Chapter Text
How do you quantify what the biggest mistake in your life is?
Aitana Bonmati could list hers without needing a second to think about it.
Breaking up with Ona, breaking things off, ending them, however someone saw it, the whole thing was a big, enormous mistake that ate into her soul every single damn day.
It was a mistake that Aitana has regretted ever since the words tumbled out of her mouth, rushed and harsh and completely soul crushing for all parties involved.
Ona and Aitana had met when they were ten years old. Born six months apart and thrown into the Barcelona academy together, the two were instant best friends, polar opposites who just somehow, worked. Where Aitana was excitable and outgoing, Ona was more reserved and shy. Where Aitana would yell for the ball and play with lavish flair (or as lavish of flair a ten year old could have), Ona put her head down and silently let her abilities speak for themselves.
But it was perfect, their friendship was perfect. Aitana brought Ona out of her shell, could get her acclimated to any environment, while Ona calmed Aitana down in a way that only she ever seemed to be able to do.
They grew up together at Barcelona, as both their footballing careers and friendship grew. They spent everyday together at practice, sleepovers at one another's houses on the weekends, and it was rare to find one without the other outside of their schooling.
Ona and Aitana were fifteen when they had their first kiss, curious about the nervous butterflies in their stomachs that were brought about by the chaste press of lips together. It was innocent, a silly idea that they had gotten in their minds, and they didn’t even really count it at the time. It was just practice for when they got older and got boyfriends.
Only, those other boyfriends never really materialized. And as they grew, so did their feelings for one another. Neither of them ever really acknowledged the fact that they were gay, they didn’t have to. They just…knew. Aitana could tell what Ona was thinking with a quick glance, and she’d taken enough of them to know that she’d never seen Ona so much as take a look at a man.
It was never awkward for Ona to be with Aitana, and Aitana never felt more at peace than when Ona was around. It just worked, there was no other way to explain or describe it really.
They were seventeen when they first slept together. They were older now, more sure of themselves, but it’s still full of fumbling touches and nervous glances to one another that this is actually what the other wants to be doing.
That first time slips into many times following it, as they learn one another's body, what they like and don’t, and above all else, spend more time together.
And still, same as when they were ten years old, every day was spent together. The absolute best of friends, who just happened to know one another in a more than intimate way. It wouldn’t be unheard of, especially for two Spanish girls.
It’s not long after their first time sleeping together, maybe a few months later, that Ona leaves, signing a contract in Madrid. It’s not ideal, sure, but they’re still close. Ona assures Aitana that she isn’t going anywhere, that she’s still right there.
And she is. They spend weekends going to visit each other, going out to get coffee or spending lazy mornings in bed. Cheering each other on at games when their schedule allows it. Swapping shirts at the end of games they play against one another.
Nobody dares question their relationship, and neither of them stopped to define what it really was. When people ask, they simply say that they’re close. It’s nobody else’s business about their relationship, whatever that may be.
They get called up to national team camps together, where they spend nights tangled up in bed together, snuggling under the covers and dreaming of a chance to do this every single night.
Only, it will never come.
Ona tells Aitana about her transfer to England when she comes to visit the midfielder in Barcelona one weekend in July. They’re eating breakfast at Aitana’s little flat before Ona has to go to the train station, same as they’ve done a million times, when Ona opens her mouth and says the thing that will somehow change everything.
“I’m moving to England,” Ona says before she goes to take another bite, but the midfielder simply freezes, her fork halfway to her mouth. Aitana places her silverware down on her plate, the silver hitting the plate somehow a grating sound to her suddenly oversensitive ears as she looks up at Ona.
“What?” Aitana questioned, not sure that she had heard Ona correctly. She feels almost like she’s underwater, her heartbeat quickening at the realization that Ona was moving far, far away from where Aitana is.
“I don’t want to return to Levante after everything that's happened, and Manchester United offered me a really good contract. I leave in a few months for pre-season,” Ona explained simply, not thinking much of it. They’d spent over a decade at one another's side, so sure, it was a three hour train ride turning into a three hour plane ride, but it was them.
They didn’t get rattled by stuff like that.
Except…this time Aitana did. Her stomach drops, the color draining from her face as an unidentifiable panic laces over her features.
“You’re…you’re leaving?” Aitana asks softly, and Ona finally sets her fork down, looking up at the midfielder with a confused expression.
“I mean yeah but…it’s just a little longer of a distance, Tana,” Ona replies, chuckling nervously. She and Aitana know each other like the backs of their hands, have grown up together, and she can tell that something is wrong. Aitana is looking at her with an expression Ona can’t quite read, and it scares her.
