Longest Way Round
by nahco3
Jesús wakes up to Pique's alarm; it's Shakira. Jesús buries his head in his pillow. He doesn't like to shower before breakfast, since he doesn't have to sculpt his hair like Pique does, so he keeps his eyes shut tight, denies the day's here yet. He has a little more time.
Pique's singing as he heads to the bathroom: "Blah blah blah por todo, y todos vamos por ellos, and then there are some other words esto es Africa."
If you don't shut up, Jesús thinks, I'm going to tell your girlfriend you don't know the words to her songs. He lies there for another few minutes, listening to Pique's singing, muted by the shower now, before his own alarm buzzes. He grabs his phone and turns it off, wonders if he can just stay in bed today, quiet and alone, let Pique leave, let the team leave, and just.
Stop it, he tells himself. Get out of bed, get the fuck dressed and go to breakfast.
He's still lying in bed when Pique comes back into the room perfectly coiffed.
"Yo asshole, get up," Pique says, throwing his towel at Jesús. He misses. Jesús sits up to throw the towel back at him. His phone buzzes again, and he looks at it. It's a text from his mom: Love u baby! U will be great 2day! Dont forget ur appointment this afternoon.
"Hey," Jesús says, "I need to call someone, after practice, um, privately. Do you mind not being in the room from like five to six? If that's ok?"
"Sure dude, no prob," Pique says, pulling on his warmup pants and spraying himself with some horrible cologne. "See you at breakfast."
With that, he's gone. Jesús texts his mom back: Love you too, i won't forget. He gets out of bed, pulls on his gear from yesterday. He brushes his teeth quickly, already running late, fuck why did he just lie in bed like that, and runs a little gel through his hair, washes his hands quickly to get the sticky residue off.
He looks at himself in the mirror, the bags under his eyes, the thin scab on his lower lip from where he bites it, the few natural curls of hair he missed with his gel.
"You can do this," he tells himself. He sets his shoulders, grabs his cell and his room key, and heads down to breakfast.
--
"You're late," Sergio says, pulling out a chair for Jesús. "Also here, have some marmalade." He pushes a sticky jar towards Jesús. Jesús takes Sergio's knife from his plate, dips it in the marmalade and smears it on his toast. He takes a bite, bitter-sweet and citrusy, like home and late mornings on the terrace when they were teenagers, with Antonio, glasses of water dripping condensation.
"My mom sent it," Sergio says, grinning at Jesús. "It's good, no?"
Jesús nods and takes another bite.
"I want some," Pepe says, reaching across the table. Sergio hits his arm away.
"This is for sevillanos only," he says, a smile curling at the corner of his mouth. "Right, Jesús?"
Jesús nods. "It would be too much for you to handle," he tells Pepe.
Pepe laughs. "I have big hands, baby. I can handle a lot." He wiggles his eyebrows lasciviously at Jesús.
"Well you won't be handling this," Sergio says. He throws an arm over Jesús's shoulder. Jesús shrugs at Pepe, settling against the warmth of Sergio's chest. He shouldn't enjoy this as much as he does, the easy, meaningless way Sergio touches him; Sergio is solid, dependable, unattainable, unconcerned. Jesús makes himself pull away before Sergio does, to take a drink of his coffee. He bites his lip, worrying the scab until he tastes blood, licks his lips carefully.
He looks over and Sergio's watching his, his eyes dark.
"You ok, hermano?" Sergio asks, in a soft voice. Jesús doesn't know whether to nod or shake his head; he shrugs again.
"Yeah," Sergio says, "yeah, I miss him, too."
Jesús nods, since there's no way to say it, no way to let out the churning panic and leaden misery in his stomach, no way to tighten the loose disorder of his thoughts.
"Breakfast's over!" Grande calls, and Jesús has to cram the rest of his toast in his mouth and run back up to his room to grab his stuff. He doesn't look back to see if Sergio's still watching him with quiet concern. He doesn't want to know.
