Keep Cool, Stay Tough

​Things more or less stagnated after Cristiano caught a third of the team hiding out in the clinic after Martha had left early. The tension between us even dropped to a vague dislike as opposed to seething hatred, and occasionally we slipped the brief word to each other, such as, ‘thanks’, ‘please’, and the longest bit of words we managed to string together was me with, ‘you’re appointment is at three’, to which he replied with, ‘ok.’

Yup, things were really coming together in the work environment. School continued to just be a means to an end, I went to class, took notes, and passed exams. It wasn’t exactly rocket science. I couldn’t wait for Zoe and Chloe’s workload to lessen so that I could get a decent word in with them
after class ended, but that didn’t seem to be happening anytime soon.

In February Real Madrid took only one substantial dip in form by way of an away game in which they had to visit Athletico for a La Liga match. They conceded four goals and scored none. It seemed as if everyone had taken a dip in morale that weekend, but I wouldn’t know much about it since I had been out and about with Fernando and his people barhopping with los rojiblancos. I had thought I had finally discovered that level of balance that would keep me at peace while I was in Madrid.
And then Mina happened.

It all started on the last Friday night in February. Real Madrid had an away game that weekend against Eiche, so it was just Mina and me at home. We ordered Chinese food, as we usually did when Martha wasn’t around, and it was my turn to pick a movie to watch. I grabbed something off of their shelf with a funny looking cover without reading the back or anything.

“Please, anything but that,” Mina pleaded.

“Why?”

I had picked a way shittier movie before, and Mina never raised any objections then. Sure, she had completely tuned out the movie by sleeping, but she never said no; she was much too polite for that. So of course I was curious.

“This is what I want to watch,” I pressed when she didn’t answer.

“If you’re watching it, you’re watching on your own,” She threatened simply.

I sighed, I was hungry and not in a particular mood to argue, “Fine, I’ll just grab something else then.”

I was pulling out Horrible Bosses, when the door bell rang; I was already on my feet so I went to answer. The Chinese food had arrived. I paid the delivery boy, and went to the kitchen to grab a couple of cans of soda. I saw the TV turned on to a football match. Napoli was playing against Roma.

“You like Napoli?” I didn’t even know she watched Italian football.

Instantly the channel flipped to some insipid sitcom.

“No I was just flipping through the channels,” Mina casually returned without taking her eyes off the show.

“You were watching for at least the five minutes I've been in the kitchen,” I pointed out, “You know, it’s alright if you like a team beyond Real Madrid.”

“Geez, make some noise next time, what were you even doing there so quietly,” She grunted, coming to her feet with a huff of breath, “I can't even watch TV in peace in this house.”

She disappeared down the hallway and slammed her bedroom door.

“Yeah well, Napoli sucks anyway!” I yelled after her.

I froze in place, the fizzing of the soda the only audible thing in the room as my mind went into overdrive. Whoa. This was a complete déjà vu moment.

Except I was the one slamming doors and Joie was calling Arsenal a shitty team. The realization and shock hit like a ton of bricks. I gasped. Mina’s ex-boyfriend was a footballer.

I set the living room table, propping open the all the takeout boxes, leaving glasses for the sodas on the table before taking an eggroll as a peace offering. I knocked before barging in; something Joie never had the courtesy to do.

“Sorry,” Mina apologized when I walked inside, “I get moody when I’m tired. I do like football; I’ll watch any game lately just so long as it fits into my schedule.”

Wow, it’s all coming back to me. Pretty sure I used that line on more than one occasion.

“So was it Higuaín or Callejón?”

“Gonzalo,” She mumbled, her eyes brimming with tears instantly.

I should’ve grabbed a couple of napkins instead of the eggroll I realized too late. She had probably never talked to anyone about this before; especially not to her own mother. And I had walked into her bedroom with a fucking eggroll for support.

I really do amaze myself sometimes.

“How about we go back to the living room? We can watch the game, have a little dinner, or maybe we can talk?” I suggested.

