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Adriana’s phone keeps buzzing. Text after text, then another call. She lets it go through to voicemail like she did with all the others. She reaches a hand out from under her duvet to turn it onto silent, then buries deeper underneath.

She’s hiding in her family home on the outskirts of Manchester.

She’s in her childhood bedroom, which is covered in football posters and memorabilia from games, alongside fashion magazine rip-outs and gig posters, polaroid photos of parties and friends and postcards from all around the world.

The sheets she’s buried in, soft from decades of use, are decorated with cartoon footballs, and overflowing with stuffed toys, one of whom – Teddy the teddy, who her dad gave her when she was one hour old – she is clutching now.

She starts feeling breathless under the blanket, reminding her of yesterday on the pitch. The way her chest had pounded and tightened so she couldn’t get the air in. She’d thought she was dying. She’d really thought she was dying.

But now, she feels fine, and embarrassed that she’s just made a big fuss about nothing. She feels like she lost the Tigresses the match against the Swans. In her first match with the responsibility of Captain, she didn’t lead the team with pride to victory, but crashed them like the Titanic .

All Adriana’s ever wanted was to be loved, to be adored by her friends and her family and her team, and maybe, in a secret part she didn’t even want to admit, by a nice guy like she’s found in Jacob.

Now she’s let everyone down, everyone must think she’s so selfish – either making some big drama to be the centre of attention faking this ridiculous ‘panic attack’, or someone who’s callously schemed their way to taking the armband.

She keeps seeing betrayed hurt in Maeve’s eyes when it was announced she was going to be captain for the game.

Maeve’s loyalty is one of her most wonderful features, but it can turn into a grudge when she feels that trust is lost – you only had to look at how she was with her ‘rival’ Kira.

She thinks of Maeve confessing to her about the pressure from her mum to always be the best, how Maeve had never trusted anyone else with that.

And now, she’ll be seeing Adriana as just another selfish bully, someone who’s taken the thing she was proudest of.

Adriana throws the blanket off her and gasps for air. She tries to steady her breath counting the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling.

‘Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four…’

She sighs and remembers doing the same thing when she was a teenager, not realising she was soothing herself with this counting, just intuitively needing a distraction from the heaviness in her heart.

She feels the ghosts of herself, lying here when she went through her first heartbreaks and disappointments.

The times she messed up in games, and it felt like the world had ended and she would never recover.

But her friends had always reassured her, had been in on it with her.

She had always had Maeve by her side. But since lying to Maeve about her relationship with Jacob, she truly feels she will never be able to regain her precious friend’s trust. And Maeve’s right to hate her.

She’s a selfish liar, and a hypocrite, for continuing to see Jacob…

She really thought they could make something work, but now…

It goes against her conscience in every way, especially because she’s not sure if she got made captain because she deserved it or if it was something he had a hand in.

She needs to call it off, but the pain at not being able to see him just feels too awful.

Did it always feel this bad when she was heartbroken? Was it always like her whole body was being crushed by a metal compressor?

When she was lying here as a tween, staring at the stars, her eyes puffy with crying over those boys who seemed not to care at all.

James Ochoa in Year 7. Harry Adkins in Year 9.

Kyle McDowell in Year 10. Yes, there had been a few she had thought were the end of the world at the time.

But none had been as terrible as her heartbreak when she was sixteen, from Dylan Barr.

Dylan, captain of the basketball team at the local school, and friends with her older brother Felix.

Dylan had never even been her ‘official’ boyfriend, at his insistence, but he had been her first real love.

He had loved how fun she was. Or at least, that’s what he had said.

He had said she was so different from the other girls, who were all so obsessed with being girlfriends, like they expected a man to want to marry them just because they had kissed.

She had pretended to agree. She had been so proud that she could be casual, wearing it like a badge of honour that she could be fun, she could do anything she wanted, and not mind that he was doing it with other girls too.

She could lose her virginity to him and not mind that he slept with someone else at a party the very next day.

As soon as he slept with her, he lost interest. She could see that now.

He was all about the thrill of the chase, about winning someone, and then having the power to say no to ever seeing them again.

Well, she had learnt to beat Dylan at his own game.

She was the only person he’d come crawling back to, and she had, with a broad smile, shrugged and said she only really did casual things, only slept with people once, it was easier that way. It was how that rule had formed.

She had really believed that was what she wanted. Until she met Jacob.

She should never have broken her no repeats rule. It had kept her safe. It had allowed her to just have fun, to be the good-time girl everyone liked, without ever having the risk of feeling this way or having to trust another person with her heart.

Adriana sits up suddenly in bed, and reaches for her phone, having made her decision.

She tries to ignore the screen full of notifications, concerned messages from her teammates, including missed calls from Kira and Maeve.

Neither of them left her a message though, so she doesn’t know what they’re calling to say and can’t help but feel anxious about what it might be.

