Keep Cool, Stay Tough

“So, I’m pretty sure I made an enemy out of Cristiano Ronaldo last night,” I announced, wondering if my tone was just as off-hand as I was hoping it to be. I didn’t want to admit how much I had been thinking about that night, but I did need some kind of outlet to vent.

“I’m pretty sure I did too,” Cesc spoke through a long yawn, “On more than one occasion too,” He tacked on with just a smidge of pride.

And I was barking up the wrong tree.

“No, you don’t understand-“

Cesc cut me off, suddenly sounding wide awake, “What, do you like him? Do you want him to like you?”

I laughed, “Oh god no, you dear Cesc have got me completely and utterly turned off to all forms of footballers for the foreseeable future.”

“You’re welcome.”

God he sounded so smug. I rolled my eyes wishing there was an exact way to convey this to him over the phone.

“Alright,” He pressed on when I kept mum, “Ronaldo doesn’t like you, you a Barcelona fan, what an unexpected travesty. Who could have actually seen that coming?”

“It’s not,” I sighed, unsure why I had even brought this up in the first place, “I guess I was just looking for an excuse to call you, and my run in seemed liked an okay topic at the time.”

“There’s never going to be a good enough reason to call me at four in the morning,” Cesc assured.

“Oh fuck, I totally blanked that you were in London.”

My mind was still having trouble adjusting to the fact that Cesc was no longer a five minute jog away from my bedroom.

“That never made a difference before,” He reminded, and was I hearing things or did he sound annoyed?

“You’re right,” I pushed away the nagging feeling, “but I do feel a tad bit bad about it now.”

I really didn’t, but it felt the appropriate thing to say.

“Doubtful, very doubtful,” He mumbled though another yawn.

“Okay, I’m going to let you go now, and I will refrain from mentioning a certain unmentionable in any of our conversations from here on out.”

“You have no idea how much I would appreciate that.”

I had no idea to which promise he was referring to.

“Bye, Cesc.”

“See you, Senna.”

I hung up the phone, tossing it aside; with my eyes shut tight, practically pleading for the urge to sleep to wash over me. I had even drunk that iffy-tasting chamomile tea in the kitchen, but that hadn’t even made the slightest difference to my irritatingly bizarre sleep schedule. I tried to keep still, I was barely even breathing, I was so desperate to trigger an urge to sleep, when of course it backfired like it always did. I had really hoped that considering the fact that I wasn’t a love-stuck teenage anymore these insomniac episodes would have disappeared along with Cesc’s love for me.

But no, here I am, in my aunt’s pool house picking up the scattered pieces of my life while he was piling building blocks to create his new niche in London. I wasn’t jealous, I really wasn’t, I mean if I hadn’t gotten taken over by the green monster when he showed up in Barcelona with a strange girl on his arm, this new set of circumstances wasn’t about to introduce the jealously gene into my life. I was as happy for Cesc as I was for Thiago when he got his transfer to Munich. If they’re happy then I’m happy.

My eyes flashed open and I propped up suddenly finding it impossible to sit still for even another second. My heart was beating in my ears and I was breaking out into a cold sweat. This used to be me every morning after Cesc had left. It took me months to find the best solution. I had started running.

I did a few stretches in my pajamas before bouncing around to pull together an outfit for the frigid morning air. I pulled my hair into a tight ponytail at the top of my head, pulled on an old pair of Nike sneakers, and I ran out the door with Kanye West aggressively rapping into my ears.

Initially the chilly morning air felt hellish as it bit at my cheeks, ears and nose, well for the first couple verses of ‘Amazing’ anyway, but by the time that ‘stronger’ started up, and picked up on the frequency of my feet hitting the pavement, I started to feel good. I started inching towards a balance that I was desperate never to lose again. When I really hit my stride, I glanced at the time, and sure enough, I needed to get back and get some caffeine and potassium in me.