“Sure,” Her voice just barely quivered as she nodded and stood up. She grabbed the eggroll from me on her way out.

We sat down, I made no move to switch the channel, and neither did she. We started eating, and just as I dropped a piece of orange chicken and knelt to pick it up, I heard the distinct sound of a football match.

“We were together the entire time he was in Madrid,” She started as she flipped the channel back to the Napoli game, “I had just started going to help my mom at the clinic, and he had just shown up in Madrid with Fernando Gago.”

“That’s an incredibly long time,” I marveled, “That’s admirable.”

That was longer than Cesc and I had been together.

“And things were good, like consistently good?” I asked.

She nodded vehemently, “Things were great, really wonderful, he was an amazing boyfriend, very respectful, very understanding, and he always said he wanted the entire world to know that we were together, that he was the luckiest guy in the world,” She smiled as she said it, but a tear dripped down her cheek none the less.

“But since I didn’t want anyone to know, he kept it quiet, except of course for some of his teammates,” She continued, “Though I guess they were friends of mine too, so it was a mutual thing.”

I was curious to know who they would have trusted with their secret relationship, but I didn’t want to go off topic just yet.

I got down to the point instead, “So why didn’t you guys make the long distance relationship work?”

“He asked me to go with him. He wanted us to live together in Naples. He had researched universities for me; he had even talked to the club about bringing along his own physical therapist with him so that I could be situated with a job that fell into my career.”

Then she laughed, but it was a weird laugh, almost as if it was mixed with a strangled sob, “He even suggested the idea of an engagement if that would make my family feel more comfortable about me going to another country with a guy.”

“Wow.”

That’s all I said, but I had a flurry of questions dashing through my mind, tempting me to shake her by her shoulders and shout, But what the hell happened? How did you guys fuck up? Why are you sitting here in your pajamas, your hair in a messy knot at the top of your head, eating Chinese food with your cousin on a Friday night?

“I didn’t do it. I didn’t go with him. He took that as an admittance that I didn’t love him the way he loved me, and when I suggested the whole long distance thing, he got really frustrated, and he was right to be so, because, and he said it himself, we lived in the same city now, about a twenty minute drive apart, we even technically worked together, and still we barely saw each other. How would that translate into a long distance relationship?”

“Why not just tell people? That would have made things easier, it sounds like,” I asked.

“I thought about it, and I almost did I don’t know how many times, but it just never seemed like the right thing to do?”

Even now as she explained it to me, she sounded as if she was trying to explain it to herself too, to understand why she did what she did. I wondered if her reasoning still made sense to her.

“Right thing for who? Who were you looking out for when you decided to hide your relationship? When you had a good thing going, why not announce it to your mom?”

My eyebrows furrowed, was my voice really louder than the football game, and why was I getting so angry with her and with him?

Oh god, I was making her cry.

“I don’t know,” her face got all scrunched up, and she just kept repeating between sniffs, “I don’t know what I was so afraid of, I was stupid and young, and you know what so was he for letting me choose.”

“What should he have done?”

“He should have done whatever he needed to do to take me with him.”

“Senna it’s been two years, two long, horrible, lonely years, and I realize day by how much I love him, and I need him, in some shape or form, I need him in my life.”

“Oh shit, you mean…you guys haven’t talked in two years?”

She shook her head.

Well, that’s it then, that’s why she can’t get over him. If I hadn’t kept in touch with Cesc, I probably would still be in love with him too.

Also, the fact that I had Gerard and Lionel being complete assholes and dragging me out of the house, against my will, to socialize probably also did the trick. I had needed someone to be an asshole to me, to do all the wrong things with the best of intentions to stop me from turning into that girl that pined over the supposed great love of her life. That’s when I decided that I was going to be the asshole that got Mina over her ex.

I learned the hard way that there’s no one great love. There’s love, and that’s it. You fight for it as hard as you can, for as long as you can, but when you’re fighting for it alone, chances are it’s going to slip away from you.

“You can’t do this to yourself,” I announced.

“What am I doing?”