For once, Ona can’t read her friend. She can tell that she’s panicked, yes, but she can’t totally understand where the sudden panic is coming from. It’s been three years since Ona was here in Barcelona with Aitana full time, they’ve been doing…whatever they were doing…for years!
Did a little more distance really matter all that much? Ona hadn’t really thought that it would, but apparently she was being proven wrong, if the look on Aitana’s face was any indication.
“It’s…it’s a whole other country, Ona,” Aitana began, and Ona’s eyebrows flew up in shock at the snappish tone of the midfielder. The brunette rarely uses her friends actual name, always calling her by a nickname, and the amount of defensiveness in her tone is unmistakable.
“I mean yeah, a train ride will turn into a flight but it’s not…it won’t be that bad Aitana. We’ve figured it out for this long, we can do it again. It’s us,” Ona insists, unwilling to let this go quite so easily. Aitana looks over at her friend with a face full of skepticism and distance.
She looks over at her friend – at her – at Ona. She’s not quite sure what to call her, but she takes in her expression. Her amber eyes are endless chasms of worry, her forehead wrinkled adorably, her face the picture of concern.
This morning feels like it was years ago, and not hours. Aitana wishes that she were still in that bed, admiring the way that the early morning light had hit Ona just right, making her friend look golden and warm and so, so gorgeous. It was unfair to Aitana sometimes, how Ona’s beauty stole the breath in her lungs.
Someone shouldn’t be allowed to be so startlingly beautiful.
If she were thinking logically, Aitana would care about the fact that Ona is clearly worried about this situation as soon as Aitana shows a sliver of unease about the whole thing. At the fact that she’s worried about their relationship, whatever that may be.
Worried about her.
But Aitana isn’t thinking logically. Her brain is running at a million miles an hour, and all she can comprehend is the fact that Ona made this decision without her even knowing about it, and now she’s leaving. Suddenly, the ease that she felt about her relationship with the Spaniard feels suffocating.
They never talked about this, and now Ona is leaving. Leaving the country yes, but leaving her.
It’s Aitana’s worst fear coming true. Because Ona leaving the country opened up the all too real possibility of Ona leaving her, and that scared the absolute hell out of Aitana.
And what would she even be leaving exactly? What did they even mean to one another, what were they to one another, when it really came down to it?
An Aitana who thinks situations through would have taken a step back, would have talked to Ona, told her about her fear and how much she cared. About the fact that she cared so deeply for the defender that it actually terrified her.
But instead, Aitana makes an entirely different decision that is totally out of left field.
“Maybe we should…maybe we should stop this,” Aitana says suddenly, and it’s Ona’s turn to freeze, her hand clamping down on the counter as she steadies herself. The defender nearly falls off her chair at the words coming out of Aitana’s mouth.
Never in a million years would she have expected this. It’s been over a decade. A decade of going through everything, together.
“What?” Ona asks, her voice tiny, barely audible in the spacious kitchen.
“This isn’t…this won’t be productive anymore. We’ll be too consumed by trying to see one another with all the travel, we’ll lose sight of our careers, Ona! It’s for the best that we get serious about things, let this go here. A natural breaking point,” Aitana points out, as devastation turns to a calculated disinterest. Ona watches as the brunette shuts down before her very eyes, as the person she loves most in this world actively works to cut her off.
“Aitana it's a move, I mean yes it’s to another country but I’m not dying–” Ona starts, only to be cut off by her friend.
“You’re leaving!” Aitana snaps loudly, and the key word there is entirely unspoken, simply hanging between the two.
You’re leaving me.
Ona stares at Aitana in quiet disbelief. The person she knows best on this earth, the one who has become her safe space, through thick and thin, is pulling away abruptly and incomprehensibly, before her very eyes.
It feels like the floor has opened up under her, and Ona wishes more than anything that she could fall into it. Anything to take her away from here, away from this conversation that simply cannot be real.
Ona wants to be mad, wants to be hurt and angry and upset at the fact that Aitana is doing this.
But the most pathetic thing is that she’s actually not mad at Aitana. She’s upset, at both herself and at the situation. But never at Aitana.
Because seeing Aitana in this much pain is more than she ever wanted to bear, and she hates that she’s the one who caused this. She knows that the midfielder is trying to protect herself, protect her heart, but Ona can’t figure out from what. What does she think will happen? Does she really think of Ona as a distraction?
Ona loves Aitana, more than the midfielder could even begin to comprehend. She doesn’t just love her, she is in love with her. And if this is what the midfielder says that she needs, this distance? Then Ona will do it in a heartbeat, even if she breaks her own heart in the process.
She loves Aitana enough to let her go, if that is what it will take. Because Ona would take a thousand lifetimes of getting to see Aitana happy from afar over a single one where the Catalonian is sad or upset.