--
When he gets back to his room after practice, he showers quickly, doesn't bother to wash his hair. He only has a few minutes left before his appointment -- practice ran long, and Jesús couldn't exactly tell the coaching staff he had to be back in time for his weekly therapy appointment. Bad enough everyone knows about the panic attacks and the homesickness, bad enough that the entire fucking country, the world knows.
Jesús hates it. He hates the understanding looks and the gentle hands on his shoulder, the way Iker "just checks in," once every few days, the way Albiol delays starting movies after dinner when del Bosque takes Jesús aside. It's common knowledge, what he needs, just another medical problem like the way Xavi's left knee aches, the way Torres' back sometimes gets tight and needs a little extra treatment. Jesús has his pride. There are levels of this, and at least he can keep some of his failings to himself.
The federation brings a psychologist to every tournament. It's standard procedure, same as bringing a horde of physios and masseuses, a nutritionist, kit men: part of the mass of professionals devoted to making sure they're all performing optimally. Jesús saw him at the beginning of the tournament for a screening, just like the rest of the team did, only his appointment lasted a lot longer than theirs. He didn't tell the guy much, just smiled and said that the panic attacks were under control, that yes, he was talking to a doctor back in Sevilla, that of course, he'd come straight away if there were any problems. The psychologist signed him off and Jesús barely felt the pang of lying. There are only so many times he can carve himself open for professionals; he's at his limit.
He gets out of the shower, wraps his towel around his waist. With the water off he can hear the buzz of voices in his room. Shit, it's like six minutes to five. Hopefully Pique's heading out soon. But when Jesús steps out into the room, it's not just Pique: Busquets, Pedro and Xavi are there as well. Pedro's plugging an XBox into the television.
"Hey, roomie," Pique says. "FIFA tournament?"
"Sorry, um, I have to make a call," Jesús says.
"Oh shit," Pique says, looking genuinely sorry. "I totally forgot. You wanted the room."
"It's fine," Jesús tells him, looking at the clock. 16:56. He opens up his dresser and pulls on underwear and jeans quickly, turning his back on the rest of them but otherwise not bothering about his privacy. He pulls on the first shirt he grabs, a tight black tee, and picks his phone up off the bedside table, puts his room key in his pocket.
"I'll be back in an hour," he says, and leaves as fast as he can. He paces the hall, desperate, not sure where to go, barefoot in his haste. The lobby will be too crowded with people, there's nowhere outside the hotel that's private enough, the stairwell, maybe? But what if a coach comes by?
"Whoa, whoa, Jesús," Sergio says, catching him on the shoulder. "What's up?"
"Can we go to your room?" Jesús asks. "Please?"
"Of course," Sergio says, pushing Jesús forward with a hand on the small of his back, down the hall. The hotel carpet prickles under his feet. Sergio's hand is hot through his shirt, like lying on sun-soaked pavement.
"Here," Sergio says, unlocking his door. Jesús checks his watch. A minute to five. Sergio's room is messy, unmade beds, clothes on the floor. His roommate's gone.
"What do you need?" Sergio asks. "You don't look so good."
"I need. Can I be alone for like an hour? I need to call someone."
"Oh," Sergio says, his face falling. "Of course, if that's what you need. I'll just. I'll go now."
"Thank you," Jesús says, quiet. He meets Sergio's eyes and attempts a smile. "It's just been one of those days, you know?"
"Yeah," Sergio says, "yeah, I do." He takes a step towards the door and then turns back and pulls Jesús into a tight hug. "Take care," he says, and then he's gone.
Jesús sits down on a bed -- on Sergio's bed? -- and rests his head in his hands. He's alone, finally, and he tries to let the relief of that settle, let it calm him and overcome the ache in his chest. Don't be an idiot, he tells himself.
His phone rings, and he answers.
"Hey," Jesús says, "what's up, Manuel?" He winces as soon as he says that; this isn't a social call for Manuel (for Dr. Ruiz, but he'd insisted years ago that Jesús dispense with formalities), what a stupid question, what were you thinking?
Manuel laughs, gently. "Not much, really. You're my second-to-last appointment, and tonight I'm taking my wife out to dinner. What about you?"
