Keep Cool, Stay Tough

Cristiano Ronaldo was a creature of habit. When I had gone to the training complex so many weeks ago, I had interrupted Cristiano during his weekly, self inflicted, solitary free-kick practice. The very same one that he had to keep secret on the slight off chance he managed to injure himself.

“So tell me again how you managed to get away?” Cristiano asked as he took a few paces back from the ball.

He had even set up the dummy wall to try and make it look as if he was in the middle of a game.

“Mina’s dad is in town for the night. They went out to dinner. I went off to do a group project as so-and-so’s place,” I explained.

“You weren’t invited?”

“I thought I could find a better use of my time than eating an over-roasted chicken accompanied with lumpy steamed veggies,” I answered, “Also, technically I didn’t lie, I am studying.”

I held up my massive book, waving it in the air for him to see.

“True,” He agreed with a laugh.

“So what’s the story?”

“With?”

“Mina’s dad.”

“Long story cut very short: he chose career over family. Martha had enough and filed for a divorce.”

“That’s it?”

“What do you mean that’s it?”

Cristiano walked up and sat beside me on the bench placing the football between his feet.

“I mean, so what if he has a busy career, is that really grounds to divorce a guy these days,” He sounded skeptical.

“They had fallen out of love, Cris,” I specified.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, she said she realized something was wrong when she stopped calling him every day for nearly a month while he had been away in Dubai. She had only even realized that she hadn’t been calling him because he had shown up a day early as a surprise. She forgot she had a husband for a month,” I emphasized that, hoping it would sink in.

“Is that when she asked for the divorce?”

“Yup.”

“Wow, so he was the one left surprised, huh?”

I nodded and continued, “I respect Martha for doing what she did. They are all still on great terms, she says they’re better off as friends because that wasn’t a marriage, that was him and her to a certain extent, checking in and out of a hotel.”

I don’t know why I needed him to know that.

“They fell out of love,” He repeated.

“Is that kind of what happened with you and…” I trailed off. I don’t know why I always got awkward when we talked about his personal life. He never seemed to mind it. The other day I had still been a little tipsy from a drinking game at Zoe and Chloe’s, but now I was sober, and it felt weird.

“I loved her, a part of me is still stuck on her,” He admitted.

“I thought you broke up with her?”

“She wanted to get married. I had told her from the beginning I didn’t want to get married. I guess she believed she could change my mind and get a giant rock on her finger.”

He smirked at some no doubt sordid memory.

“To her or in general,” I asked, my interest piqued.

“I think to her, but honestly I’m not that excited by the concept of marriage. It makes things so messy.”

“Only when it goes wrong,” I tried to amend.

“It goes wrong almost half the time,” He argued right back, “People forget they have husbands for fuck’s sake.”

I laughed, “Marriage is messy, but so is life, so is football, it doesn’t stop you from playing or living, does it?”

He chuckled, coming back to his feet to dribble the ball, “I get to pick and choose when I make my messes, and marriage isn’t a mess I want right now, or any time in the future.”

“I know it sounds like I’m advocating it, but honestly if I can just find one person to spend the rest of my life with faithfully, then I really wouldn’t push for marriage unless he wanted it,” I returned thoughtfully.

“I can’t believe he ditched you,” Cristiano declared abruptly the ball falling to the ground with an audible thump.

“Are you being sarcastic?” I demanded with my lips pursed and eyebrows furrowed in scathing suspicion.

He laughed with such a raucous tone; it bounced and carried all over the massive football field as I shook my head, feeling indignant.

“No, I’m not, I promise I’m not, I just can’t imagine someone finding fault with you and leaving you behind and finding someone better.”

“I told him that, you know?”

“Is that the conversation you had the other day?”

I nodded, “I asked why he didn’t ask me to come along to wherever he went, he didn’t really give me a straight answer.”

“He asked a question to your question?” Cristiano asked seriously.

“Yes.”

“Classic move,” He almost sounded in awe.

I frowned and continued, “Then I asked why he brought his new girlfriend into town without telling me, and that he managed to blame the girl because apparently he was planning on breaking up with her before he came back and she manipulated him with her wiles, because somehow that makes things better.”

Cristiano nodded, “Footballer logic.”

I waved my hand in the air, nodding my head down as I answered, “And that’s why I’ve sworn off the stuff for good, I am, what is it now, at least like maybe five, six years.”

Cristiano whistled appreciatively, “That’s impressive, maybe I should do that with supermodels – detox for a little while.”

“You would still need your fix, like I do,” I laughed.