“Okay. I’ll leave then,” Ona concedes gently, her voice filled with defeat. Aitana looks up in confusion at the sudden deflation of the defender, at the way her fight seems to have left her in a single breath as she stands, looking up at Aitana at the same moment.
For a moment it's just the two of them again, watching each other. Hazel eyes meet a deep chocolate brown, both filled with an unfathomable sadness over a hasty and poorly made decision. Both unwilling to say what needs to be said in order to salvage this.
“I’ll go,” Ona says finally, her eyes burning with unshed tears. She moves back to the bedroom, grabbing her packed bag and slinging it over her shoulder. Aitana is frozen in the kitchen, watching this whole thing occur as though she’s watching from outside, and not sitting right there in her kitchen. When she breaks out of her trance, Ona is standing at the door, looking back at her with regret all the way down to the slope of her shoulders.
“Goodbye Tana,” Ona murmurs, but the nickname feels sour on her tongue as she slips out of the door, closing it behind her with a resounding click.
It would be the last time Aitana would see her best friend for another year.
—
Right after Ona moves to Manchester, COVID hits. By the time that their next national team camp is able to be held, the two women's relationship has changed in it’s entirety.
For as long as Aitana could remember, the two of them had been close. She genuinely struggled to remember a time when Ona wasn’t by her side. Every memory she has for the past decade has a splash of Ona in it.
Aitana used to spend her time in reflection filled with a sense of happiness, but she no longer has that luxury. Every opportunity to reflect is a simple reminder of one single decision that changed everything.
It’s as though the colors are drained around her, that the sun no longer shone as brightly as it once had. A life once filled with the utmost joy becomes one characterized by forced expectations and the loss of a relationship that made Aitana feel complete.
The midfielder isn’t entirely sure how to even categorize what their relationship had been, when she actually takes the time to look back on it. They’d always been together, just the two of them.
For ten years, it had only been Ona.
It had always been Ona.
An unsure and nervous first kiss had turned into a fumbling first time sleeping together, which spilled into a relationship that was charged with so much emotional and physical intimacy.
It was something out of dreams. Unable to be matched or replicated in the years that had followed, Aitana had spent her days wondering if anyone would ever be able to know her the way Ona once had.
The way Ona still did.
Aitana knew that people were capable of change, but she also believed that deep down, that someone's soul stayed with them. The true essence of a person never really left them, no matter how much they changed to accommodate the environment they were in.
And she was sure that Ona knew her soul. She was sure, because she knew Ona’s.
It had been three years since Ona had walked out of her door–
Correction, it had been three years since Aitana had let Ona walk out of her door, and not a day goes by that Aitana hasn’t regretted her decision.
She had been scared, suddenly terrified and overwhelmed at the thought of Ona leaving her, that she had shut down, shoving her away. Ona had been right, it was only a flight. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, the distance should not have been that big of a problem.
But for some reason, at the time, it was to Aitana. They had spent the last few years of their friendship in a comfortable situation, going back and forth to one another, as close as they had ever been even despite the distance.
They never bothered to put any official labels on whatever their relationship was because they never needed to.
Aitana had been Ona’s, completely and wholly.
Ona had been hers.
And she let herself give it all up.
By the time Aitana works up the courage to actually admit her mistake out loud to someone, anyone, Ona has moved on. Aitana is forced to watch as the only person she’d ever wanted on this earth became someone else’s.
When she finally tells Alexia, tears streaming down her cheeks, the only thing her fellow midfielder can do is wrap her arms around the younger woman as sobs wracked her chest. And while Ona ends up breaking up with the girlfriend that she had for only a few short months, Aitana realizes that she’s lost her chance.
The image of Ona and that girl haunts the back of her mind, burned into the corner of her brain like a thick, unyielding tar.
In the years that follow, Aitana does two things consistently.
She focuses on her career, working her ass off to become one of the best midfielders in the world.
And she pines voraciously for her.
For ten years, loving Ona had been as easy as breathing. Even if she never really acknowledged it, it had been. To others it might have been weird, the fact that they were as close as they were without any sort of labels or serious conversation about the future.
But they hadn’t needed to, until Aitana had broken it all. Ona was it for her. She always had been, and always would be.
Even now, Aitana isn’t sure that she can love another person in the way that she loved Ona. Wholly, unabashedly, without concern or care.
After that fateful day, Ona and Aitana still see one another. They see each other at national team camps, but they keep to themselves, creating separate friend groups that don’t really interact. Ona doesn’t approach Aitana, and Aitana doesn’t approach Ona. She wants to let the defender live her life, the life that she deserves. A life without someone who makes poor choices instead of being vulnerable and honest.
They still interact, joking lightly at the breakfast table when they end up sitting near one another, but those interactions are truly few and far between.
