My Four Superstar Ex-Boyfriends

Chapter 22: Solutions

[For me, you are first and foremost a woman. You shouldn't be standing amongst the male players, giving us this order, issuing that order, telling us to do this and that! I said something like that in the locker room, and I can say it again in front of you!] After Piszczek said this very loudly, Emily simply couldn't control her red eyes. Apparently Piszczek noticed this as well, as he froze and looked at Emily for a few moments before reacting, then stood up and fled Emily's head coach's office.

The moment the door was opened, Emily finally managed to turn away from Mr. Translator's dismayed gaze as well, and stood up straight and quietly wiped her eyes.

"Ms. Emily?" The translator called out Emily's name with some concern.

So Emily, who had her back to him, raised her hand and voiced, "I'm fine. I think I should be all right on my side. Could I trouble you to ask Heinz to come in after five, no, after ten minutes when you leave?"

The other hastily answered in the affirmative, and then this went out of the office, whispering a few words to Heinz, who stood waiting at the door. Hearing those voices that came faintly, Emily let out a deep breath, and then this then walked quickly to go into the restroom in the office, she turned on the faucet, and then she used her hand to catch the cold water to wash her eyes that obviously just cried at a glance. After controlling her emotions, she didn't cry anymore.

She knew that the boy who had followed her to Meteo was anxiously waiting for her outside the door. So she must pull herself together quickly, but she mustn't let the other person see her so weak.

She tried to look as normal as possible as fast as she could, but no matter how much she slapped the cold water on her eyes, they still looked slightly red, and her cheeks were also a little flushed from the cold water she kept slapping them with. Seeing that there were only three minutes left of the promised ten minutes, Emily hurried out of the restroom and used a paper towel to dry her face and accidentally wet hair vigorously.

And eight minutes past the promised ten minutes, Heinz was already outside the door knocking on her door again and asking, "Ms. Emily, may I come in?"

Hearing this sound, Emily then remembered that there was still a pile of papers on the floor that she had thrown in a mess that she hadn't cleaned up yet! She immediately squatted down to clean it up, forgetting to reply to the other party. But apparently, Heinz, who had been waiting outside for a long time and was also very worried about her, opened the door of Emily's office in a hurry after he didn't hear her reply.

"Ms. Emily, I ......"

Having only uttered these words, this Czech boy whose height was already straight at five-foot-eight, this hurriedly closed the door of Emily's office and quickly walked over to help Emily together to clean up those papers and documents on the floor. With Heinz's help, Emily picked up everything in no time. Only, if she were to sort them all into categories, she would need some more time, and obviously now was not the right time to go through all that.

So Emily just smiled at Heinz and said, "Sorry for the joke."

Heinz shook his head, then asked hesitantly, "Piszczek did he ...... he ever treat you ......"

"We just had a fight." As if desperately trying to avoid the question, Emily quickly looked up before Heinz could finish that sentence, wanting a seemingly easy smile.

Heinz: "Was it because of me?"

Emily: "No, it's for me."

There was a long silence between the two before Emily spoke up, "Listen, Heinz. I was taken aback by the way you scooped Piszczek right after he charged you just now. I've always thought that since you're a player I've had for a year, I should already know you pretty well. But after seeing that move of yours, I realized that I don't know you that well yet."

Hearing such words, Heinz, the youngest on the team, couldn't help but scratch his hair in embarrassment and said, "I know I was impulsive with that action."

"No, you did a great job with that move. I'm very pleased about that."

Just when Heinz thought Emily was going to blame him for that "unfriendly" gesture, Emily gave him a stern affirmation. It made Heinz freeze. He then heard Emily say to him, "What I'm sure of is not that you intentionally flipped your teammate with your shoving leg. What I'm sure of is that you fought back at the first sign of an ungentlemanly act by a teammate who was older than you. Even though, you've been here less than two weeks and Piszczek has done a lot for this team, you have to respect him, even honor him. But from the day you came here, there was parity between the two of you. You should remember that at all times. You don't have to just back down when the other team offends you, it just makes them subconsciously think less of you and thus not put you on an equal footing."

Since arriving in Meteo, Emily has enjoyed having a Czech interpreter. But communication between her and Heinz has been without much difficulty from the very beginning. This was the case when Emily could only converse with Heinz in German as well as English, not to mention that she now possessed a certain foundation in Czech. Rotating between the three languages, she was always able to communicate well with what her teachers saw as a perfectly good student.