“And how would I go about that?”

“Find a supermodel to sit around and chat about stupid stuff with,” I suggested, “Extra points if you do it on a runway.”

He laughed, his smiled remained wide as he kicked up the ball into the space between us, “Maybe I should really give it a go.”

“It works for me,” I encouraged.

He hopped off the bench, dribbled the football back towards the goal, distancing himself a little further back than he had done earlier in the evening and resumed his practice, leaving me alone with strange, introspective thoughts. We weren’t even doing anything remotely scandalous. He was practicing his free kicks and I was studying microbiology. Occasionally he would ask if I saw what he did, which I almost never did, and he always forgot I wasn’t paying attention to him so he would ask again, and that eventually had me finally focusing on him. I knew if anyone caught wind of the fact that I was disappearing for hours at a time to spend my time with Cristiano…the things people would assume could anyone blush.

I kept my chin resting on my hand as I watched Cristiano curve the ball just over the net. His wince rang out throughout the field as I wondered if I should explain this situation to Martha before it reached her ears from someone else’s voice.

“Can I ask you something?” I called, reaching for the nearest thing that could push these ideas out of my head.

“Shoot,” He chuckled, settling the ball down to the grass as he added, “No pun intended.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why go to the trouble of driving back here once a week to hit free kicks by yourself?”

He sighed, turning towards me; the ball he had just hit ricocheted off the woodwork, the noise echoing across the field.

“Don’t mock me.”

“Well, I can’t promise that, if it’s really idiotic,” I was already snickering.

He paused as if deliberating whether or not to say anything further on the subject.

“You probably won’t hear me from this distance,” I bargained.

He collected the ball that had flown backwards and set it down in front of him. He stood up straight and turned back towards me.

“I lost this touch that I used to have. I used to just know exactly what I needed to do to hit the ball into the back of the net, and now it’s all fuzzy. It’s like a really shitty hotel Wi-Fi, it comes and goes, but it mostly goes,” he explained pretty succinctly.

“That’s frustrating.”

I actually didn’t find that amusing. It genuinely sounded frustrating.

“You have no idea,” He assured.

I returned my attention to studying for a little bit, and Cristiano resumed with shooting practice. I didn’t realize he was standing in front of me until I glanced up to catch a kick in action.

I jumped a little out of my seat, “Wow, you are creepy quiet.”

“I’m hungry,” He announced.

“I have a bag of crisps in my bag,” I suggested and immediately began to dig around for the snack.
“Keep it; let’s go somewhere to eat a proper meal.”

I scrunched up my nose, leaning away from him, “You’re going to shower, aren’t you?”

***

Only after Cristiano showered and got out of his tracksuit and into a pair of jeans and a fresh black collar top, we hit the road towards a small restaurant just outside of Toledo. Traffic was light and we got there in less than an hour.

“Are you sure you can get away for this long?”

“Yes,” I repeated for the umpteenth time, “I make sure to have all of my bases covered, and I am a fully-functioning adult I can manage my time without seeking permission.”

“Congratulations,” He laughed.

“Thank you, and I am choosing to ignore your sarcasm, but I am not ignorant to it,” I pointed at him with a smile.

He chuckled, “Someone’s gotten hungry.”

“It was a long car ride,” I pouted.

“It was entertaining,” He added.

“Yes, your slightly off-key singing was just the kind of entertainment I need on an empty stomach. I can’t believe you didn’t let me eat in your car by the way,” I snapped.

He made a face, “I would have been finding crumbs for weeks because of that bag.”

We literally could not stop talking about how great food is, and apparently what a great chef he is until we hit the desert and coffee course. He got tea, but I was adamant about trying the cappuccino even though it was getting close to midnight. Once our stomachs were full, we both managed to get back to being tranquil and introspective.

“What’s the deal with your family?”

“You mean why I got sent to Madrid? Well I crashed Leo Messi’s car, Cris, I thought we covered this,” I answered.

He shook his head, “No, Sergio mentioned something about it just being you, a sister, and your dad?”

I nodded, “He was right.”

“Where’s your mom?”

I glanced up at the chandelier hanging over us, trying to remember where she was the last time I had spoken to her, “I don’t think she’s in America anymore, I’m pretty sure she’s back here, not Spain, but I think she said something about Paris or Milan? When’s the next fashion week coming up?”

“Milan, so she works in fashion?”

“She’s kind of a recruiter, she matches models to labels, and organizes which model does photo shoots, and which ones do the runway,” I waved it off, already bored and slightly annoyed by the turn our conversation took.

