“Look, Thalia. I fucked up with us and I was a monster to you. You left the team and you were a great part of it. The guy who replaced you is a grade A wanker. If you could take your job back…”
“You think things would be even between us. That this will take place of forgiveness?”
“Just think about it. You need a job. You know the job. It would be so easy.”
“Would it be? You’d be there and you’re why I quit in the first place.”
“Are you honestly telling me that I still have that much of a hold on you, Thalia?”
“No,” I say quietly. The truth is, he has no hold on me anymore.
That honor belongs to another man.
Another man on another team.
“Ugh, this could get so messy,” I say, my head in my hands.
“Football is messy,” he says. “That’s the way it is. Presidents, managers, trainers, therapists, doctors, players, we’re all being traded and transferred, back and forth, here and there. Many times going to one club only to go straight back to the one before. Allegiances change every season. It’s part of the life, Thalia. You know it is. This is the life you chose.”
He’s right about that.
“I’m going to really need to think about this.”
“You do that. And I’ll be here, waiting for your phone call. Just…promise me that when you think about it, you come by it honestly. About what you want in life and what you want your next steps to be. Think about what’s best for you and not about the past. Okay?”
“I’ll try.”
“Okay, well until then, take care. Where the hell are you anyway?”
“Greece.”
“Ah, well, don’t let the national team try and steal you.”
“I won’t,” I tell him absently, already hanging up.
I let the phone dangle between my fingers as I stare out at the sea.
My first thoughts go to Alejo.
If I accept the job, and Alejo finds out, is he going to know I had to do it because of work, or is he going to think I went back to Stewart romantically?
Is this an example of life happening to me or for me?
I guess I need to figure out which it is.
I’m in my new apartment, staring out the window. Unlike my old apartment, it has a view, this time of the cathedral.
Manchester hasn’t changed at all, but I have.
It’s cold and wet and dreary, hovering between snow and sleet. February is in full force.
I look out this window and all I want to see are the tiled rooftops of Madrid. I want to smell the scent of Jamon and fried pequitos wafting up from the bar below. I want to have my apartment with the cactus on the windowsill and drawers full of forks and spoons, and a killer sangría recipe.
I want my life back in Madrid and I want Alejo.
I want both of those things above all else.
I guess it took moving here to figure that all out.
But what can I do? The next day after Stewart called me, I had my answer.
I felt like life was presenting me with something that I needed to take. That things were aligning in a way I didn’t quite understand but that this was the path I needed to go on.
And so I’m here.
I’ve been here for a month and yet it all feels very dream-like, and yes, a bit temporary.
I know deep down that this isn’t my home and I also know that this job won’t stay my job forever. It gives me the feeling of being constantly stuck in limbo but I think maybe limbo is where I need to be until everything is sorted out, whether that limbo is in Greece or in England.
It’s been weird.
It’s been very weird.
I feel a lot like a dog with a tail between its legs. The press have run amok with the news and I’m not sure what they’re saying because I’ve learned to ignore them, but again it’s probably not good. The team doesn’t trust me at all because I’ve been with Real Madrid, in fact all of them have given me the cold-shoulder. Stewart has actually been the only nice part about all this, and that’s saying a lot. It’s not like I talk to him or socialize with him outside of work and not that I would want to either. But when I’m at work, he’s going out of his way to treat me with a