- Paige's POV -

It's now December 20th, which means it's only been a little over a week since you've been here. Some more shit happened at school but I don't care anymore because I'm going to start online school after the break. I'm already learning at a college level so I'm gonna have all this done pretty quickly.

I'm currently sitting in my room since I'm not really feeling like doing anything. I've done all my Christmas shopping so I can't do that. I don't really feel like practicing right now or anything else.

Ring

It's Mally with a FaceTime request.

"Hey beautiful, how was the flight?" I ask. She's going to visit family in a different state besides Colorado where she lives with her parents. "It was good." She says. "That's good. So where are you right now?" "Does this tell you?" She asks and the camera flips, showing my bedroom door. I hang up before pulling out my earbuds and making my way to my door. I open it and there my girlfriend stands. I jump into her arms and she catches me.

"What are you doing here?" I ask but it's muffled a little because of my head being in her neck. "I came to spend the holidays with you. Our first Christmas as a couple." She says and kisses my neck before I hop down, then we share a small kiss before pulling her in my room and shutting the door. "But what about your family?" I ask. "We did Christmas early. And plus they're all going on a trip together." She says. "You could've went on the trip." I say. "I'd rather be right here with you." She says with a smile. Then there is a knock on the door and it slowly opens.

"Door open when Mal is here." Mama says when she comes in. "Also Danielle was wondering if you could text or call her." "Okay thanks Mama." I say. She smiles at the both of us before leaving. "I guess I'm gonna call Danielle." I say and Mal just laughs. I grab my phone before hitting Danielle's contact.

"Hey Paige." She answers. "Hey, so what's up?" I ask. "I was wondering if you wanted to go to the house?" I look at Mal confused and she shrugs. "Like your house or..." I say. "Mom and Dad left us the house but we were never told. Everything's just been sitting there since the last time we were there all those years ago." She says. "WHAT?!" I yell. "Exactly." "This just proves my theory more." I say. "Paige that's just a theory. But do you wanna go?" "Sure. I'll meet you there." I say. "Okay you remember the address?" "Yeah." I say. "Alright see you then." She says. "Yep." I say then end the call. "Wanna come?" I ask as I grab my keys and slip on my Vans. It's 73 degrees right now so I'mma go without a jacket. "Sure. She says. "Oh jump on my back." She says so I do and laugh. "What are you up to, Pugh? Also pleaaaase don't drop me." I say. "I'm carrying you. And I wasn't planning on dropping ya." She says. "We're going out with Danielle." I tell Moms. "Okay be careful." "Always am." I say.

Once in my Jeep, we head to the Starbucks not far from here and get some iced coffees before driving to the house I partially grew up in. We pulled up at the same time as Danielle and someone else was with her. We get out of the car and I see Sonny with my sister.

"Sleeping with my sister, Dasani?" I ask. "I- Uh... I mean, no. Why would you think that?" She says. Mal laughs beside me and my sister and Emily are both blushing. "Honestly, I can see it. But Emily Sonnett, you hurt her, I hurt you." I say. "O- Okay." She stutters and Mal is dying. "Ha you're scared of someone smaller than you." Mal laughs at Emily, and I smack her arm. "Mallory." I say and she immediately stops laughing and audibly gulps. "Sorry." She says. "Whipped." Emily says. "Shut it Sonnett." "Okay Colorado." And Emily gets smacked on the arm by my sister. "Sorry." Emily apologizes. "Whipped." I say. "I can fail you on your next test." Danielle says and I snort from laughing. "Ha I knew you weren't listening to me on the phone yesterday. Joke's on you because I'm homeschooling now." I say. "Liar." She laughs. "Pull me up in the school system. I know you can off your phone." I say and she does so. "You're not popping up." She says. "Exactly. Good luck with failing me." I say. "Fine you win." She says. "Win what? I didn't know we were competing." I laugh. "Whatever. Let's go in." She says. And we begin walking towards the house, hand in hand with our partners, except I'm kind of clinging to Mal but she doesn't mind because she knows how I am with my past. "Wait we don't have a key." I say. Danielle reaches up into the little light box thing and pulls a key down and shows it to me. "Remember who always locked themselves out?" Danielle says. "Oh yeah you always did." I say and we laugh. She unlocks and opens the front door, and the house looks the same. Just dusty.