Jesús sighs. He's uncomfortable sitting up on the bed, his lower back starting to ache a little bit. He can't decide if he should lie down on the bed or sit on the floor and lean against the wall. Manuel's still quiet on the other end of the call, waiting. Jesús gives in and lies down, stares up at the ceiling.
"I'm ok," Jesús says. "Things are pretty hectic, I guess." Jesús stops. Manuel waits, and Jesús's mind fills the silence with a hundred thousand things to say: anxious, terrified, miserable, hopeful, hopeless contradictory ways to continue.
"Sergio told me today that he misses Antonio," Jesús says, finally.
"Did that surprise you?" Manuel asks.
"No," Jesús says, "I mean, I know he misses him all the time, too." That's another secret the whole country knows, but one they maybe don't remember. Sergio reminds them at parades and ceremonies, celebrates Antonio while the rest of Spain is celebrating them. The grief he keeps private. "I guess it just surprised me that Sergio. That he mentioned it to me, right now."
"Why?" Manuel asks, even though Jesús's pretty sure Manuel knows the answer to that.
"It seemed like he, that he knew that Antonio's -- " Jesús runs a hand over his face, "that Antonio dying fucked me up a lot. And we've never really talked about it." Sometimes he feels like everything traces back to that day, every one of his fault lines runs back to that epicenter, Antonio collapsing and shattering his unstable foundations. Manuel's quiet; Jesús continues.
"I mean, I think it messed Sergio up too for a while." Jesús bites his lip again to give himself time to think, to slow his spinning thoughts. "But he. He got over it, he kept going. He left."
"Are you angry about that?"
"No," Jesús says, immediately, so fast he knows it must be true. "Jealous, maybe? Like, what's wrong with me that I can't remember Antonio without being afraid, that I can't even fucking leave home." Once the words start he has trouble stopping them. "I wouldn't want him to be like this. He and Antonio were always better than me and that's, that's fine, so it's good that he hasn't let Antonio being, being not around stop him. It would have been a waste if he had to spend five years -- " Jesús pauses, trying to find the word he wants, remaking himself, pulling himself back within his own skin, fighting the constant terror " -- getting his shit together. Plus that's better, because then when I." He stops himself.
"When you...?" Manuel prompts.
"If I. If something happens to me," Jesús says.
"What do you think could happen to you?"
"Anything," Jesús says. "I mean it's not just Antonio, there was Dani, Dani Jarque, he was on U-21s with me, and then Miki and Abidal both had cancer, and then there was those two guys, this year, one of them in Italy, and the guy in England, Muamba, and the goalie, Enke -"
"Jesús," Manuel says. "Jesús, Muamba lived. And Abidal's fine too. They're not dead, Jesús."
"I, I know that," Jesús says, because he does, he totally fucking knows they're not dead but that doesn't change his point.
"What's your point?" Manuel asks, slowly, and Jesús realizes he must have said that aloud.
"People. Footballers. They die all the time and you have no way of knowing when, when someone else is going to. And they're all -- they have these great families, and they leave so many people behind," Jesús wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, "and I don't want the next person to be someone who's so great and has so much. Next time it should be someone like me."
Jesús can hear Manuel breathing on the other end of the line, weirdly intimate. The room is quiet, distant traffic the only sound, and Jesús's throat is dry from talking. His thoughts are untangling themselves, limping forward, and he hears something like an echo of his own voice in his head, next time it should be someone like me. He thinks of his mom and her stupid text messages; of running into Mrs. Puerta under the bitter orange trees outside the market, her hugging him tight and offering to cook him dinner some night, any night; of Sergio's laugh and Sergio's smile and Sergio winning a second world cup with two names and two faces on his shirt, over his heart. He thinks about the way the pitch smells after it rains, about running until he throws up and then finishing his workout.
"I didn't mean that," he says, wanting to take back the thought, secret it back away in the crevices of his mind where God can't hear it, where it can't accidentally come true. "I didn't mean that. I just want," and he stops. He wants to go home and lie in his old bed and look at his faded and familiar posters, feel sad but stable. He wants to stay here in this room and never leave it, never have to meet another camera or another teammates' eyes. He wants to win Euros. "I don't want this anymore," he says, and he's taking shallow breaths that wreck him, sobs without the tears.
