We end the call and I shower, moving through my routine before bed. But I’m plagued by thoughts of Carla.
Can I maintain professionalism where she’s concerned during the camp?
Can I handle having her back in my home, in my space, knowing how right it felt the last time we were there?
What room will she sleep in if she’s not in my bed?
I was so excited to run this camp with Carla and now, even the camp doesn’t hold the same appeal. I hate that I’m more torn up over seeing her and gauging my reaction to her presence, than I am about the fucking wrench our break has thrown into the camp’s agenda.
How will we work together? Should I split the boys’ and girls’ programs completely?
Confront her beforehand? What the hell would I even say?
And could Bianca be right? Will Carla and I end up together again? Is there even a chance that we work this out?
When I finally close my eyes and crash for the night, it’s a relief.
The following day, I head to the stadium early. It’s our final game of the regular season and that’s always tinged with a bittersweetness. Walking out onto the pitch before the fans arrive, I glance at the thousands of empty seats surrounding me. It’s hard to imagine that in a few hours, these seats will be taken.
How can someone feel so lonely, so lethargic, in a space built for sixty-thousand people? Sighing, I sit down on a patch of grass and lie back. The sky is a bright blue, the grass is springy beneath my touch, and I pull in a lungful of air.
I really believed that Carla and I were building something meaningful, something enduring. I miss her so much it’s as if I’m shadowed by phantom pain. I want to talk to her before her girls’ final game tomorrow; hell, I wish I was going to the game. But it will be too hard to sit on the sidelines and not interact with Carla, to pretend we don’t have history and big feelings between us.
And if I show up and don’t talk to her, the social media bloggers will run with it as confirmation that our relationship is over. And it is. But, Dio, I don’t want it to be. And I don’t want to navigate the public’s perception of my relationship ahead of Champions finals.
Closing my eyes, I listen to the silence and focus on my breathing. The crunch of grass under footsteps has me turning my head.
“Hey,” I greet Andrés.
“Hey,” he replies, sitting beside me and flopping back. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
He snorts. “You’re not. But you will be, DiBlanco.”
DiBlanco. That’s what Carla used to call me. Now, I hate the sound of my surname in anyone’s voice but hers. It’s completely fucked.
“Yeah,” I mutter again, not in the mood to talk.
“At least you know she loves you back,” Andrés says after a beat of silence. “You never have to wonder if you could have had a chance, if it would have worked. You know you did. Do,” he amends, switching to present tense.
I turn to glance at him, but he keeps his eyes trained on the sky above. There’s something in his voice, an edge of pain, that I can’t place. Is he speaking from experience? And about who?
“It’s not over between you guys,” Andrés continues. “It’s just a really low fucking low. Don’t give up on Carla or what you have with her. I saw you together; she loves you just as much as you adore her.”
“Do you really believe that?”
Andrés meets my eyes. “I do.”
“Thanks, mate. I appreciate that.”
“Do you guys need a minute?” Carlos asks, peering over us, a shit-eating grin on his face. “We don’t want to interrupt anything.”
Alejandro cackles and reaches down to pull me up. When Andrés and I are on our feet, I clasp his shoulder in thanks, but he doesn’t say anything else.
Carlos cracks some unfunny jokes and the four of us head back to the locker rooms. Before I hand in my cell phone since we can’t have them in the locker room during games, I glance at the screen one last time and grin at Álvaro’s text messages.
Álvaro