“But you guys are good terms?”

“I have never been more indifferent towards another human being in my life,” I stated flatly, “Like I can’t say I love her, but I don’t know her to say I hate her, and I’m not the type of person to hate someone because I don’t know them.”

Cristiano scratched his head, seemingly at a loss for words. I knew he had a great relationship with his family, and it was an enviable thing to have in your life, and he must’ve been thinking about his good fortune in that department as he had nothing to offer me.

I shrugged, a small smile playing around my lips, the cappuccino loosening my tongue better than any glass of wine could have, “I’m more okay with not seeing her than my sister is; I think my sister goes to see her when she’s a train ride away, but I never bothered. I was having too much fun with my dad. I always thought that the moment my mom realized that her daughters had no intentions of joining her in the fashion world she just took a step back from all of us.”

“That’s a terrible thing to think about your mother,” He returned, his head at a slight tilt, unsure of how to continue.

I shook my head, “No, there’s absolutely nothing to be sorry about. My dad and Martha never left room for me to miss her. My sister is a bit different, but that’s her problem to deal with.”

“You’re the younger sister?”

“Just barely, like not even a year,” I returned.

“Weird.”

I nodded, “It is.”

“I had something else I wanted to ask you tonight,” Cristiano started, still a bit awkward from the previous stretch our conversation had undertaken.

“I have no problem closing this subject,” I assured as I leaned back and pressed my fingertips against the side of my head, watching him shake off the words he didn’t want to say and replace them with something to probably lighten the mood.

“So how are things with convincing Mina to drop the candle she’s holding for Gonzalo?” Cristiano asked with a slightly relieved smile.

I sighed, vaguely wondering if he would notice if I unbuttoned the top of my jeans to stuff more of the vanilla cake into my mouth. I was wearing a loose sweater anyway…

“I realized that with Mina she must have a very great reason stored somewhere in her head or heart when it comes to waiting for Gonzalo. She’s not a teenager like I was, nor is she petulant, stubborn, or immature,” I explained because I honestly had been given Mina’s situation a lot of thought, and I didn’t want to make a rash move that could jeopardize my cause.

“Okay, she’s absolutely nothing like you,” Cristiano returned with a wink.

“Hmph, that’s not what I was implying.”

“Love can make some people act like a stubborn, petulant, immature teenager, it can make you blind to logic,” Cristiano pointed out, “It’s a general concept, it applies to a lot of people.”

“Did it apply to you too?”

He shrugged, a small, rueful smile at his lips, “Of course.”

I was still mulling over his words when he asked, “Did you have a good excuse too?”

“I thought I loved him, like he was the one great love of my life kind of love. I thought it was so incredibly romantic and tragic to be separated by occurrences out of our control. I was a deluded kid that got just the reality check she needed,” I summarized without so much as a sniffle. Talking it out really was therapeutic.

“Nobody deserves that kind of reality check, it’s got you afraid, and you see that, right?”

“I’m not emotionally ready to deal with dating, if that’s what you mean, I don’t know how fear plays into it,” I answered.

“So I was wondering about something else,” He started at a different angle.

“Ok, what?” I was really hoping he would change the subject himself without me having to think of something worthwhile to talk about.

“Why won’t you at least tell Mina about what happened with you when you waited on your footballer-amour to come back to you? Maybe it would work as a cautionary tale for her,” He suggested.

Alright we are still not done with this topic.

“I’ve thought about it. From the very first night she told me about Gonzalo and her, I’ve turned it over and over in my head, I’ve almost even told her many, many times, but I always stop short.”

“Okay so why haven’t you actually told her?”

“Because I’m a selfish idiot that doesn’t want to talk about her love life unless it has a happy ending attached to it.”

Did I really mean that?

“I have also been accused of being a selfish idiot on a few occasions – welcome to the club, it’s not that exclusive I don’t think.”

“Wonderful.”

Finally the subject was dropped when he picked up the check, much to my annoyance, and we drove
back to Madrid under loud music and abrasive, synchronized dance moves in a tiny confined space.

I wasn’t ignorant to the mess of a relationship Cristiano and I were sharing. Everything we did, on paper, seemed suspicious, and on that awful off chance we were to get busted there was not a soul on earth that would accept that we were honestly under the label of ‘just friends.’ If he didn’t mind the scruples that came with being in a bizarre friendship like this, far be it from me to complain.

Cristiano Ronaldo finally scored his first goal off a free kick that weekend at the Bernabéu against Eibar.