"I know," Manuel says. He probably wants to say something else, congratulate Jesús on correcting his negative thought patterns, remind him that by wanting to make this change he's already fighting through so much, but he stays silent for a long while first and lets Jesús gather himself again.
--
After Manuel hangs up, Jesús goes to the bathroom and splashes water on his face. He heads back out of the room. Sergio's sitting in the hall, doing something on his phone.
"Hey," Sergio says.
"Hey," Jesús replies, sitting down beside him, leaning back against the wall of the hallway.
"How was your call?" Sergio asks.
Jesús shrugs. "Ok." He thinks about how much more he has to say, how much more he wants to say, the words unfolding in his mind.
"I wondered," Sergio continues, too rapidly, "were you talking to like, your boyfriend? Which is fine, I mean, if you were, and I wasn't eavesdropping. You just seemed really upset and I thought that maybe -- "
Jesús wants to laugh, with the half-hysterical edge he gets sometimes after a session where he wrecks himself like that, shakes down his instabilities with the hopes they'll settle stronger, somehow. "Nope," Jesús says, "not talking to my secret boyfriend."
"Good," Sergio smiles at him. "I mean, not ‘good you don't have a boyfriend.' Or a girlfriend. Or a whatever friend. But, good."
Jesús does laugh this time. Sergio laughs with him, unselfconscious.
"I think it is good," Jesús says, looking at Sergio for a long time. "Good that I have someone to talk to and good that I have," he stops himself.
"Good you have me," Sergio finishes. He reaches up and wraps an arm around Jesús's shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it though?"
"It was stuff about Antonio," Jesús says, leaning against Sergio's broad shoulder. For years after he thought everything about Sergio would remind him of what he was missing, of the third point of their triangle, the way the three of them had grown into throwing their jokes and their silences back and forth. And maybe if Antonio hadn't, wasn't, then Jesús wouldn't have pulled himself into alignment with Sergio like this, wouldn't have wanted Sergio to illuminate every empty space, trace each hairline crack.
But this is how Jesús has grown, twisting to find the sun like an orange tree forcing itself through the pavement, spreading its leaves in the sunshine next to the Alcazar, letting its bitter oranges fall to rot and be trampled by the tourists.
"We can talk about that," Sergio says.
"Tomorrow," Jesús tells him, "we'll talk tomorrow."
"Ok," Sergio says, presses a kiss to Jesús's temple and they sit silent in the air-conditioned corridor.
Notes: Antonio Puerta died of a heart attack on the pitch in 2007. He was both Sergio and Jesús's teammate at Sevilla, and they've both worn shirts honoring his memory -- most recently, Sergio did after Spain won Euro 2012. Eric Abidal is an FC Barcelona player who had a liver transplant which prevented him from playing with Barca at the end of this season. Miki Roque played for several clubs, most recently Betis, and died of cancer this June. Dani Jarque played for Espanyol, and was a teammate of Jesús's on the U-21s. He died of a heart attack in 2009. Fabrice Muamba went into cardiac arrest on the pitch this year while playing against Tottenham; he survived and is recovering. Piermario Morosini was a player in Italy who died on the pitch of cardiac arrest in April of 2012. Robert Enke was a German goalkeeper who committed suicide in 2009.
Jesús Navas was unable to play for the Spanish national team for years since he has an anxiety disorder; he took steps to overcome it and played in both the 2010 World Cup and Euros this summer. My depiction of of his symptoms is otherwise based purely on conjecture, but I was inspired by this article, discussing a basketball player whose anxiety was triggered by a teammate who suffered from a heart condition.
Massive thanks to distira for the emails, Carrie Underwood covers and the coffee shop writing/tumblr session. Also, thanks as always to acchikocchi for beta reading, hand holding, typo spotting and general amazingness -- I basically cannot write a sentence without you, you da best.