As Martha’s house came back into view, a strange feeling surged back through me. I realized that this was the feeling that I had woken up with. This was the sensation that had demanded I called Cesc so early, if not for myself, then to make sure that he was alright. I realized, sometimes, you just wake up, and you pick up on the fact that your day is going to be fucked. That feeling stayed with me, and I just could not shake it off. Even after breakfast with Martha and Mina, Martha rushing off to the hotel, but not before leaving behind a pair of tickets for myself and Mina.

I had never said I wanted to go the match tonight, but I felt like it was probably going to be rude to say no now when the ticket, which was a damn great seat, was perched neatly beside Mina’s car keys which looked completely undisturbed.

Mina went back to her room after Martha had left; I made myself another cup of coffee, and went back to the pool house to look over my paper. I waited another hour before messaging Chloe and Zoe about their plans for tonight. That was mostly just for something to do that would prevent me from reaching out to my family, although if I was the mature adult I needed to pretend to be I should have probably just done that. Of course I’m not, and that’s why I’m in Madrid now.

They were going to be spending the night with Irina at some ridiculously over-priced night club that sounded just barely vaguely familiar to me. They were offered me an invitation, and Zoe even volunteered to send a taxi, she was going to be drinking, but I couldn’t get myself to give a definitive answer. I thought about mentioning my run-in with Cristiano, but that would have led to way too many questions I didn’t want to answer so I just let them get on with gossip surrounding Irina.

“So are you going tonight?”

They had abandoned text messaging by now, and had me on speaker phone in Chloe’s car I was guessing, but didn’t bother to confirm.

“I just blanked out, where am I going tonight?”

“To the match, Real Madrid is playing tonight, right?”

“Oh yeah, and yeah I am. My aunt, the doctor, got my cousin and me tickets, and it felt rude to say no, so I’m going,” I explained.

“Well, of course you have to go, and you have to do some recon work for us too,” Chloe insisted in a matter of fact tone.

“What kind of recon work?” My mind immediately went to stealing stinky sweaty jerseys, but that couldn’t possibly be it.

“I’m driving right now, but Zoe is going to send you a picture of a girl, and you need to just keep an eye out for her in the player’s lounge.”

“Ok, I will, who she is?”

“Irina is having doubts about her ex’s fidelity and her friend’s loyalty.”

“Fascinating,” I answered without missing a beat this time.

I sat down in the living room to catch whatever was playing, and the next thing I was aware of was a properly dressed up, made up, Mina prodding my awake.

“Kick off is in an hour, we need to leave soon.”

I nodded, wishing I could roll over and catch another hour’s worth of sleep, but instead I wrapped my blanket around me, and waddled over to the pool house to pull together an outfit and see just how much damaged control I could do with my bed head, well technically sofa-head.

Mina squinted at me when I returned fifteen minutes later with my hair in a fishtail, and dressed in black stockings, dark blue a-line skirt, and a black long sleeve top.

“No makeup?”

“I’ll try to put on some mascara in the car,” I tapped at my bag slung over my shoulder.

She nodded, almost smiling, “You look just as good without it.”

I smiled, a little caught off guard, “Thanks.”

“I made some coffee, if you want to grab some in a takeaway cup.”

“That would be fantastic, thanks Mina,” I smiled, grateful.

The ride over was taken over by music that we both seemed to enjoy. The coffee energized me enough to tunelessly sing along to Rihanna and Co, and Mina was humming along soon enough too. We arrived at the stadium and the traffic seemed to have tripled since the last time I had been around this part of the city. Everyone and their mother seemed to be coming to the Bernabéu for the match against Sevilla.

Mina must have caught my stunned look, as she assured me, “Don’t worry, we bypass all the chaos.”
Maybe about fifteen minutes later, we found ourselves parked and heading into the stadium through the lower levels. Mina checked her watch and stopped for a moment.

“There’s still a little time left before kickoff, do you mind if we go say a super quick hello to my mom?”

I shook my head, “Oh no, not at all.”

