“Then why did she quit?” I cry out softly. “Why did she leave?”
Mateo looks over the team. “Okay everyone, move along. Let’s call it quits and you go back inside.”
The team stares at him, then at me, and you know they don’t want to miss this.
“Now!” Mateo barks.
They all flinch and end up walking away, looking over their shoulder at us in disbelief. Only Rene and Luciano stay.
“Because,” Mateo says eventually, turning back to face me, “she couldn’t handle it. This wasn’t the job for her anymore. And I know how much it must hurt you Alejo, but she’s gone and there’s nothing we can do about. Certainly nothing worth punching your coach and getting a suspension over. You’re benched tomorrow night.”
Fair enough, even if the team might suffer for it. Right now, all I can think about is my suffering.
“How could she just leave?” I ask no one in particular. I stare straight ahead at the turf, my heart collapsing on itself. I thought that by ignoring her I could make my pain go away but with her gone, the pain is unbearable. “How could she leave me again?”
“Shit, man, I’m sorry,” Luciano says, his grip on me loosening. He puts his arm around me. “Honestly.”
“Yeah, Alejo,” Rene says, letting go. “I had no idea that you guys were even together.”
“No one knew,” I say absently and my eyes go up to meet Mateo’s face.
He’s staring at me, a little angry still. Maybe there’s some pity.
He comes over to me and I stiffen, not sure what he’s going to do.
He holds out his hand for me. “Come on,” he says.
I put my hand in his and he raises it up like a high five, giving it a shake. “Now that it’s out of your system, how about we put the blame game aside?”
I swallow uneasily, shame suddenly flooding my body. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he says, wincing as he strokes his jaw. “You pack quite the punch though.”
“And you can take quite the punch.”
“I can,” he says. “And if you try that again, when I hit you back, you won’t be left standing.”
I gulp. I believe him.
“Well, well, well,” Luciano says. “Mateo turns out to be a lover and a fighter.”
Mateo cracks a smile at that then holds his face. “Ow.” When he composes himself, he looks to me. “Are you going to be okay? Sorry about the suspension tomorrow but, that is what you get for punching your coach for absolutely no reason. And before you say anything in response to that, know that you had no reason. I did not tell Thalia to do anything. I didn’t want her to quit.”
“But you wanted her to choose her career over me and she listened to you.”
“She listened to herself. I hate to play this card, Alejo, but you’re young. And when you get older, you’ll realize that love isn’t just black or white. It’s not simple. The feeling itself is simple. You either love someone or you don’t, there is no in-between. But the choices that comes along with love can get so tangled and so complicated that you don’t even know how to unravel it. Thalia ended it between you, not because she wanted to, but because she had to. She would have never asked you to give up your career for her. So, in her mind, there was only one way for it to go and that was it. It didn’t mean she didn’t love you anymore. It just meant that there was only one option in her mind, one path. She did what she felt was right. Whether that means she should have quit, well, that’s up to her to decide. Not us.”
I don’t say anything to that.
“You’ll get through this, Alejo,” he adds. “I promise you that.”
But he’s never been in my shoes. He never lost Vera. He’s never known what this feels like.
“How could she leave without even saying goodbye?” I ask.
Mateo and Luciano exchange a look above my head and Rene gives my shoulder a reassuring pat.
“Come on,” Mateo says. “Let’s go in for the day. I think we’re ready for tomorrow.”
But as everyone turns to go in, I don’t move.
I don’t want to head back inside.
I want to stay out here on the pitch, the only safe place I have left.
I want to stay out here as the rains come and I’ll keep running and shooting and keeping my eye on the ball, my