herself to walk over to her. So she decided to head in the opposite direction, searching for comfort herself.

Receiving the silver medal felt like torture and Keira couldn't stop occasional tears from streaming down her face. Her eyes must've been red and all in all, she must've looked pretty shattered, as many of her teammates came up to her, hugging her for some seconds.

The ginger haired knew, that she could try again. She had just turned 26, she could definitely try again in four years if her knee would let her do it. But there were some of her teammates, including Lucy, who wouldn't get the chance.

The bus ride back to their hotel had been terribly quiet. No one dared to say a word, neither of them wanted to chat with the others, they all just seemed to be stuck in their own minds. Sometimes you could hear a soft sigh, nails tipping messages on a phone or quiet sobs coming from especially the younger ones.

As there was nothing left to say for Sarina after already trying to cheer everyone up back in the stadium, the players were heading straight to their rooms as soon as they arrived at their hotel.

When the ginger haired closed the door behind herself, the silence welcoming her in the small hotel room seemed to swallow her all of a sudden. She tossed her bag to the side and sunk down onto the ground right away, not able to hold back the tears any longer.

Her mind didn't stop spinning around the game they've just lost and it seemed like the whole thing kept replaying itself over and over again inside her head. She knew that she'd made some mistakes, they all did. They should've played better.

The hot tears didn't stop streaming down her face for hours and there was nothing Keira could do to stop them. She didn't even know if she wanted to be alone or if she would've preferred having company but sometimes she could hear some of her teammates walking past her room and wished for them to knock. But nobody did. So she stayed alone.

When she slowly began to register the world around her again, everything was dark and quiet. There were absolutely no noises coming from the hallway or from outside, everything seemed to be shut down.

But when she opened her eyes, Keira could see a faint beam of light shining into her room through the crack in the door. It was barely noticeable, and if she hadn't been sitting right by the door, she probably wouldn't even have noticed it.

It was strange, she had absolutely no clue where the faint light was coming from and when she stood up and opened her door, it felt like her heart nearly stopped. She had expected everything, but what awaited her in front of the door nearly took her breath away. „My god, Lucy, why are you scaring me like that?", she breathed out, trying not to wake up their other teammates next door.

Right in front of her door, to her feet, sitting on the floor, was Lucy.

The brunette had a phone in her hand, which immediately explained the faint light Keira had seen and she looked up at Keira with the same shock the ginger haired was feeling inside of her.

"What are you doing here?" — "I... I felt alone. I'm so sorry, I didn't want to scare you. But my room felt so empty and I didn't want to just sit there on my bed staring at ceiling." Keira frowned, looking down at the brunette in front of her, "So you decided to come here instead to sit on the floor staring at the wall?"

Lucy shrugged her shoulders, trying to hold eye contact with her teammate but after some seconds she broke it, looking back down on her phone. It was incredibly hard for her seeing Keira's eyes all red and puffy, even if it wasn't her fault this time, but it still reminded her of last time. It reminded her of everything she'd put Keira through. The one person, that had always been able to make her feel safe.

"When you say it like that, it sounds stupid. To me it just made sense. It made sense to come here, to be close to you, it comforts me somehow to be near you." Since when did Lucy decide it was a good idea to talk so openly about her feelings?

Normally Keira would've smiled, it was kinda cute that Lucy felt better around her. But she didn't smile. She couldn't. She felt a well-known ache in her heart, like someone decided to squeeze it till there was no blood left in it.

"You cannot just come here, sit there in front of my door and then tell me that it comforts you to be near me. You cannot do that, Lucy." It hit the brunette like a truck that what she'd just said was exactly what she'd tried to avoid all these past weeks.

Two weeks ago, she'd known right away after Keira had left her apartment, that sending her away with a broken heart had been the worst mistake she'd ever made. And there was no way she could ever make up for that.

It would've been better for Lucy to keep her distance, to let Keira move on so that she could maybe find someone new, someone better. But the thought of Keira loving someone else made Lucy feeling like she had to throw up immediately.

Maybe it was selfish. The brunette wasn't even sure if she was able to give Keira what she'd wanted her to. But she couldn't let her go. Everything inside of her told her not to let the ginger haired go.

