Look At Me Now Perhaps she had been foolish to have thought it could have worked. When Alistair had first offered to spend time with her over the summer to help her prepare for life with the Nashville Negators, Joella had been hesitant but she knew it would do her good and was keen to be mature and bury the hatchet.
And it did work, for a while. They drew up a training schedule that suited the both of them and managed to make things work, despite their different lives in different states. It was only toward the end of summer that things began to go south. Joella’s commitment and dedication was questioned and Alistair accused of jealousy and immaturity.
In hindsight Joella had realised that she may have been a bit rash to get so defensive the way she had but nothing about the new Alistair could ever make her forget about the old Alistair. He’d grown up, she could see that, and he really had changed for the better but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still Alistair Johnson. Something about the pair of them together never quite worked out. It could be so good for a while and then something always went wrong and everything came crashing down around them.
It had on many occasions occurred to her that Alistair had a point. She was about to enter the biggest journey of her life and fulfil her dream but just because she had one foot on the ladder, it didn’t mean she was anywhere near reaching the top. Joella needed to work so very hard and perhaps it really wasn’t the best idea to get into a relationship just now. But she was young and in love and she really couldn’t see why she couldn’t have both. Hewett understood what Quidditch meant to her and she didn’t feel he was holding her back or distracting her focus.
But perhaps Alistair was just taking his job as her “coach” seriously by suggesting this was the case, only because she needed to reschedule a session due to a family gathering (which her boyfriend just so happened to be coming to). Admittedly Alistair did take things very seriously when it came to his beloved sport so Joella just bit her lip for once and didn't rise to the accusations… Until the rescheduled session at Alistair’s home a few days later when they were interrupted by his apparent girlfriend (who Joella hadn’t even known existed) who made an appearance and began draping herself over him. Joella was furious, quite reasonably so after all that Alistair had said about her relationship affecting her training.
He claimed that he hadn't known Charlotte was coming, although Joella couldn't believe that. Alistair then proceeded to argue that Joella shouldn't have allowed herself to be distracted by it, but how could she not? And she was also concerned about his focus being broken. The argument quickly grew more heated as they slung accusation after accusation at one another, involving Joella suggesting that Alistair had used the girl on purpose to get back at her for Hewett because he was jealous.
A year and a half later the two old friends were still not on speaking terms. Alistair had graduated from Sonora and signed to the Angeles Ashwinders team, broken up with Charlotte Winter and was dating a sweet girl named Julia Nemec who was a lot less to handle than the girls he had dated previously. Joella was still going strong with her boyfriend Hewett Somahan, a lovely young man who her family liked and who never made her cry, and she now found herself being promoted to the Nashville Negators first team. It seemed that she was far better at juggling her life than Alistair had given her credit for.
The nineteen-year-old’s best friend on the team, fellow Chaser Novalie Ljunggren, had also been promoted to the first team so to celebrate they gathered their close friends and teammates for a night out in Nashville.
It was times like this that Joella had to pinch herself. It felt like only yesterday that she’d been a scrawny ball of excitement, trying out for the Pecari Quidditch team in her first year of Sonora. She’d come a long way since then and she was proud of herself. It wasn’t easy but all the hard work she put in assured herself that she deserved to be here.