The title is from James Joyce: "Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home."
Jesús wakes up to Pique's alarm; it's Shakira. Jesús buries his head in his pillow. He doesn't like to shower before breakfast, since he doesn't have to sculpt his hair like Pique does, so he keeps his eyes shut tight, denies the day's here yet. He has a little more time.
Pique's singing as he heads to the bathroom: "Blah blah blah por todo, y todos vamos por ellos, and then there are some other words esto es Africa."
If you don't shut up, Jesús thinks, I'm going to tell your girlfriend you don't know the words to her songs. He lies there for another few minutes, listening to Pique's singing, muted by the shower now, before his own alarm buzzes. He grabs his phone and turns it off, wonders if he can just stay in bed today, quiet and alone, let Pique leave, let the team leave, and just.
Stop it, he tells himself. Get out of bed, get the fuck dressed and go to breakfast.
He's still lying in bed when Pique comes back into the room perfectly coiffed.
"Yo asshole, get up," Pique says, throwing his towel at Jesús. He misses. Jesús sits up to throw the towel back at him. His phone buzzes again, and he looks at it. It's a text from his mom: Love u baby! U will be great 2day! Dont forget ur appointment this afternoon.
"Hey," Jesús says, "I need to call someone, after practice, um, privately. Do you mind not being in the room from like five to six? If that's ok?"
"Sure dude, no prob," Pique says, pulling on his warmup pants and spraying himself with some horrible cologne. "See you at breakfast."
With that, he's gone. Jesús texts his mom back: Love you too, i won't forget. He gets out of bed, pulls on his gear from yesterday. He brushes his teeth quickly, already running late, fuck why did he just lie in bed like that, and runs a little gel through his hair, washes his hands quickly to get the sticky residue off.
He looks at himself in the mirror, the bags under his eyes, the thin scab on his lower lip from where he bites it, the few natural curls of hair he missed with his gel.
"You can do this," he tells himself. He sets his shoulders, grabs his cell and his room key, and heads down to breakfast.
--
"You're late," Sergio says, pulling out a chair for Jesús. "Also here, have some marmalade." He pushes a sticky jar towards Jesús. Jesús takes Sergio's knife from his plate, dips it in the marmalade and smears it on his toast. He takes a bite, bitter-sweet and citrusy, like home and late mornings on the terrace when they were teenagers, with Antonio, glasses of water dripping condensation.
"My mom sent it," Sergio says, grinning at Jesús. "It's good, no?"
Jesús nods and takes another bite.
"I want some," Pepe says, reaching across the table. Sergio hits his arm away.
"This is for sevillanos only," he says, a smile curling at the corner of his mouth. "Right, Jesús?"
Jesús nods. "It would be too much for you to handle," he tells Pepe.
Pepe laughs. "I have big hands, baby. I can handle a lot." He wiggles his eyebrows lasciviously at Jesús.
"Well you won't be handling this," Sergio says. He throws an arm over Jesús's shoulder. Jesús shrugs at Pepe, settling against the warmth of Sergio's chest. He shouldn't enjoy this as much as he does, the easy, meaningless way Sergio touches him; Sergio is solid, dependable, unattainable, unconcerned. Jesús makes himself pull away before Sergio does, to take a drink of his coffee. He bites his lip, worrying the scab until he tastes blood, licks his lips carefully.
He looks over and Sergio's watching his, his eyes dark.
"You ok, hermano?" Sergio asks, in a soft voice. Jesús doesn't know whether to nod or shake his head; he shrugs again.
"Yeah," Sergio says, "yeah, I miss him, too."
Jesús nods, since there's no way to say it, no way to let out the churning panic and leaden misery in his stomach, no way to tighten the loose disorder of his thoughts.
"Breakfast's over!" Grande calls, and Jesús has to cram the rest of his toast in his mouth and run back up to his room to grab his stuff. He doesn't look back to see if Sergio's still watching him with quiet concern. He doesn't want to know.