They always leave Aitana wishing she could crawl out of her skin and scrub it raw, because maybe that would hurt less than having Ona smile at one of her jokes and watching as it doesn’t reach her eyes.
She misses the ease of their relationship, the feeling of the defender’s body against her own, of the way that she smiles with her whole entire face when she’s happy.
She misses the way that Ona laughs at her jokes, the sly snicker under her breath. The way she dips her head to try to hide it, but Aitana would always reach forward and tip her chin up, which only made her laugh harder.
At its very core, the whole reason that Aitana reacted the way she did that day was because she was always afraid Ona would leave. She was forever afraid that she wasn’t enough for the assured, charismatic, worldly defender.
She was too scatterbrained.
Too excitable and unorganized.
She was just…too much. It was all she had ever been told, that she was too much for someone to want.
If only the midfielder could let herself step back and see that Ona had only ever wanted her for one thing.
Exactly who she was.
Aitana was terrified of Ona leaving her, so when the opportunity for her to do exactly that arose, the midfielder panicked and pulled the trigger. She was never honest with Ona about her fear in all the years she spent with her, never told her outright that she was scared to lose her, because who was she to tell! Ona wasn’t technically hers, and how could you fear to lose something that was never really yours?
Forced to reckon with the fact that she’s lost the one person she hoped to never lose, Aitana throws herself into work with an unmatched passion and aggression. If she can’t love Ona, if she pushed her away and claimed that it was because of her career, then she better make damn sure that her career was worth it.
Because as much as Aitana loved football, she loved Ona just as much. She hated it, because she wasn’t supposed to love anything as much as football, but there was so much of Ona in even football that had ended up in Aitana’s playing style.
She might be an attacking midfielder, but every once in a while a commentator or journalist will note her rather impressive defensive ability.
And every damn time, it feels like someone has punched her straight in the stomach. Because that was all Ona, all the countless hours in the park that they spent working together, making each other better in every way.
But she had made a choice, and so she does everything in her power to convey that it was the right one. That choosing Ona over her career was a conscious decision that she came to, and that she was correct in choosing that. She’s not really sure who she’s trying to convey it to, whether that be herself, Ona, or someone else, but it’s all she can do.
Alexia watches the whole thing unfold with a heavy heart. She knows Aitana well and she knows Ona well, and it hurts her to see both of them continue to isolate themselves from each other by not talking to one another. All of this could be solved by a simple conversation, but neither wants to burden the other.
Alexia is forced to watch as Aitana pulls back from those around her, her exuberance for the game and life seemingly drained as time wore on. She performed well, but it lacked the flair and flash that she had come to be known for. She’s still happy, sure, but her spirit lacks the sparkle it once had, and for those who know her well, it’s obvious. Alexia just wants to see her happy, and she was clearly much happier when Ona was still there.
When Aitana had finally broken down and explained to Alexia what happened three years ago, everything fell into place in the Spaniards mind. Everyone had watched the sudden fracture of their relationship with alarm, but finally Alexia understood why.
And it hurt her to hear Aitana whisper to her that she had made a mistake she didn’t think she could take back. But there was nothing Alexia could do, because first it was Ona with a girlfriend, and then Aitana, and neither of the women were willing to stop to see the clear and obvious answer to all this pain.
When Barcelona comes knocking on Ona’s door again, they do so quietly. Alexia knows what they’re doing, though, and she knows that this might be her chance. So she does something she doesn’t often do – she meddles in the relationship of others.
She only hopes that it will be worth it in the end, and that she won’t make a mess of an already precariously fragile situation.
—
It was a dark night, with uncharacteristic, heavy rain coating Barcelona’s usually sunny and warm surroundings. Aitana is tucked at home, showered after her workout that day and sitting on her couch, scrolling on her phone as the TV lulls in the background.
She’s busy deleting any unwanted photos of Laia from her phone. The two Barcelona players had broken up mere months ago, an amicable and surprisingly easy split, at least for Aitana.
Her heart hadn’t been in it, it never really had been. She ended things with Laia, a flimsy excuse on her tongue, but she knew that her teammate was privy to the real reason. Maybe Aitana needed to move on, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to.
There was a knock on her door, and she looked up, curious as to who would be out at this hour. It was nearly nine in the evening, and with the storm everyone was tucked in their own homes, shielding from the rain.
The brunette rises with a wary expression on her face, silently walking over to the door and looking through the peephole, expecting maybe an overzealous fan or a neighbor who needed some salt.
But what she saw stopped her heart in its place, as everything in her froze.
She’d never opened her door so quickly, but there she was, standing on her porch. Aitana’s heart leaped into her throat, completely overwhelmed and unprepared to see her here, like this.
“Ona?”