Mina rushed along the tunnels, and I didn’t really have a chance to look around, my main focus was making sure the back of her head didn’t make a sharp turn without me. We heard a pair of familiar voices bouncing off the walls over the subtle disarray building up before the teams lined up to head out as we approached the home team’s locker rooms

I looked over to Mina, my head tilted as I mouthed and pointed towards the noise, “Sergio?”
She nodded and added, “And Cristiano, I think.”

And then we heard my name. Mina’s eyes widened. I held down a smile.

“I’m going to ask Senna out,” Sergio announced, seemingly completely negating the fact that he was ten minutes away from kickoff.

He sounded so happy.

“I know she says she’s not interested, but I think I could persuade her to change her mind,” Sergio added when the person he was talking to didn’t immediately reply.

I almost said, no it’s okay right then and there, but I peeked around the wall where they were standing so near us and saw Cristiano roll his eyes, and something held me back. I inched closer, shushing Mina, very curious to hear where this conversation was going.

“I don’t think you’re going to have a problem with persuading her to date you.”

“What do you mean?” Sergio asked, suspicious of Cristiano’s tone, no doubt, “She has a rule about it.”

“She’s an alcoholic with a penchant for crashing expensive cars that don’t belong to her, and sure she watches football, but she doesn’t even support the club you play for; if I was you, I’d steer clear of a girl with expensive taste like that. That rule is just her way of playing hard to get, and obviously it’s working.”

I stood stock still, ears perked, nostrils flared. Cristiano just dragged my name through the muddiest puddle without even the most minuscule show of reluctance. He just threw out his crude opinion into the air between him and his teammate, most likely expecting to have Sergio see me the way he saw me: as a manipulative moneygrubber.

“Good thing I’m not asking you then,” Sergio answered back, miffed.

I wanted to hug Sergio and deck Cristiano.

Cristiano didn’t seem to be too bothered by the look of irritation on Sergio’s face.

“I don’t want to make this a repeat of what happened with Miss Seville,” Cristiano started as I made a quick mental note to Google the three names together at the earliest opportunity; or at least ask Iker about it.

“You won’t because Senna’s not going to be interested in you.”

Cristiano laughed, “And how would you possibly know that?”

I cringed at the fact that he could very easily bring up that night in front of Sergio, and twist around the details until he made it seem as if I had been there for him.

“I know a lot more than you do about her, so you probably shouldn’t be talking about her so freely. Or so confidently, people might actually listen to you.”

“Did she not get drunk and destroy a million dollar car?”

Sergio didn’t answer.

“I know her, I know exactly the type of girl that she is and what sort of taste she has, and if I was still twenty-one years old, I would definitely be up to the challenge, and let her destroy a car of mine, but I’m too old for that kind of bullshit, and so are you.”

“You have no idea who she is,” Sergio repeated as the two teams began to assemble to walk out onto the pitch.

“Can we just pretend we didn’t hear all that?” I forced a smile along, but I was absolutely furious.

“Yeah, of course, Senna, he’s just-” Mina was grasping at words that were desperate to escape her almost as desperate as I was to leave before anyone saw us standing around where we obviously didn’t belong.

“I’m serious, Mina, I’m trying to be the bigger person and not run up to him and slap him right this second, so let’s just go find our seats, please.”

She nodded, “Alright.”

We found our seats, I grabbed a beer, and the game kicked off. Not even fifteen minutes into the half Real Madrid scored. The new kid, James Rodriguez had the first taste of blood. I cringed as I sat nursing my internal wounds with my beer, as the stadium came to their feet in terrifying unison. Mina tried and failed to hold back her excitement.

I sent a text to Fernando Torres of all people so Mina could cheer and curse the referee in peace. I wasn’t expecting a response; I was just looking for an excuse to tune the game out. My mood was gloomy as ever, and I just wanted out and away from anything that could be associated with Real Madrid.

My phone buzzed, a flicker of pleasure passed through me as he asked where I was. I snapped a picture of the grounds and sent it to him. He sent back a frown. And then I more or less invited myself out to dinner with Fernando because I really couldn’t stand sticking around much longer. I apologized to Mina and left while Real Madrid was still in the lead.