"Why? I'm not lying, it's the truth." She couldn't stop herself. Lucy felt like she needed to be honest this one time. While the brunette was still sitting on the floor, her phone being the only light on the hallway, Keira couldn't stop staring down at her as she just couldn't believe what was happening. "That makes it even worse!" — "I don't understand."

Of course Lucy did understand.

She did it all over again, the whole thing with Keira. To Keira, it felt like the brunette had started playing with her feelings all over again. What she didn't know was that this time, Lucy's intentions were different. There was no turning back. She couldn't hurt her again. Lucy finally needed to leave the comfort zone she'd been hiding in for ages.

They both knew that things couldn't continue like this. They needed each other, there was no way of living a life without each other. But this whole thing about trying to stay friends and not wanting to loose each other just didn't work like this. There were way too many feelings involved which indicated more than a friendship.

Lucy had tried so hard to fight these feelings inside of her as she didn't want them to grow and ruin all her plans. But she couldn't fight something this strong. Besides, she knew that Keira was feeling the same way and suppressing these feelings also meant hurting Keira. Even more than she'd already done.

"You're a huge mystery to me, you know that?" — „Keira, could we perhaps continue this conversation in your room?" There it was. Written all over the ginger haired's face. Doubt.

Keira doubted that Lucy really wanted to talk to her. And she didn't even know if she wanted her to. The hurt Lucy had put her through was still stuck in her bones. Did she even want to talk to the brunette? Or would she hurt her all over again?

But Keira's heart wanted to know what Lucy had to say. After all, she missed her every single day. Every single hour. Every minute and every second.

So Keira nodded, opening the door a little bit wider and helped the brunette to stand up so they could go inside of her room.

„You know what?", Keira started again, after sitting down on her bed cross-legged seated. She looked up at Lucy, who was standing there awkwardly, not exactly knowing where to sit.

The brunette didn't want to sit on the floor again but sitting next to Keira on her bed could be a bit too much for the ginger haired. When Keira started speaking again, Lucy looked over at her with a questioning look on her face.

"I just don't understand you. I mean, do you even understand yourself?" — "What? Of course I do." There was confusion written all over Lucy's face and she didn't quite understand what Keira was trying to say. Did she even understand herself?

Lucy repeated that question in her head, over and over again. Did she understand herself? Was she able to understand her own feelings?

Honestly, the brunette didn't know what to do about her feelings. Normally she'd never allow herself to feel this way for someone. It was dangerous, she didn't want to fall in love. She couldn't explain her behavior but somehow it had always been like that. Feelings were unavoidable but there was no need to let them grow, was there? She always preferred to keep them hidden inside her heart.

When it came to making friends, there was absolutely no problem for Lucy as she'd always been kind of a social butterfly. But when it came to dating someone or falling in love with someone, that was a whole different thing for the brunette. She'd always tried to avoid these kind of feelings and to be honest, she'd been incredibly good at it.

But maybe it hadn't been because of her mindset. Maybe it was because she'd already found someone a long time ago and since then there had been no one better than her. There had never been someone better than Keira. And even if it did take her a really long time to understand these feelings, they were still stronger than ever.

"No, honestly I don't understand myself." It was weird telling the truth. But for once, she wanted to be honest with Keira. It was what she deserved. What they both deserved.

"You know what? There's a reason why I came to your room a few hours ago. Actually, there had been something I wanted to talk to you about, but I just lost all confidence when I arrived. So I decided to sit down and wait. Don't ask me what I was thinking. But... I've made a huge mistake two weeks ago and we both know that." — "Stop doing this. Please." Keira squinted her eyes shut as if she had bitten into an extremely sour lemon. Lucy's words felt like she was rubbing salt into her still-open wound.

"You need to stop. You can't just go around and hurt people like that just because you feel like it." — "I'm trying my best, okay? I don't want to hurt anyone. Right now, I'm trying to fix what I've done wrong." Lucy was still standing around while Keira didn't dare to look up from her hands. She didn't dare to look into those beyond beautiful dark green eyes staring at her right now.