--
When he gets back to his room after practice, he showers quickly, doesn't bother to wash his hair. He only has a few minutes left before his appointment -- practice ran long, and Jesús couldn't exactly tell the coaching staff he had to be back in time for his weekly therapy appointment. Bad enough everyone knows about the panic attacks and the homesickness, bad enough that the entire fucking country, the world knows.
Jesús hates it. He hates the understanding looks and the gentle hands on his shoulder, the way Iker "just checks in," once every few days, the way Albiol delays starting movies after dinner when del Bosque takes Jesús aside. It's common knowledge, what he needs, just another medical problem like the way Xavi's left knee aches, the way Torres' back sometimes gets tight and needs a little extra treatment. Jesús has his pride. There are levels of this, and at least he can keep some of his failings to himself.
The federation brings a psychologist to every tournament. It's standard procedure, same as bringing a horde of physios and masseuses, a nutritionist, kit men: part of the mass of professionals devoted to making sure they're all performing optimally. Jesús saw him at the beginning of the tournament for a screening, just like the rest of the team did, only his appointment lasted a lot longer than theirs. He didn't tell the guy much, just smiled and said that the panic attacks were under control, that yes, he was talking to a doctor back in Sevilla, that of course, he'd come straight away if there were any problems. The psychologist signed him off and Jesús barely felt the pang of lying. There are only so many times he can carve himself open for professionals; he's at his limit.
He gets out of the shower, wraps his towel around his waist. With the water off he can hear the buzz of voices in his room. Shit, it's like six minutes to five. Hopefully Pique's heading out soon. But when Jesús steps out into the room, it's not just Pique: Busquets, Pedro and Xavi are there as well. Pedro's plugging an XBox into the television.
"Hey, roomie," Pique says. "FIFA tournament?"
"Sorry, um, I have to make a call," Jesús says.
"Oh shit," Pique says, looking genuinely sorry. "I totally forgot. You wanted the room."
"It's fine," Jesús tells him, looking at the clock. 16:56. He opens up his dresser and pulls on underwear and jeans quickly, turning his back on the rest of them but otherwise not bothering about his privacy. He pulls on the first shirt he grabs, a tight black tee, and picks his phone up off the bedside table, puts his room key in his pocket.
"I'll be back in an hour," he says, and leaves as fast as he can. He paces the hall, desperate, not sure where to go, barefoot in his haste. The lobby will be too crowded with people, there's nowhere outside the hotel that's private enough, the stairwell, maybe? But what if a coach comes by?
"Whoa, whoa, Jesús," Sergio says, catching him on the shoulder. "What's up?"
"Can we go to your room?" Jesús asks. "Please?"
"Of course," Sergio says, pushing Jesús forward with a hand on the small of his back, down the hall. The hotel carpet prickles under his feet. Sergio's hand is hot through his shirt, like lying on sun-soaked pavement.
"Here," Sergio says, unlocking his door. Jesús checks his watch. A minute to five. Sergio's room is messy, unmade beds, clothes on the floor. His roommate's gone.
"What do you need?" Sergio asks. "You don't look so good."
"I need. Can I be alone for like an hour? I need to call someone."
"Oh," Sergio says, his face falling. "Of course, if that's what you need. I'll just. I'll go now."
"Thank you," Jesús says, quiet. He meets Sergio's eyes and attempts a smile. "It's just been one of those days, you know?"
"Yeah," Sergio says, "yeah, I do." He takes a step towards the door and then turns back and pulls Jesús into a tight hug. "Take care," he says, and then he's gone.
Jesús sits down on a bed -- on Sergio's bed? -- and rests his head in his hands. He's alone, finally, and he tries to let the relief of that settle, let it calm him and overcome the ache in his chest. Don't be an idiot, he tells himself.
His phone rings, and he answers.
"Hey," Jesús says, "what's up, Manuel?" He winces as soon as he says that; this isn't a social call for Manuel (for Dr. Ruiz, but he'd insisted years ago that Jesús dispense with formalities), what a stupid question, what were you thinking?
Manuel laughs, gently. "Not much, really. You're my second-to-last appointment, and tonight I'm taking my wife out to dinner. What about you?"
