“Hey,” Mateo says to me, his eyes dark and knowing. “It was an accident. I know what you’re thinking. We should all just be grateful it didn’t get worse.”
“You fell like a sack of bricks,” Luciano says. “I didn’t know if you’d ever wake up, man. Scariest fucking thing.” He pauses and exchanges a glance with Mateo before looking back to me. “Do you want to see it? I know you’re supposed to avoid electronics and the like following a concussion but I think this can’t hurt.”
I nod, slowly, trying not to rejumble my brain. “I want to see it.”
“It might be hard to watch,” Mateo warns. “For more reasons than you think.”
“I can handle it,” I tell them, eager to see what happened. “Come on, I want to see what the rest of the world saw.”
Mateo nods at Luciano who brings out his phone.
He taps away and then gives it to me.
I stare down at the screen, at the freeze frame of the stadium from high up above, and I tap the play icon.
The game comes alive.
So far, I remember all of this, which I guess is a good sign for all that long and short term memory junk.
Then comes the play.
Luciano has the ball.
I’m completely surrounded.
There looks there’s no way out.
But I remember knowing that Luciano was going to kick it high.
Our eyes met before it happened and there was a split second of understanding, an almost telekinetic way of communicating that seems to happen between you and your teammates, and then the ball went high and I jumped.
I watch as my head makes contact with the ball and that’s the last thing that I actually remember.
I then watch as York plows up and into me, causing the ball to go soaring above the goal post.
His shoulder slams into my head.
I really do fall like a sack of bricks. It doesn’t even look like me. I don’t even look human, just some ragdoll dropped from above.
The camera then cuts to the crowd, everyone standing, the horror on their faces.
Then it cuts to a close up of me, my eyes closed, mouth open, not moving.
And then it pans back to the whole pitch.
Someone starts running across the turf toward me, just one person, all on their own, slipping between the players on the field.
Ponytail flowing behind her.
Thalia?
I watch as she runs right to me and yells at the players who have gathered, her hands out and ready to stop them from moving me. She drops to her knees, looking at me with a face full of anguish.
The same face she had the day we broke up.
I can feel her pain, even from this video, the utter fear.
What is she even doing?
The video stays on her, trying to talk to me, and even without hearing what she’s saying, from the way her lips, her beautiful lips, are coming together, I know they’re saying my name over and over.
Alejo.
Alejo.
Please, Alejo.
And then the Real Madrid medical team arrives and Mateo appears, grabbing her from behind and holding her back. Thalia struggles like a wild animal until he finally calms her.
When I’m put on the stretcher and lifted off the field, she follows.
No hesitation.
She just gives one last glance at Stewart and then follows me off the field.
Effectively choosing a side.
Choosing me.
I gently turn the phone off and hand it back to Luciano without looking at him, staring ahead at the wall while my brain struggles to catch up.
I’m not sure how I should feel.
“What does this mean?” I say, eventually finding the words. I look up at them. “I don’t understand.”
“It means that…” Mateo begins. “If you still want her, Alejo, you have her.”
“No,” I say, trying to keep the anger and frustration from rising through my throat. “No, I don’t. She left. She left me, she left the team. She fucking went to the other side. Back to her ex, back to Man U. She left me, she left all of us!”
“Easy now,” Luciano says, putting his hand on my shoulder. He looks at Mateo. “Maybe we should have waited.”
“No!” I cry out. “No, I don’t…I don’t want to be kept in the dark, I just…none of it makes sense.”
“Love often doesn’t make sense,” Mateo says.
“Are you sticking up for her?” I ask him. “After she left you high and dry?”
“Alejo, you know she was doing what she thought was right. And I’m sure going back to her old team wouldn’t have been easy for her but she