[ eighteen ] 

Mariluz went to leave her clothes in the locker after she had changed into her training uniform. Mesut offered to wait for her, but everyone was already outside practicing and Mariluz didn't want him getting in trouble over her again. Had she wanted them to or not, Mourinho was right when he said they were all defying his authority to defend her. And though she appreciated it, she knew it would end up getting her into more trouble with the coach who already had it out for her. She knew with the information Cristiano now had, both he and Mourinho would stop at nothing to get her off the team and make her life a living hell.

She opened her locker and stuffed her clothes in there, quickly shutting the cold metal door and heading for the exit. What she had not noticed was that Cristiano had been lurking, waiting for her to leave, so that he could play a joke on her, but it was more than just a joke. It was something cruel.

When she made it out onto the field, Mourinho eyed her with disdain. Looking down at the watch on his wrist, he said in a strict tone, "You're late, Bartra."

"I'm sorry." Was all she could say back. "It won't happen again." She promised.

"I'll make sure it won't." Mourinho assured her. "You can't just show up whenever you want. We have schedules to keep up with and if you're going to be late, you need to call in advance." All the while that he spoke, both Mesut and Ricardo watched her from a distance as they ran some drills with the rest of their team mates.

"But-"

The middle aged man raised a hand to stop her from speaking. "No excuses, Bartra. Your punishment is you'll do double--no, triple--the practice drills. And when practice is over, I'll need you to pick up all the equipment." He gestured with his index finger to all the nets, footballs, cones, and all the other equipment on the grass that were set up for the team.

Mariluz scoffed, adding words of protest. "That's unfair! You can't do that. You're only doing this out of petty revenge. How old are you, five?"

Her coach smirked. "This is my team, Bartra. I can have you do whatever I want. And you have to do it, otherwise you're out of the starting eleven no matter how much you go and cry to Florencia."

The young woman dressed as a boy bit down hard on her lip. She wanted to argue with him. She knew why he was being so mean and inconsiderate. But her place on the team meant more to her than anything, so she stayed quiet and waited for further instructions.

"You can start with laps." Mourinho continued when he saw she was silent. "The guys ran one mile, which is four laps around the training ground. Do the math."

Mariluz groaned. Twelve laps; three miles.

And on top of that would be added all the other drills the guys would do.

A few yards off, she saw someone walking down the tunnel that led to the locker room and out walked Cristiano, smiling wide as though he had just accomplished one of the best things in his life. He strolled right past Mourinho and Mariluz casually and her jaw dropped to the ground when the coach didn't stop him. The Portuguese footballer went over to the rest of the team mates and joined them in the drill they were doing.

She hated to be a snitch, but she hated being treated unfairly more than that. She asked Mourinho, "Aren't you going to tell Cristiano anything? He was even more late than I was!"

The coach shrugged his shoulders. "Cristiano's tardiness was accounted for."

"Right." She said, but didn't believe him.

But she immediately went to get started on her training, she didn't want to fall more behind. She thought it would take her several hours to complete her training for the day.

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While she was left to catch up, which was virtually impossible, she was forced to be isolated from the rest of the guys. Each time Ricardo, Mesut or any of the other players tried to talk to her, Mourinho would shoo them away. He acted like a strict parent and told him Michael Bartra was being punished for being undisciplined.

And when practice ended for the rest of them, it hadn't ended for Mariluz.

She was at the height hurdles, that are meant to improve a player's strength and speed, when the others left. Mesut wanted to stay behind and wait for her, but Mourinho instructed that Bartra was to run the drills alone. She tried to jump over the last hurdle which was only a foot in height, but her legs felt heavy and her breathing labored. Mariluz wasn't allowed to stop. Her right foot crashed against the metal bar and she fell forward onto the ground, with no strength left in her to stand back up.

From a few feet away, she could hear her coach yelling at her, "Get up, Bartra! You still need one more session of height hurdles before you move on to the next drill!"

Breathing heavily, she replied, "I can't. I'm tired. Can I just take a break for a minute?"

She needed air, her lungs burned each time she sucked in a breath. She needed water, her tongue felt as dry as sand paper. And her legs felt like heavy metal anchors that were keeping her body down on the grass.

At her request Mourinho shook his head. "No breaks until you finish training." He told her. Cutting the distance between them, he grabbed her arm and easily got her back on her feet as Mariluz was shorter and lighter than most of her other team mates. Her legs felt like jelly and when he gave her a shove forward, she fell onto her hands and knees.

By now, her shoulders shook and hot tears ran down her face in anger.

"What have I ever done to you?" She asked through gritted teeth in a barely audible voice. She kept her head down and her eyes trained on the grass below her. Her fingers dug into it until she felt the dirt at the root of it. "All I wanted was to be a football player."