We met at a bar that was a decent distance away from the stadium, but traffic had lightened and Fernando and I got there within minutes of each other. Of course we walked inside and the match was playing on every available screen. Fernando glanced at me and I couldn’t be bothered with hiding my resentment.

“Not a fan?”

I gave him a death glare and he laughed.

I didn’t think I was going to talk about what happened. I didn’t think it prudent to my mental health to rehash any of it, especially to another footballer – the one that had no inclination of protecting my feelings.

“Is that what everyone thinks of me? Is that why Sergio thinks he’s attracted to?”

I was seething. I couldn’t stop the words from bubbling out, and soon enough I hit all the finer points of the run in for Fernando, who remained stoic during my babbling.

“Okay, honestly, Sergio gets attracted to any girl if he’s in the mood for it,” Fernando insisted and took a swig of his beer.

“That’s beside the point, I mean more along the lines of me and you know…being that cliché of a girl?”

“I don’t think that, Iker doesn’t think that, and neither did any of the Frenchman we were with that night,” Fernando assured.

“But do they know about the accident?”

“Everyone in Spain knows about the accident, Senna.”

He had such a calming demeanor. I wouldn’t admit it, but I was glad that he had said yes to our impromptu night out.

“He made me sound so horrible,” I admitted, “I didn’t recognize the person that he was talking about, and yet that’s what he thinks of me, and oh god, what if he’s not wrong? What if that’s exactly what I’m becoming, and I don’t see it because well obviously I’m biased towards myself.”

Fernando shook his head, “Ignore it, let it go, his opinion shouldn’t be trusted.”

“I guess you don’t really realize how thin-skinned you are until you hear what people really have to say about you,” I answered, frowning.

“Listen, he has no idea about what really happened. He heard a rumor of a rumor, and saw one picture. That does not define you, and what does he know anyway? Every other week those same magazines are getting rich off rumors centered on him. You would think he would think about his own situation before commenting about someone else’s,” Fernando was fuming, and I was tempted to see something between the lines, but Fernando didn’t really strike me as the type to delve into details when it was his own life being analyzed so I let it go.

“He’s not wrong, that’s what’s bugging me, I don’t think he said one wrong thing, that’s what kills me, and so what if a handful of us out there know the truth, my own father and sister have barely spoken to me because of what happened.”

“How come you didn’t tell them the truth then, or have Cesc explain?”

“I tried, Cesc tried even after I asked him not to, he thinks I don’t know by the way, and even Leo freaking tried to defend me, and it was his car that we destroyed that night, and he still tried to defend me to my own family,” A choked sob somehow managed to rip and echo out of me as I furiously wiped away at my eyes, “they wouldn’t listen to anything any of us had to say. They can’t understand any of it, and I just gave up explaining myself.”

I pushed my hair off my face, took a deep breath, and came to my feet with a sniffle.

“You have fans congregating outside the shop, we should get going before they build enough momentum to get inside,” I nodded towards the front shop window where there were a pair of teenage girls with their noses pressed against the glass.

“Sorry about that,” Fernando came to his feet.

I smiled, “Don’t worry about it, it comes with the territory, it was a nightmare when I was dating Cesc, so this doesn’t seem so awful to me.”

I laughed and added, “You know, at least we weren’t making out, and my hands weren’t down your pants.”

Fernando went red in the face and gave a stiff smile.

We got out the back way, which made the walk to his car much closer and off the public sidewalk.

“Are you sure you want me to drive you back to your aunt’s place? My wife has the kids, and they’re out of town, we can keep talking if you’d like?” He asked as we got inside his BMW.

“No, it was a weird night, I’d rather just leave it, thank you though,” I answered, wavering inwardly only a little bit. But of course that little bit was enough for me to start questioning everything, but still I said it, and I couldn’t quite believe it; even after I was back in my pool house twenty minutes later.
I can’t believe I just said no to a late night chitchat with Fernando Torres.