“Do you want me to bring a mirror in her?” I asked, “Guaranteed you are not going to like what you see.”

“It’s not that easy, I’ve tried, and sometimes I pretend so hard that even I believe myself, but it doesn’t take much to crash back down to my lonely existence.”

I scoffed, “Don’t pity yourself, there’s nothing wrong with you, and there’s especially nothing wrong with being alone. You’re not lonely, you are a beautiful, and potentially I mean I don’t think I’ve seen you put in any effort since I got here but I digress, intelligent, single, young woman.”

​She shook her head, skeptical, “You don’t understand, it’s not that easy.”

​“You’ve already said it’s not easy, and that’s fine, I’m not arguing against that, what I am not going to put up with anymore is this moping that you do. There is going to be some drastic changes made, for one thing you’re going to start running with me, and for another, not immediately, but eventually, before the season’s out anyway, you’re going to start coming to the clinic, there’s just too much for one person to do on their own.”

​“I’m not running with you,” Mina argued.

​“Yes you are,” I pressed.

​She shook her head, “I’m not a runner.”

​“You’ve never tried.”

​“Because I’m not a runner. I know I’m not a runner, I’m okay with that.”

“You know your mother said you gained weight,” I announced.

She gasped, “I knew it! That’s why she doesn’t buy me bon-bons anymore!”

I knew that was hitting below the belt, but I didn't have any problem playing dirty. Geri and Leo never had a problem playing dirty with me.

“And come on don't be naïve do you honestly think he's wallowing as pathetically as you are?”

“But he looks so sad on the bench,” Mina pouted, as if on cue the cameraman zoomed in on a forlorn Gonzalo biting on his fingernails.

“Yeah that's because he's playing for a team that’s just barely qualifying for a Europa league spot, that look has nothing to do with you.”

“No but you don't understand the relationship we had,” Mina persisted.

I almost laughed, this conversation was just getting too bizarre, all these arguments she’s making, I had made them in my head, and hearing it out loud now, I realized how ridiculous they sounded.
“Maybe I don’t understand, maybe the entire world is out to ruin your happiness, as well as his, but you need to stand up and you need to fight for your happiness. Maybe right at this moment, you can’t go to Naples and be with the love of your life, you can’t even pick up a phone to call the love of your life, for all intents and purposes you need to start believing that maybe there’s a little, tiny possibility that there’s something else out there, but you need to go out there to find it.”

“I’m going to hate this,” Mina stated.

“I know sweetie, now eat your fortune cookie,” I handed it over.

We sat in a comfortable silence watching the match wind down and nibbling on the cold Chinese food too. Just as I was about to call it a night, Mina spoke up.

“So how bad does Leo Messi hate you?”

I furrowed my eyebrows, “Not at all actually, why would he hate me and why are you asking?”

“Because you totaled his car,” Mina reminded.

“Oh yeah, no, you know what here,” I pulled out my phone and called Leo.

“When are you coming back to Barcelona?” He greeted, laughing, “I have a new car you can destroy, and I don’t like this one so much so you’d actually be doing me a favor.”

“Wow, my friend, how long have you been saving that one?”

“A while,” he admitted with a chuckle, “I thought you’d have called me sooner.”

“Aw, don’t break my heart, Leo,” I laughed, “I feel guilty enough as it is for not sneaking back by now.”

“No, but seriously, when are you coming to visit?”

“I’m coming into town for the clasico, so you better show these Madridistas how it’s done, alright? I need my bragging rights over here.”

“You got it, Senna, wouldn’t dream of disappointing you.”

“I’ll text you soon,” I promised.

“Sounds good, and I’ll be seeing you in Barcelona.”

I put my phone away and looked back up at Mina.

“Now did he sound mad?”

She was astonished, she jumped on me for the tightest hug, “You can do it then, we can go to Chile for the Copa America this summer, can’t we?”

“Yeah, we can, but just please don’t have your hopes up about him, he might even have a girlfriend by now.”

“He won’t,” She assured confidently.

Yeah buddy, I was that confident too when Cesc came back.