"Emilia, wake up."

I felt someone shaking my shoulders, but my eyes were too heavy to open them.

"Let me sleep" I mumbled sleepily and tried pulling the blanket over my head.

Within a second, the blanket was pulled off me again, so I had to open my eyes to see who was responsible for this crucial action.

"It's 7:30 already, we need to leave in 15 minutes" Keira informed me, trying to pull me up.

"Why didn't you wake me up before?" I complained, still not ready to leave the bed.

"Oh, trust me, we tried that" I heard Lucy's voice from behind me. "But you were cussing at us in your sleep, so for our sake we thought we'd just let you rest a little longer."

A sigh escaped my mouth. I knew they just wanted the best for me, but now I wouldn't be able to get breakfast. Hastily, I got ready shortly after I was sitting in Mapi's car. Last night had left me all confused once again, but luckily I was meeting Antonia later which would hopefully take my mind off this whole Mapi situation.

Meanwhile, Mapi was acting as if last night never happened, casually talking about her upcoming game during international break which apparently, she wasn't too happy about.

"Who are you playing against?" I wondered, staring out of the window.

"I literally just told you" Mapi sighed. "We're playing against Switzerland, that's why I have to face my ex."

Her ex.

So that's what was bothering her.

While I was thinking about her, she had been thinking about her ex. Could this get any better?

"Who is she again?"

"Ana-Maria Crnogorčević."

"She played for Barca, right?" I asked, remembering what Alexia had told me.

Mapi nodded. "Yes. She plays for Real Madrid now."

My jaw dropped. "First Barca, then Madrid? Who does that?"

A small chuckle escaped Mapi's mouth. "I did it the other way, however with Atlético, so that's not as bad as Real."

As we pulled into the parking lot of Joan Gamper training facility, I couldn't help but let out another yawn.

"I'm still so tired" I complained, closing my eyes for a second. After Mapi had helped me to calm down last night, I probably only got three or four hours of sleep which definitely wasn't enough.

"The weather will be crazy today, 39 degrees they said. It will wake you up, don't worry."

39 degrees Celsius in September? Oh dear, what had I gotten myself into.

Before our first training session, we headed into the fitness room to do some warming up exercises and work out for a bit. So far, I definitely still was half asleep.

At 9:00, we headed to the pitch to do more fitness exercises under Jonatan's watch. I could already feel the sun burning on my head as I was doing an exercise with Jill.

"It's already way too hot" I complained, already sweating.

Jill nodded, removing a sweaty strand of hair from her face. "It rarely get's that hot in the Netherlands and it's only the morning. Apparently, today will be the hottest day of the year."

"Some day, this will kill me" I sighed exhaustedly.

Luckily, Jonatan soon called for a short hydration break, so we made our way over to the water bottles. However, I couldn't find one with my name on it, so one of the assistant coaches promised to send someone to get one until the next hydration break, but that never happened.

Two hours later, when we entered the canteen for an early lunch break, I was really looking forward to having something to drink and eat. Training really exhausted me and we would still have another two hour session at 1:30. It seemed like Jonatan wanted to make up for next week where most of us would miss practice due to the international week.

Just as I had taken a seat at the table, my phone started to ring.

I threw a quick glance on it and frowned when I saw the name on the small screen.

Klara <3 is calling.

In retrospect, I shouldn't have picked up, but my curiosity got the best of me, so I quickly left the canteen.

"Ja?" ("Yes.") I answered coldly.

"Hallo Em" ("Hello Em") Klara's voice sounded through the speaker of my phone. "Wie geht es dir?" ("How are you?")

Was she seriously calling to ask how I was? After what she did?

"Was denkst du, wie es mir geht?" ("How do you think I'm doing?") I scolded.

I heard Klara chuckling nervously on the other end of the line. "Weiss ich nicht, du hast dich ja nie gemeldet." ("I don't know, you never texted me.")

"Wirklich, Klara? Ich habe mich nie gemeldet? Du hast mir nie geschrieben und deine Zeit lieber mit Sydney verbracht!" ("Seriously, Klara? I never reached out? You never texted me and instead spent your time with Sydney!")