Perhaps they want to tell her that they never want to be friends with her unless she resigns the captain position that’s rightfully theirs.

Jacob called and texted her yesterday to try to meet with her, then must have taken her silence as meaning she was with people he was a secret from.

Still, he has messaged her regularly today checking in.

There’s a new message since the last time, which feels self-destructive to read in her current mindset, but she can’t help herself.

Addy, I’m so sorry that this is happening to you. I wish I had done more. I understand if you want time apart from me while you’re recovering, but please know that if there’s anything more I can do for you, please, please let me know. Anything x

Do more for her? What has he already done? Is this proof that he really had got her this captaincy without her asking for it?

She does not want or need a man pulling strings for her, especially when it pits her against her friends. She never wanted to be in a competition with anyone but on the playing field taking down the opposition alongside her teammates.

She scrolls back through the messages he sent while she was at training, in between their nights together. Pictures of his coconut mocha coffees. Asking her advice on crossword clues he thinks she might know the answers to. Or just the line, I’m thinking of you. I miss you.

Adriana finds it far too comforting, too wonderful, she knows she’ll be tempted right back to him. But she can’t be with him. Keeping him a secret has caused her so much stress that she’s taken ill during a match. It’s inarguable.

I can’t do this anymore, types Adriana. It’s too hard. Please stop messaging me.

She sends it and stares at her screen. Then she starts crying into her pillow and doesn’t stop. She wails silently for what could be minutes or hours, her stomach feeling like someone keeps punching and punching her.

Adriana is only jilted out of her crying when she hears someone coming up the stairs. She recognises the sound of all her family’s steps, and knows this is her mum.

Her mum waits outside the door, and Adriana holds her tear-filled breath.

Then there’s a tentative knock.

‘Addy?’ she calls. ‘I’ve got some tea and crumpets for you, love. Can I come in?’

Adriana crumples lower into the bed, like when she was a kid.

‘I’m not hungry, mum,’ she calls out. ‘Please leave me alone.’

‘You haven’t come out for hours ,’ her mum says through the door, worried. ‘Do you not even need a wee or anything?’

Adriana groans. She has of course snuck out to use the loo when she could hear her family were all in the kitchen.

‘I’m fine!’

‘Now, what did I tell you about using the f word?’

Adriana buries her face into tear-stained Teddy.

‘It’s okay to not be fine, darling,’ her mum says again. ‘Please just talk to us.’

Adriana is so tired. ‘I don’t have anything to say,’ she mumbles.

‘What was that?’ her mum shouts. ‘Please can I come in?’

‘No!’ Adriana calls out loudly, her voice cracking. ‘Just leave me alone, please mum. I appreciate you being here but I just–’ her throat chokes up again. ‘I don’t want to talk.’

There’s more sets of steps up the stairs. God, the whole brigade is coming, and here’s Adriana, trying to muffle her tears from them all.

‘How is she?’ her dad asks, ‘whispering’ so loudly next door can probably hear too.

‘She doesn’t want to talk,’ says her mum.

‘Addy? Our daughter? Queen of the yap? Doesn’t want to talk?’ her dad scoffs. ‘Things must be bad.’

‘Felix, pet, you try. Talk to her about all your funny Ticking Tocks.’

‘It’s called TikTok, mum. Look, if she doesn’t want to talk to you she won’t want to talk to me either,’ he reasons. ‘Let’s just give her the space she’s asked for and hope that if she wants any of us she knows we’re all here.’

He says this last bit with his voice raised.

‘And we have a lot of snacks,’ he adds, even louder. ‘Including some cakes from Emily. That I’m going to eat without her if she isn’t here to claim them.’

Adriana’s lucky, she knows, to have a family who want to look after her like this.

But right now, it just feels like another set of people she’s letting down because she’s kept things from them.

She hadn’t even really understood what was happening to her, didn’t have the words for the dizziness and cramps, the restlessness and pervading sense of insecurity.

She’d thought it was normal, especially in this time of change and stress, so she didn’t want to bother anyone.

And it’s the same now. She feels silly for not recognising the signs of anxiety.

She feels like she has been doing nothing but sneaking around, letting people down, pretending to be this kind, fun person, when really she’s been crippled with fear and she never wants to feel like this again.

Through tears, she drafts an email.

‘Coach Hoffman,

I would like to apologise again for my behaviour yesterday. I let the team down and I will never forgive myself. I do not mean to be disrespectful to your authority, but clearly I can’t handle the additional pressure so I am not the right choice for Captain. Respectfully, I decline the position.

I know that you’re thinking of freshening up the squad, so I’d understand if after yesterday I don’t figure as part of your future plans. Being part of the Tigresses has been a huge part of my life, and I just want to do what’s best for the team, even if that’s moving on from the club.

It’s been a pleasure,

Adriana Summers’

She sends it and turns her phone off.

For the rest of the day, Adriana pretends she can’t hear her family inviting her to join them, and they pretend they can’t hear her cry.