Jesús sighs. He's uncomfortable sitting up on the bed, his lower back starting to ache a little bit. He can't decide if he should lie down on the bed or sit on the floor and lean against the wall. Manuel's still quiet on the other end of the call, waiting. Jesús gives in and lies down, stares up at the ceiling.
"I'm ok," Jesús says. "Things are pretty hectic, I guess." Jesús stops. Manuel waits, and Jesús's mind fills the silence with a hundred thousand things to say: anxious, terrified, miserable, hopeful, hopeless contradictory ways to continue.
"Sergio told me today that he misses Antonio," Jesús says, finally.
"Did that surprise you?" Manuel asks.
"No," Jesús says, "I mean, I know he misses him all the time, too." That's another secret the whole country knows, but one they maybe don't remember. Sergio reminds them at parades and ceremonies, celebrates Antonio while the rest of Spain is celebrating them. The grief he keeps private. "I guess it just surprised me that Sergio. That he mentioned it to me, right now."
"Why?" Manuel asks, even though Jesús's pretty sure Manuel knows the answer to that.
"It seemed like he, that he knew that Antonio's -- " Jesús runs a hand over his face, "that Antonio dying fucked me up a lot. And we've never really talked about it." Sometimes he feels like everything traces back to that day, every one of his fault lines runs back to that epicenter, Antonio collapsing and shattering his unstable foundations. Manuel's quiet; Jesús continues.
"I mean, I think it messed Sergio up too for a while." Jesús bites his lip again to give himself time to think, to slow his spinning thoughts. "But he. He got over it, he kept going. He left."
"Are you angry about that?"
"No," Jesús says, immediately, so fast he knows it must be true. "Jealous, maybe? Like, what's wrong with me that I can't remember Antonio without being afraid, that I can't even fucking leave home." Once the words start he has trouble stopping them. "I wouldn't want him to be like this. He and Antonio were always better than me and that's, that's fine, so it's good that he hasn't let Antonio being, being not around stop him. It would have been a waste if he had to spend five years -- " Jesús pauses, trying to find the word he wants, remaking himself, pulling himself back within his own skin, fighting the constant terror " -- getting his shit together. Plus that's better, because then when I." He stops himself.
"When you...?" Manuel prompts.
"If I. If something happens to me," Jesús says.
"What do you think could happen to you?"
"Anything," Jesús says. "I mean it's not just Antonio, there was Dani, Dani Jarque, he was on U-21s with me, and then Miki and Abidal both had cancer, and then there was those two guys, this year, one of them in Italy, and the guy in England, Muamba, and the goalie, Enke -"
"Jesús," Manuel says. "Jesús, Muamba lived. And Abidal's fine too. They're not dead, Jesús."
"I, I know that," Jesús says, because he does, he totally fucking knows they're not dead but that doesn't change his point.
"What's your point?" Manuel asks, slowly, and Jesús realizes he must have said that aloud.
"People. Footballers. They die all the time and you have no way of knowing when, when someone else is going to. And they're all -- they have these great families, and they leave so many people behind," Jesús wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, "and I don't want the next person to be someone who's so great and has so much. Next time it should be someone like me."
Jesús can hear Manuel breathing on the other end of the line, weirdly intimate. The room is quiet, distant traffic the only sound, and Jesús's throat is dry from talking. His thoughts are untangling themselves, limping forward, and he hears something like an echo of his own voice in his head, next time it should be someone like me. He thinks of his mom and her stupid text messages; of running into Mrs. Puerta under the bitter orange trees outside the market, her hugging him tight and offering to cook him dinner some night, any night; of Sergio's laugh and Sergio's smile and Sergio winning a second world cup with two names and two faces on his shirt, over his heart. He thinks about the way the pitch smells after it rains, about running until he throws up and then finishing his workout.
"I didn't mean that," he says, wanting to take back the thought, secret it back away in the crevices of his mind where God can't hear it, where it can't accidentally come true. "I didn't mean that. I just want," and he stops. He wants to go home and lie in his old bed and look at his faded and familiar posters, feel sad but stable. He wants to stay here in this room and never leave it, never have to meet another camera or another teammates' eyes. He wants to win Euros. "I don't want this anymore," he says, and he's taking shallow breaths that wreck him, sobs without the tears.