Klara let out a loud sigh. "Ich dachte schon, dass du wütend bist wegen Sydney. Aber du verstehst das nicht!" ("I thought you'd be mad because of Sydney. But you don't understand!")

"Was verstehen ich nicht, Klara? Sag es mir! Alles was ich weiss, ist was sie mir angetan hat und das reicht!" ("What do I not know, Klara? Tell me! All that I know, is what she did to me and that's enough!" I screamed in my phone. Luckily, there was no one around me as I had just reached the bathroom and locked myself into one of the stalls. "Ja, aber du weisst nicht warum" ("Yes, but you don't know the reason.") Klara desperately tried to defend her new best friend the way she had once stood by my side.

"Kein Grund wird das je rechtfertigen" ("No reason will ever justify what she did.") I yelled, hanging up my phone in the process as I couldn't listen to this anymore. My eyes immediately started watering as I sat down on the toilet lit, pulling my knees up to my body.

It was obvious from the conversation I just had with Klara that she had chosen Sydney over me, but a little part in me was still clinging on to what we once had. I always believed in the good in people, hoping that they would change and everything would eventually go back to normal. That had been one of the reasons why I endured Sydney's torture at Bayern for so long. Honestly, it was still all I wished for. I loved playing at Barca, but Bayern Munich had been my home for so long and even after all that happened, I missed it dearly.

I didn't know how long I had been sitting in the bathroom, crying my eyes out, but when I threw a quick glance at my phone, I saw that it was already 1:27 pm and I had to hurry to get practice in time, once again not getting a chance to eat or drink something at lunch.

As I stepped outside of the air-conditioned inside, I was hit by the heat of the afternoon as the thermometer had already climbed up to 37 degrees Celsius.

I was greeted by a concerned looking Alexia who had probably noticed my swollen, red eyes.

"What happened?" She wondered. "We missed you at lunch!"

Jonatan saved me from having to answer and ordered us to do a quick warm up stretch and run which already left me drained in sweat.

After a quick break, in which I noticed my water bottle was still missing, we were told to do a little parkour with a ball, the aim being to score a goal in the end. As I ran around, already completely exhausted, I noticed my head started hurting, which caused me to miss the goal twice.

Angrily, I increased my speed the next time, hoping it would throw Paños off, but I missed the goal completely.

"Fuck this shit" I mumbled to myself as I walked back to the start of the parkour. Suddenly, I stumbled over my own feet as I felt dizzy for just a second.

"Be careful, princesa" Mapi laughed as she passed me, but I felt too tired to reply.

For our next exercise, we were divided into 4 groups, having to play against each other.

Even though we were running a lot, I noticed I wasn't sweating anymore as I had probably grown accustomed to the heat by now.

As I trying to get past Patri, she slightly tackled me, causing me to fall on the floor.

"I didn't mean for that to happen" Patri quickly apologized, reaching for my hand to pull me up, but I felt too exhausted to grab it, instead holding my face in my hands. The tackle caused me to feel dizzy again, my headache growing stronger by the second.

Worried, Patri kneeled next to me. "Are you okay?"

I nodded firmly which just hurt my head even more. "Ouch, my head" I whined.

Suddenly, our medical staff appeared next to me, trying to help me up. As I had finally found the strength to get up, they passed me a water bottle.

"Here, you should drink something."

Thankfully, I grabbed the bottle, the cold water flowing down my throat for the first time today. For a second, I felt better, but when the water reached my stomach, I began feeling nauseous and felt it all coming back up. As I helplessly threw up, I sank back to the ground.

A few hours later, I woke up in the hospital and was told that I had suffered a heat stroke. The stress with Klara, not sleeping and drinking enough in combination with the extremely hot weather had caused it.

I was told I had to rest for a few days after leaving the hospital the following day, meaning I'd miss international break.

Honestly, I wasn't sad about that. However, all of my teammates had obviously still left, so I was all alone in Barcelona, not even allowed to attend practice with the ones that stayed. Although Caro, who had dropped out of the Norwegian team two years ago, and Antonia came over a few times, I couldn't help but feel bored and was already looking forward to attend practice again.