It's A Game, But Who's Keeping Score?

October 17th, 2008
I couldn’t believe who I saw sitting on the other side of the stadium, I hadn’t seen him in almost 4 months. I buried my head into Toni’s shoulder, hoping it would conceal my identity.

“What are you doing?” he hissed, trying to concentrate on Rafa.

“It’s…he’s…over there,” I squeaked.

Toni looked over to see Sergio Ramos in the stands, watching his fellow Spaniard playing. His gaze immediately swung back to me, “Did you expect anything less? We’re in Madrid, of course he’s going to come out and watch Rafa.”

“Just…just don’t let him see me,” I said, snatching Toni’s hat and forcing it onto my head. I heard Toni mumble something in Spanish, but I brushed that off. Rafa unfortunately lost the match to Gilles Simon, any other day he would have beat him easily, but I knew his knees were hurting.

I quickly made my way down to the dressing room, thankfully I had remembered my pass and I slipped into the room unnoticed. I saw Rafa sitting on the bench, his head in his hands; an unusual sight. I sat down next to him, hoping to not disturb him.

“Rebecca,” Rafa said quietly. “I…I don’t know what happened.”

“Rafa, you know your knees aren’t holding up that well. I wanted to try a new treatment, but you just wanted to play.”

When Rafa stayed quiet, I knew I had hit a soft spot. I dropped the conversation and wrapped my arms around him. We stayed like that for awhile, before we heard a knock at the door; it was probably someone from the management wanting Rafa to start his interview. But it wasn’t.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything?” a familiar voice asked.

I looked up to come face to face with Sergio Ramos; my childhood best friend. My arms dropped to my side, my jaw was on the floor and I could feel the blood draining from my face. I was speechless, I had completely cut myself off from him after the Euro when he had broken my heart.

“Come on now, that’s not the reaction I was looking for,” Sergio said with a smile.

“W-why are you here?” I stuttered. “You should hate me right now, I haven’t talked to you in 4 months.”

“Who cares, I’m here now,” Sergio said, gathering me into a huge hug.

Present Day
That day had taken place almost 3 months before; I had continued to keep in contact with Sergio. He gave me updates on the Spanish team with their respective club teams, everyone except him.

I was currently sitting in the Nadal homestead in Manacor, as Rafa was taking a break after winning the Australian Open. His knees were killing him, but he wasn’t letting anyone know that. Well, except for me.

We were laying on his bed, trying to figure out who would do well in the Champion’s League.

“Real Madrid!”

“No way!” I argued. “Liverpool!”

Rafa sat up, eyeing me suspiciously. “Liverpool?”

“Yes,” I replied, sitting up, grabbing a pillow in the process.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with a certain striker,” Rafa said smirking.

My eyes narrowed, “I told you to never talk about that!” With the word ‘that’ emphasized by a pillow smacking Rafa square in the face, which initiated a massive pillow fight that worked its way around the house. We found our way into living room, when I was distracted for a millisecond which gave Rafa the upper hand.

“Ah ha!” he boomed, before delivering the final blow. But I was too busy looking at the man in a business suit talking to Toni and Luis Aragones. As I fell back onto the couch, I clued into their conversation. Rafa sheepishly helped me up and dusted off the feathers that were tangled in my hair.

“Rebecca,” Toni said sternly. “I want to introduce you to Carlos Costa, he’s Rafa’s agent and…”

“And what?” I asked coldly, I looked to Luis and he didn’t meet my gaze. “You think that by bringing in an agent you trust you think I’ll go back to soccer? Fat chance,” I spat, before running out of the house and down the street. I had no idea where I was going; I just needed to get away. I stopped at an abandoned pier and sat at the end, pulling out my cellphone, I scrolled to a familiar number.

“Hola?”

“Rammy? They want me to come back,” I said solemnly.

“That’s amazing!” he said enthusiastically.

“No, no it’s not amazing. I can’t go back.”

“And why is that?” Sergio asked bluntly.

“Because I could face him again and I couldn’t do that. You have no idea how heart broken I was after Euro, I could hardly watch soccer without thinking about him.”

“Do you want my advice?” Sergio asked, but didn’t wait for my response. “I think you should make a comeback, become the first female premiership player. Show Fernando who the bigger person is.”

I looked out over the water, soaking in the Spanish sun; wondering if I could give up this life. “Fine, I’ll do it. But if this plan backfires, I’m coming after you.”

Sergio laughed, “I wouldn’t expect anything less. Now go back to Rafa, I’ve already had a million texts from him asking where you are.”

“Thanks a bunch Rammy, Talk to you later.”

I snapped my phone shut, before making my way back to the Nadal’s house. I sheepishly poked my head into the living room, to see that everyone had basically stayed in their places. I cleared my throat, announcing my return. Luis shot me a small smile, Rafa couldn’t stop beaming, but Toni and Carlos had slight frowns.

“Miss Cortez? I have heard great things about you, becoming the first female player in the Euro Cup is quite a feat, but if you want to make it in the Premier League, I need your complete commitment. And so does the club, we can’t have any incidents like earlier.”

“I understand,” I replied quietly. “Now how long do we have to pick a team?”

“I’ve actually already received some offers while you went off on your…excursion. I talked with Luis, Toni, Rafa and even Sergio about different destinations. And I think we picked the perfect place.”

“And?” I asked nervously.

“Liverpool.”