After listening to Emily's words, Heinz revealed a smile with a hint of silliness and said, "So, you also think that I'm doing the right thing?"

Emily hooked the corner of her mouth and added, "No, what was in the locker room was not right."

"Emotionally, I'm glad you were able to stand up for me when people were out to discredit me. But rationally, you shouldn't pigeonhole yourself quite so simply into a camp that's teamed up with your teammates and belongs in that camp with me. Players and coaches are supposed to be on the same side. If someone must someone is going to pointedly put me in an antagonistic position, at least you shouldn't be led by his thinking."

Saying that, Emily exhaled and said, "Heinz, I only signed a six-month contract with Meteo. Once the six months are up, if the club doesn't renew my contract, wanting me to leave doesn't even require them to bother with one more word. But you're different, you signed a two-year contract with Meteo."

Emily knew that as soon as she said this she was bound to have Heinz rushing to tell her something, so she had only just finished saying this, which was immediately followed by a gesture with her opponent, signaling that this conversation between them was over.

"You should get back to training, Heinz. You've already taken a lot of time today." With that said, Emily smiled and pointed to the door, signaling to Heinz that he should head back. She then called out to Heinz as he opened the door to the head coach's office.

"Remember, never put you and your teammates in opposition to each other. You have to act like brothers to each other. On the court, you always need each other. None of you can get away from anyone."

It wasn't until she saw Heinz leave with a nod toward her after a moment of thought that Emily let out a deep breath after the door was closed again.

Up until now, she'd been constantly mimicking the world-famous coaches she'd gotten to know so well when it came to players and locker room issues. Now, she was in a crisis that no famous soccer coach she knew had ever encountered, nor would they ever encounter. Therefore, she had to come up with her own solution to all this.

She knew that she was now at a dead end and that continuing would only lead her into a corner. Therefore, she had to take a break, she needed to do it differently, again.Emily said to herself after she had gotten herself together, "What I have is six months, not half a quarter, much less half a month!

With that in mind, Emily rode back home after the day's training, instead of making sure to still continue to stay up long hours in the office after training, as she usually did. It was nine o'clock in the evening on a summer's day in Prague, and it hadn't even begun to get dark yet, so it looked like daytime outside. But in another half hour it will be dark here all at once.

Although this is not in the Old Town of Prague, which is full of red-roofed houses, in a place with such a blue sky, even in the suburbs, which seem to be very ordinary in comparison, the twenty minutes from the beginning of darkness to complete darkness will be very precious and beautiful.

Only after seeing such a sky can you realize where Van Gogh's blue comes from.

This day was the first time Emily had made herself dinner before dark in Prague. She brought out the spherical lettuce and seafood she'd bought at the neighborhood supermarket during her lunch break yesterday. It was a day old, but it looked okay.

She scalded the seafood in boiling water, then added a lot of spherical lettuce, drizzled it with the Thai seafood hot and sour sauce she bought at the supermarket, squeezed half a lemon on it, added a little garlic juice, and then tossed it around to make it very appetizing, which seemed to be a very sumptuous plate, but it was very simple to make.

After she was done, she immediately dragged a small stool that she had added to herself not long ago to the window, then cut half of the original baguette that she had bought earlier, held up her large plate of seafood and vegetable salad and put it on the small stool, and she took a cushion and spread it on the floor and sat down, eating her dinner as she waited for the sky to get darker.

And just as that bewildering deep blue color was gradually replacing the light blue of day, Emily felt as if she had been inspired by something. She stood up and walked over to the dressing mirror that was right at the junction of the kitchen area and the bedroom area and took a deep look at herself in the mirror, which then turned around with a jerk and pulled out a pair of scissors from a drawer in the kitchen.

She took hold of a long strand of hair that hung down over her chest and then cut them off with a single stroke!

As the strand of hair that had been waist-length gently fell to the ground, Emily realized that this was the solution she was looking for! As soon as she was sure of this she smiled and once again took hold of a long strand of hair that was much thicker than the one she had just had and after taking a deep breath and preparing herself mentally she gritted her teeth and made another cut!

The sound of the scissors cutting the hair resounded in the one-bedroom apartment.

This night, she cut off her waist-length hair.