United and…well, of course, I’m digging for information on Thalia. I want to know what people have been saying about her. That run across the field, that would have had everyone talking. That’s never happened before, to have a member of one club basically crossing party lines during a game. If she had gone to York’s side, fine (and that bastard was fine, not even a dislocated shoulder), but she went to my side.
And with everyone knowing she worked for Real Madrid before, and has volleyed back and forth between them and us, I’m sure the press is going nuts.
I’d look if I could but the doctor wasn’t joking about staying off of phones and computers and the like for a few more days. I just hope that whatever is being thrown Thalia’s way, she’s weathering it.
You have her if you want her.
Mateo’s words ring through my head.
How do I have her?
Where is she?
And then two memories come flooding back, two memories I suppose were erased or maybe just buried.
After I had scored my first goal at the game and I was running around, doing my thing, I ran past their benches and I saw her.
I saw her sitting there, watching me.
She was smiling.
Smiling for me with tears in her eyes.
She held my gaze, her smile never wavering.
I thought I’d seen that ghost of mine, the sight of her was too unreal and too beautiful to be real. Her smile sent shockwaves through me, the kind that would have threatened my reality.
So I kept running, thinking it couldn’t have been her. I knew she was at the game, I knew she was back with Man U, I knew that this game was going to be all sorts of awful if I let myself think about her for even one second. But even so.
I pushed that vision, that dream, away, and I kept playing.
Then the other memory…
It’s not as clear.
It comes to me in fragments.
I remember looking at the grass, close up. The tiny blades, bright green, and then legs and feet beyond that.
I was looking at a pair of running shoes that were too small to be a man’s and there was something familiar about the way they looked, it was hard to explain but I knew them.
I looked up.
I saw her face.
I saw Thalia.
Everything else was blurred but she was clear as day, staring at me.
Like a fucking angel.
She was there with me.
And then it all went black again.
The next thing I would remember would be waking up in the hospital with a massive headache.
“We’re here,” David says as Manuel enters the code into the gate and it opens.
We pull into the driveway and he helps me out of the car. I can walk well enough on my own but I appreciate the gesture.
We go inside my home and I’m met with…silence.
Odd. I thought my mother would at least be home. She could be in her own unit, but I’d think if she knew I was coming, she’d be doting on my already. Armando should be at school but he’s often skipping class anyway, so I kind of expected him to be here too, as least as an excuse.
“Hello?” I call out and for a second I’m afraid there’s some sort of surprise party for me again—honestly not sure my brain could take that—but I peer behind the couch and there’s no hidden goalie.
“Everything okay?” David asks. He and Manuel are standing in the doorway, watching me.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” I tell them. “No one is home.”
They exchange a look I can’t quite read and David says, “Okay, well, doctor’s orders is that you take it easy. I’m sure I’ll see you back at Valdebebas soon.”
I raise my hand to wave goodbye.
They look again at each other with some weird energy and then they leave.
The door shuts and I can’t say I like the feeling of the house without anyone in it.
It’s the kind of emptiness and silence that leaves you alone with your thoughts.
I wander into the kitchen, look around absently, not sure of what to do with myself, and then head into the living room, my eyes going to the glass doors that lead to the sunny backyard.
There’s someone out there.
I blink a few times, trying to focus and then start walking over to the doors.
I stare through the glass.
There, on the football pitch between the house and Armando’s abode, is Thalia.
Wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, her back to me, her hair cascading loose down her shoulders.