Mourinho didn't reply to her question and stood there, satisfied with himself while he waited for her to finish her drills.

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Meanwhile in the locker room, the players had all gone into the showers and it was a good twenty minutes before anyone noticed the locker that belonged to Michael Bartra was trashed. Ricardo was the first one to see it. He had just finished changing into a set of clean clothes when he returned to his own locker which was right next to Michael's. 

The lock was broken, the door was open wide. Out on the floor, directly in front of it were Michael's clean clothes he was going to change into after practice, they were cut up into shreds, almost as if they had gone through a paper shredder. His cellphone was smashed into bits and pieces, things like deodorant and body spray were crushed into small clumps of aluminum or plastic. Even his shoes and socks were destroyed. On the inside of her locker door were the words written out in black ink 'michael bartra is a lying bitch'.

As more footballers arrived, they stopped in shock at the sight before them. Never before had they experienced something like that in the locker room.

Ricardo's anger bubbled to the surface and his expression hardened. "Who's responsible for this?" He asked his mates.

All of them remained quiet.

Some of them shrugged.

He didn't know what to think. Getting into scolding mode, he told them, "How can you do this to your team mate? We're supposed to be a family. Michael has been nothing but a good person to all of us." Pointing to the mess on the floor, he added, "This is bullying. Its disgusting."

Mesut turned the corner into the row of lockers just as Sergio said quietly, "No one on the team hates Bartra." Wondering what his team mate meant, his eyes searched the lockers until they fell on the pile of destroyed belongings he recognized as Mariluz'.

Through gritted teeth he said one word, "Cristiano." His hand balling into a fist.

He turned quickly and stormed off to find his team mate, who was just walking out of the showers in a clean set of clothes. A small smile formed on his lips but was wiped clean off by Mesut's fist. Cristiano staggered back and fell against a row of lockers, as the hit had taken him by surprise. Before the German footballer could hit his team mate once again, Sergio and Gonzalo held him back. 

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Cristiano asked.

All of them were surprised to see Mesut that way. The only other time they had seen him so violent was at one of the clasico games in which he had gotten into an argument with David Villa, to the point where they had gotten to physical blows and had to be separated.

"You know what you did, you fucking coward!" Mesut spat.

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After returning everything to the equipment closet, she walked into the locker room with her feet dragging on the floor like slugs. As she passed the entrance, she felt the burn of everyone's eyes on her. But she didn't know why that was until she reached her locker to grab her clothes. She planned to have a nice warm shower for her aching muscles then she would lay in bed the rest of the day.

Before her eyes was a pile of shredded cloth. When she got closer it dawned on her that it was her belongings. She pushed past her team mates to get closer and dropped to her knees in front of her locker. 

Right beside her was Ricardo and off in the distance she could hear loud arguing, but nothing else around her mattered. The only thing her eyes could see was her things on the ground, ruined. She brought her hands to her face and immediately wept. She had taken just about all she could handle that day and it seemed to be getting worse. "Why is this happening to me?" She asked no one in particular.

Ricardo knelt by her side and placed a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "Everything will be fine." He told her soothingly. "We'll get you the same things you had before, only new, and it'll all be okay again."

"Yeah." Iker told her awkwardly. "Don't worry Bartra."

But Mariluz' sobbing continued. More than a new cellphone or clothes, she felt she needed comfort and maybe even a hug. Taking the Brazilian footballer by surprise, she threw her arms around his neck and cried into his chest. Ricardo was hesitant at first, but soon wrapped his arms around his team mate's small figure. It was the least he could do when he was feeling so down, to offer Michael Bartra a shoulder to cry on. But for reasons he couldn't quite understand, he felt the racing of his heart when Michael Bartra embraced him.

When the arguing and yelling Mariluz had heard on the other side of the locker room ceased, she could now hear the hurried footsteps against the cold ground that grew louder as they got closer. Mesut turned the corner once again and he could feel his own heart break. While he had been out there fighting with Cristiano, Ricardo was by her side comforting her. 

Mesut wanted to interfere, to hold her in his arms. But as much as he loved her, he knew she was in love with his team mate. 

He was going to let her go.

-

extra long chapter cause i know i haven't updated in ages.

mesut is finally giving up on mariluzzzzzz. for some reason that makes me sad. i ship mariluz and ricardo, but i also shipped her with mesut. can she just have both? haha....nope. that's not how it works. anyway, hopefully mesut will find a nice young woman he can fall in love with and everything will be okay again.

anyway, thank you all so much for reading. i'll try to update again as soon as i can, so no worries my friends.

i love you!

-clary xx