"Wow." I say, looking around. "Oh my god, look at you." Danielle says and shows me a picture of us and our parents outside playing soccer.

"I was like four." I say as I feel tears in my eyes. "That was our first soccer game we played as a whole family." El says. "And you had just gotten home from losing a game." "Yeah." She says. We then look at the other pictures. I then think about my old room and don't even say anything before slowly making my way up the stairs with Mal behind me and into my room. I slowly open the door and walk in.

All the soccer player posters on the wall. Drawings I made. The few Disney posters I had.

Abby Wambach

Lauren Cheney

Hope Solo

Kelley O'Hara

Heather O'Reilly

Mama

Carli Lloyd

And someone I don't look to anymore, Megan Rapinoe.

I start to get a little upset so I take this poster down, ripping it in the process of taking it down. I just crumple it up and throw it in the corner.

"Baby..." Mal says softly. "Please don't." I say. "Okay." She says. "Anyways, this was my room for a little over six years." I say. "Very much like you, Paigey." Mal says and I laugh. "Yep. Soccer is basically my life. It has been since I was very little." I say. "Cute." She says. "Oh look this one." She says and picks a picture up off of the cubby. "Oh my god, I forgot about that picture." I say. It's a picture of me and Danielle with the National Team when we younger. "Mom and Dad took us to a game and we got a picture with the whole team, which reminds me." I say before walking out of the room and down the hall to mom and dad's room.

I look around the room for anything and I remember the safe is in the floor under the bed. "Help me slide this." I say and motion Mal to the bed. She helps me push it aside, and she's giving me a look of confusion. I lift up the trap door like thing that is covered with floor tiles and there is the safe. The code is my birthday.

11 15 2002

I hear it click so I open it. "Pai should you really be going through your parent's safe?" "They told us that if anything was to happen, we can get in the safe." I say. "Okay." She says.

There's documents in file folders.

You did my family dirty

So you're family's gonna pay

I find tons of other papers with shit like this. I then pick up a paper that's a letter from Mom and Dad.

Dear Danielle and Paige,

If you're readin-

I suddenly can't move and my vision is blocked by an image and I hear voices.

"Sadie, Tyler isn't playing around. He's seriously going to get revenge even though we didn't mean to mess up." Dad says. "I know, Mark. But what are we supposed to do? We don't know when or where he's gonna do it. Or how." Mom says. "Tyler will do it at the best time possible. We have to be careful." He says. "I know Mark, but we also promised our daughter that we'd be at her soccer game so let's go." Mom says and Dad sighs. The vision or whatever ended and I was still just frozen there but my sister was right in front of me.

"Paige?!" She asks. "Huh, what?" I ask looking around. "Are you okay?" Emily asks. "Yeah, yeah. I just had like this vision thing." "Vision?" They all say at the same time. "Well it was like a flashback, but not of me..." I say, trailing off. "What do you mean baba?" El asks. "The car crash wasn't an accident. Our parents were killed." "Yeah they were killed. But by a drink driver." El says. "THAT WAS A LIE." I state and raise my voice as I read the letter as well. The letter basically was telling Danielle and I that this wasn't an accident and they were ashamed of who they were as people. "Don't yell at me." Danielle says. "Our parents were murdered by some Tyler dude. That was his name. Our parents were dirty business people, Danielle. I told you they knew it was gonna happen. But they caused us to almost die too. We lived. We got separated. They caused us to fucking hate ourselves." I say and break down. I can tell that Danielle is breaking down slowly as well. "Why don't we all just go?" Emily suggests. "Yeah." Both Danielle and I say.

Mal carries me out to the car then locks the house up before she drives us back to my house and Emily drives Danielle back to hers.

I knew something wasn't right. But I don't care anymore. I'm just gonna forget about this because I don't care. I'm letting go of my past.