"I know," Manuel says. He probably wants to say something else, congratulate Jesús on correcting his negative thought patterns, remind him that by wanting to make this change he's already fighting through so much, but he stays silent for a long while first and lets Jesús gather himself again.
--
After Manuel hangs up, Jesús goes to the bathroom and splashes water on his face. He heads back out of the room. Sergio's sitting in the hall, doing something on his phone.
"Hey," Sergio says.
"Hey," Jesús replies, sitting down beside him, leaning back against the wall of the hallway.
"How was your call?" Sergio asks.
Jesús shrugs. "Ok." He thinks about how much more he has to say, how much more he wants to say, the words unfolding in his mind.
"I wondered," Sergio continues, too rapidly, "were you talking to like, your boyfriend? Which is fine, I mean, if you were, and I wasn't eavesdropping. You just seemed really upset and I thought that maybe -- "
Jesús wants to laugh, with the half-hysterical edge he gets sometimes after a session where he wrecks himself like that, shakes down his instabilities with the hopes they'll settle stronger, somehow. "Nope," Jesús says, "not talking to my secret boyfriend."
"Good," Sergio smiles at him. "I mean, not ‘good you don't have a boyfriend.' Or a girlfriend. Or a whatever friend. But, good."
Jesús does laugh this time. Sergio laughs with him, unselfconscious.
"I think it is good," Jesús says, looking at Sergio for a long time. "Good that I have someone to talk to and good that I have," he stops himself.
"Good you have me," Sergio finishes. He reaches up and wraps an arm around Jesús's shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it though?"
"It was stuff about Antonio," Jesús says, leaning against Sergio's broad shoulder. For years after he thought everything about Sergio would remind him of what he was missing, of the third point of their triangle, the way the three of them had grown into throwing their jokes and their silences back and forth. And maybe if Antonio hadn't, wasn't, then Jesús wouldn't have pulled himself into alignment with Sergio like this, wouldn't have wanted Sergio to illuminate every empty space, trace each hairline crack.
But this is how Jesús has grown, twisting to find the sun like an orange tree forcing itself through the pavement, spreading its leaves in the sunshine next to the Alcazar, letting its bitter oranges fall to rot and be trampled by the tourists.
"We can talk about that," Sergio says.
"Tomorrow," Jesús tells him, "we'll talk tomorrow."
"Ok," Sergio says, presses a kiss to Jesús's temple and they sit silent in the air-conditioned corridor.
Notes: Antonio Puerta died of a heart attack on the pitch in 2007. He was both Sergio and Jesús's teammate at Sevilla, and they've both worn shirts honoring his memory -- most recently, Sergio did after Spain won Euro 2012. Eric Abidal is an FC Barcelona player who had a liver transplant which prevented him from playing with Barca at the end of this season. Miki Roque played for several clubs, most recently Betis, and died of cancer this June. Dani Jarque played for Espanyol, and was a teammate of Jesús's on the U-21s. He died of a heart attack in 2009. Fabrice Muamba went into cardiac arrest on the pitch this year while playing against Tottenham; he survived and is recovering. Piermario Morosini was a player in Italy who died on the pitch of cardiac arrest in April of 2012. Robert Enke was a German goalkeeper who committed suicide in 2009.
Jesús Navas was unable to play for the Spanish national team for years since he has an anxiety disorder; he took steps to overcome it and played in both the 2010 World Cup and Euros this summer. My depiction of of his symptoms is otherwise based purely on conjecture, but I was inspired by this article, discussing a basketball player whose anxiety was triggered by a teammate who suffered from a heart condition.
Massive thanks to distira for the emails, Carrie Underwood covers and the coffee shop writing/tumblr session. Also, thanks as always to acchikocchi for beta reading, hand holding, typo spotting and general amazingness -- I basically cannot write a sentence without you, you da best.
The title is from James Joyce: "Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home."