"You cannot just fix everything. Maybe there's nothing left to be fixed." Lucy suddenly froze. There were dozens of needles pricking inside of her heart in this moment. It felt like there was no air left in her lungs.

The brunette didn't know whether she was cold or hot, because it seemed to be all at once. There was this incredible nausea that suddenly arose in her as her stomach cramped painfully.

Maybe this would've been the best moment for her to leave. Keira's words had flashed through her body like a thousand flashlights which for sure left some burned bruises inside of her. But still, she didn't go. She didn't turn around. She wasn't going to leave Keira just like that.

It had been a huge mistake to let the ginger haired go the last time and Lucy wasn't going to make that same mistake again by running away herself. It was now or never and she knew that this would be her last chance to make things right.

"I know that you don't want me to go. I know that this is your broken heart talking right now and I completely understand that as it's all my fault. But I won't give up on us this easily." Keira could feel Lucy's words fighting their way inside her heart even though she was trying so hard to push them away. She knew that she didn't want Lucy to go, even though it would be best if she did.

It was for her own safety as she remembered exactly how bad she'd suffered the last time. There was no way Keira would let this happen again but she couldn't fight the urge of hope climbing up her chest at Lucy's words. Was there a chance for them to go back to normal?

The ginger haired gulped hard before slowly looking up. She was still fumbling with her hands as it helped her with the incredible anxiety she was feeling in that moment, but her eyes were fixed on Lucy now.

"Look, I know that I've hurt you so bad and I regret it. I regret it and I think about it every single day. It's not that easy for me to communicate my feelings but you deserve it, so I'm trying. I've always tried to push these feelings away, even though I know they've been there all these years. I thought I had them under control and I did."

"At least until we've moved to Barcelona. When we both joined the club and had to build this new life together, it felt like suddenly something changed, you know? It was like my feelings for you successfully broke out of their prison inside my heart."

Lucy grew tired of standing around so she decided to take a seat next to Keira, even though she wasn't sure if the ginger haired wanted her to. The brunette made sure to keep her distance.

Keira followed every move with her eyes but seemed to be completely frozen. She didn't say anything and she didn't move, just staring at Lucy with those eyes that wanted to know the whole truth. And Lucy was willing to give that to her. The brunette hadn't finished talking yet so she turned around to face Keira taking a deep breath before she continued.

"This is new for me. Accepting my feelings for someone and working on them. Doing something about them. Not just ignoring them and pushing them away. This is not what I'm used to. But I'm willing to try, okay? I mean, if you want me to. You have to understand that I'm struggling with being honest about the way I feel and that this is nothing I would normally do."

"And before you even start thinking that — No, Keira, I'm not just doing this so that you'll feel better. I mean, yes, I'm so sorry about hurting you, but I'm doing this for the both of us, because I can't continue things like they are right now. You belong with me and I miss you, I need you. And I really need to stop pushing my feelings away, I know that. I'm not easy to handle, I'm sorry and honestly I think that there's still a lot I need to figure out about myself. Things could get pretty rough with me and I don't want to pull you into that mess with me. But this decision is for you to make."

Keira stared at her with wide eyes. There was no way that she'd predicted this to happen. For a moment, she doubted that this was really happening, maybe she'd already fallen asleep? But normally her dreams weren't pretty realistic, she mostly didn't even remember them after waking up. So this had to be real.

She blinked a few times, still looking at the brunette next to her who was waiting for her to say something. But Keira was struggling to form any words. "I... I don't know what to say."

Her heart was beating so fast that it seriously felt like she'd just run a marathon. She could feel her hands trembling, didn't even dare to move them. Her breathing was way too fast, and the ginger haired was just hoping that she wouldn't collapse any minute. Suddenly, her hotel room felt incredibly small and she felt the urge to run away.

At the same time, she just wanted to throw herself at Lucy and squeeze her tight. She'd always known that the brunette was struggling in processing her feelings and accepting them and Keira was incredibly proud that Lucy was willing to change something about that.

And then there was the fact that she wanted to do it with her. Because she was tired of pushing away her feelings for her. That was what she'd just said, didn't she?

"You seriously... You want to change